the plot: Minutes after Duane Bradley (Hentenryck) and his deformed, psychotic, mutant, detached Siamese twin Belial fall from the window of a ratty New York hotel, they’re whisked away to a nearby hospital. Because of Belial’s grotesque appearance and the gruesome murders the brothers are suspected of having committed, the media pounce on the story. The press frenzy attracts the attention of Granny Ruth (Ross) and her granddaughter Susan (Rattray). A retired physician, Ruth has dedicated her life to helping “unique individuals”—in other words, freaks—and so she and Susan spirit Duane and Belial out of the hospital and into her upstate New York home. There, the brothers meet Ruth’s family of freaks, including a guy with massive teeth protruding from his mouth, a dude with extra noses situated all over his face and some sort of man-frog hybrid. It’s an ideal life, at first. Duane falls in love with Susan, while Belial quells his murderous urges and falls for Eve, a fellow mutant with a deformity similar to Belial’s. But Marcie (Meisle), a tenacious New York reporter assigned to discover the whereabouts of Belial and Duane, disrupts that tranquility. When Marcie’s snooping brings her to Granny’s isolated house, the family of freaks band together to defend their way of life, no matter what the cost.

why it’s good: “Basket Case 2” is a rare breed—a bigger-budgeted sequel to a campy cult classic that manages to have a decent production quality and better special effects but still retain the cheesy spirit of the original movie. It’s sort of like “Evil Dead 2,” but with terrible acting and sideshow-quality freaks instead of demon hell-beasts. In the eight years since the first “Basket Case” film, director/writer Frank Henenlotter got a hell of a lot better, and the pacing, humor and direction of “Basket Case 2” are all superior to the original. He also managed to score some extra cash along the way, too—the make-up effects are pretty great, which is probably the reason why Belial spends more time running around outside the titular basket instead of chilling in his wicker abode. One thing that did not change, however, is Hentenryck’s acting skills, which are just as terrible as they were in the first movie. This time, though, there are plenty of other characters to distract the viewer, especially Granny Ruth. She wavers between being a kindly old matron and a fanatical villainess (her rallying speech to her freak “children” is zealous and fun) and gets to deliver one of the movie’s best lines: “I understand your pain, Belial, but ripping the faces off people may not be in your best interest.” The real attraction is the freaks, of course, and though they don’t do much except look weird and creepy, they do keep the film interesting, thanks to special effects honcho Gabe Bartalos’ memorable designs. There’s plenty of gore, too, and one unnecessarily long scene of Belial and Eve having some gross deformed mutant sex, a moment that’s both hilarious and awful in every conceivable way. Grunting, groaning mutant sex is perhaps best left to the viewer’s imagination.

why you should own it: If you own “Basket Case” (and you probably should), there’s no excuse for not picking up “Basket Case 2.” Synapse Films’ special edition DVD includes a making-of featurette hosted by Bartalos, who introduces segments of the featurette in a crematorium and on the subway. The disc also features a short interview with David Emge, who plays the freak with the moon-shaped face in the movie.