A young man checks into a flophouse hotel near Times Square carrying a wicker basket, and he will not let anyone look inside. What lives in there has a grudge, and a list of names.

BASKET CASE (1982) follows Duane Bradley, played by Kevin Van Hentenryck, as he works his way through that list in New York City. Inside the basket is Belial, his deformed conjoined twin, separated from him in a surgery their father forced on them years earlier.

Frank Henenlotter wrote and directed it on a shoestring budget, shooting around Times Square when the neighborhood was still sleaze and grindhouse marquees. The stop-motion is crude, the gore less so, and none of that matters once Belial starts moving on his own.

It found an afterlife far beyond its budget, playing midnight shows for years. The bond between the brothers, equal parts love and horror, is what keeps the film unsettling rather than just cheap.