After the opening credits which are over a cool black and white drawing of Belial where he looks totally different to how he looks in the actual film, Basket Case 2 picks up right where the original Basket Case (1982) left off with Duane Bradley (Kevin Van Hentenryck, who returns for this sequel) and his deformed mutant Siamese twin brother lying in Times Square in front of the Broslin Hotel having just fell from their room window. They are rushed to hospital. The bizarre event is widely covered by the media. In their mansion and hideaway for various freaks, Granny Ruth Smoeller (Annie Ross) and her granddaughter Susan (Heather Rattray) watch the news broadcasts and decide they should help Duane and Belial. Ruth and Susan find Duane and Belial in front of the hospital as they have just walked out more or less unchallenged. Back at their mansion in New Jersey Ruth and Susan take both Duane and Belial in, make them feel welcome, show them around and introduce them to the other assorted freaks who reside there. Meanwhile back in Manhattan Lou (Jason Evers), the editor of a newspaper called the 'Judge and Jury' is putting pressure on one of his journalists named Marcie Elliott (Kathryn Meisle) to keep the Bradley twins story going as it sells newspapers and suggests she visits an old lady they used to write loads of story's about and who they nicknamed Dr. Freak, real name Ruth Smoeller. Together with her photographer Arty (Matt Mitler) she goes and sees Ruth, while there she also sees Duane and the potential for a really big story for herself. However, Duane, Belial, Ruth and the rest of the freaky residents aren't going to let a snooping reporter expose them and plan to stop her and anyone else she has told, by whatever means necessary!<br /><br />Written and directed by Frank Henenlotter who was also responsible for the original, and like the original I really didn't think too much of it. The script is slightly better paced but at points in the film relegates Duane and Belial to mere cameos, I must confess I did like the ending though, quite a cool sequence to end on. The acting is mostly awful again especially Annie Ross as Granny Ruth, she is embarrassingly bad to watch as she tries to act motherly towards loads of freaks she keeps in the attic and don't get me started on the scene where she delivers a 'rousing' speech to the freaks in her basement they get to via a secret elevator! Duane has really aged since the original that was made 8 years prior to this sequel and because the film is supposed to be set immediately after the events of the original, the way he looked just felt wrong. The make up effects credited to Gabe Bartalos are, in my humble opinion terrible. The freaks themselves are just rubber/foam latex masks that are very silly looking and have very little movement or expression. I just think they look like cheap joke shop masks, very poor. Belial looks totally different in this film too, and he still looks ridiculous. There is very little gore or violence in it, and no nudity or sex. Well human nudity or sex anyway, which brings me to one of the most head-shakingly awful sequences I've ever had the misfortune to see. The sex scene between Belial and his freaky girlfriend Katy! As they grunt and moan they have sex against the sound of romantic piano music, the whole sequence is really embarrassing to watch, not sleazy, not disgusting, not funny and not disturbing just plain cringe-inducingly bad film making by Henenlotter and his crew. The film is a lot more professional looking than the original, but maybe that's the problem as it's also far less entertaining and interesting. I'm not a fan of the original but I will concede it had a certain something about it, this on the other hand doesn't. One to avoid I'm afraid.