Writer/director Frank Henenlotter began making 8mm films as a teenager. His 16mm black-and-white short "Slash of the Knife" actually played at a 42nd Street midnight show with John Water's "Pink Flamingos." Henenlotter briefly worked as a commercial artist and graphic designer prior to embarking on a career as a filmmaker. Henenlotter's pictures are distinguished by their offbeat plots, cheerfully lowbrow humor, excessive gore, and pervasively sordid atmosphere.
Henenlotter made a smashing horror film debut with the marvelously gruesome and sleazy monster splatter gem "Basket Case" (1981), which delivered a surprisingly substantial amount of touching pathos along with the expected over-the-top explicit violence and hilariously scuzzy humor. Henenlotter's follow-up fright feature was the inspired "Brain Damage" (1987), another grotesquely original and imaginative tale. "Frankenhooker" (1990) was an uproariously rude'n'raunchy tongue-in-cheek hoot while both "Basket Case" sequels are very amusing and enjoyable affairs. Outside of writing and directing, Frank has been responsible for reissuing an enormous volume of vintage 60s and 70s horror, soft-core and exploitation movies on VHS and DVD alike for Something Weird Video; he has also served as an extremely funny, lively and entertaining moderator on numerous DVD commentaries for Something Weird Video. After a regrettably lengthy absence from filmmaking, Frank Henenlotter made a welcome comeback with the typically bizarre "Bad Biology" (2008).