9 Horror Directors Who Deserve An Honorary Oscar

The Academy gave an honorary Oscar to Hal Needham, the former stuntman who directed Smokey And The Bandit, so they can at least consider shortlisting Frank Henenlotter, whose Basket Case (1982) was a virtual textbook for low budget, independently financed genre films in the 1980s. An underground hit, the movie’s mix of raucous humour and wild invention later informed the pictures made by Lloyd Kaufman at Troma Films.

Like the exploitation films he grew up watching, Henenlotter’s films are filled with an attitude that you don’t find in mainstream productions. “They’re a little ruder,” he says, “a little raunchier, they deal with material people don’t usually touch on.” For an example of his irreverence, check out Frankenhooker (1990), whose Frankenstein-style protagonist not only believes he can bring his departed fiancée back from the dead, he can supply her with a better-looking body than she had in life.

Away from the camera, Henenlotter has been instrumental in rescuing several low budget pictures from oblivion and releasing them through Something Weird Video. Thanks to his efforts, a series of exploitation pictures, including the cult classic The Curious Dr Humpp, were saved from destruction.