Well, it’s officially February, which means Valentine’s Day is just around the corner and it’s time to catch up on the cinematic canon of erotic thrillers. In part, because there’s no better way to spice up this dreary winter month than with some truly salacious thrillers, and partly because the Quad Cinema is bringing back the best of the genre in a 20-film series to celebrate the Valentine’s Day release of Francois Ozon’s pitch-black and wildly indulgent “Double Lover.”
There are few genres that are more firmly established and more at ease with the uncouth than erotic thrillers. Born from the same cocktail of romance and danger as the post-war noir thrillers, it was only a matter of time – as popular cinema became more and more liberal – before the softcore delights of the ‘80s would turn up the heat and give birth to the erotic thriller. At the heart of the best erotic thrillers, is the blurring of the lines between sex and violence and the exploration of the base carnality of human beings. It’s a tenuous — and thrilling — duality. The titillating mixing of danger and pleasure and the complex concoction it takes to strike the right balance is exactly what makes the genre so exciting (and what makes so many erotic thrillers disappointing bombs). The Quad’s “Crimes of Passion: The Erotic Thriller” will bring some of the best — and some of the most unfairly overlooked — of the genre back to the big screen: “Basic Instinct,” “Cruel Intentions,” “Fatal Attraction,” “In The Cut,” “Cat People,” “Bound,” “Body Double” and “Dressed To Kill.” The list, of course, goes on, including a handful of genre precursors like “Double Indemnity,” “Trans-Europ-Express” and “Vertigo,” which alone should make the series worthwhile.
Credited to some extent with cementing the genre as a new staple of cinema, Adrian Lyne’s “Fatal Attraction” is a worthy if dated entry. When it was released in 1987, it was an undeniable hit: not only was it the highest grossing film of the year, but it was nominated for six Oscars, including Best Picture (ahhh the ‘80s). And while “Fatal Attraction” may not hold up as well as many of the other films featured, it’s exactly the sort of splashy, histrionic movie that would connect with mass audiences and cement the birth of a new breed of film. Still, today it’s worth revisiting if only for the trio of strong — and at times bonkers — performances at its core, most notably a captivating Glenn Close and a solid Michael Douglas.
Douglas, of course, didn’t stray far from the genre and returned for one of the most beloved entries: “Basic Instinct,” a film that, in the years since its release, has become an iconic cultural touchstone. Paul Verhoeven’s picture is a masterwork of style and transgressive rule breaking that has proved to be a high watermark — both in his career and in the genre. “Basic Instinct” is an idiosyncratic film as they come. It’s Verhoeven doing what he does best: shocking audiences by lodging his b-movie instincts amid an a-rate film. It was easily his best film until 2016’s equally shocking and even more pot-stirring “Elle.” (To boot, “Basic Instinct” will be playing in glorious 35mm.)
Then, of course, there is Brian De Palma, who, alongside Verhoeven, is the principal architect of the erotic thriller. De Palma has dabbled in the genre more than most celebrated auteurs over his half-century career, hitting magnificently unsavory highs like “Body Double” and “Dressed To Kill” while also tripping up on the likes of “The Black Dahlia” and “Femme Fatale.” “Dressed To Kill,” an early stab at the genre, is more Hitchcock than not, a film that feels as much like “Psycho” as it does a Brian De Palma film. Still, it’s a stylistic triumph that only De Palma could have made, especially in 1980 — a boundary-pushing exercise in fetishistic impulses. 1984’s “Body Double” is everything controversial about “Dressed To Kill” turned up to eleven. Another Hitchcockian homage, including — you guessed it — plenty of body doubles and lots of perverse sexual impulses. It’s as strange and mind-bending a film as any other on this list, but one that’s all the more devilishly enjoyable for it.
Outside of the better-known entries, are some of the best, including Jane Campion’s “In The Cut,” The Wachowskis‘ “Bound” and Paul Schrader’s “Cat People.” Campion and The Wachowskis’ films are important for the work they do at deconstructing the somewhat poisonous treatment — read use — of women in the genre. “In The Cut” (which will also play in 35mm) is built from the same bones as its predecessors, but is told all the while from the female perspective — here it’s a very strong Meg Ryan. Not only does the film pack in all the necessary slasher tropes, but it tells a moving and disquieting story of female desire — which is not to mention the great work it does at eviscerating society’s opinions of that desire. And while it may fit in rather neatly among its genre peers, it is, through and through, an excellent film from one of our favorite filmmakers. “Bound,” The Wachowskis’ debut, is similarly progressive and has become a queer touchstone. A mob movie focused on a pair of women who plot to steal a few million dollars and run off together, “Bound” is surprisingly heartfelt and certainly one of the best and most relatable films the siblings have produced.
Then, of course, there is “Cat People,” Schrader’s remake of Jacques Tourneur‘s 1942 thriller, a film that’s hard to parse apart in anything shorter than a doctoral dissertation. Basically, “Cat People” (also in 35mm) takes the carnal instincts at the base of human sexuality and runs with it. Nastassja Kinski and Malcolm MacDowell play an odd pair of sister and brother who turn into panthers when at their sexual peak. In Schrader’s hands, and at the beginning of the ‘80s, “Cat People” is sexy, loud and strange as hell. It’s an exciting film, but one that also dared to take a more direct look (via an indirect narrative) at the state of sex and desire in the American consciousness — what it ultimately concludes is, to say the least, damning.
To highlight these few films is to skip delving into the other classics that abound in the “Crimes of Passion: The Erotic Thriller” series. “Angel Heart,” Verhoeven’s “The 4th Man,” William Friedkin’s “Jade,” and “Empire Strikes Back” scribe Lawrence Kasdan’s “Body Heat” are all exceedingly engrossing films that artfully (or grotesquely) blur the intimacies of violence and sex and make art out of the seedy underbelly of desire and the murderous ends that often follow close after.
To keep spiraling down the rabbit hole, check out our NSFW list of 25 Movies About Kinky, Compulsive, Fetish & Taboo Sex, our rankings of the films of Brian De Palma, a rundown of 11 Kinky BDSM Films and our review of “Double Lover,” which opens on Valentine’s Day. And be sure to catch “Crimes of Passion: The Erotic Thriller” which runs from Feb. 2-15 at the Quad Cinema.