~~ Erotic Thrillers of the 80s and 90s ~~

no emmanuelle, no credibility

there was ABSOLUTELY NOTHING erotic about "Boxing Helena"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am seriously sitting here like this O_O at the idea of someone finding that movie sexy

man i love me some single white female. that's a great movie.

I love Jade, but any movie starring Caruso should be disqualified from being "erotically thrilling".

"Basic Instinct" shouldn't work at all, but it does

"Sliver" shouldn't work at all... and it doesn't. It does have Lords of Acid on the soundtrack, tho

fatal attraction was pretty unerotic too.

x-post - You say that like it's a good thing.

I have a theory:

You can have an erotic movie starring Michael Douglas, and you can have an erotic movie starring Glenn Close, but you cannot have an erotic movie starring both Michael Douglas and Glenn Close

9/5 Weeks was a thriller?

BOUND

Listen people I didn't make the list I'm just going by what wiki cites as the definitive examples of the decades, OK? *hmpf*

Can't remember much of a thriller element in Eyes Wide Shut?

BOUND

LEBSIANES

Memorable quotes for
Body of Evidence (1993)

Rebecca Carlson: All we did was make love.
Frank Dulaney: In handcuffs.
Rebecca Carlson: It was different, but it was still making love. Have you ever seen animals make love, Frank? It's intense. It's violent. But they never really hurt each other.
Frank Dulaney: We're not animals.
Rebecca Carlson: Yes, we are.

Here's all I remember about Eyes Wide Shut: It really sucked.

You say that like it's a good thing.

Any movie that incorporates this song into a "sexy" scene gets humor points from me:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l23DI4WdXXA

there was ABSOLUTELY NOTHING erotic about "Boxing Helena"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

shirtless Bill Paxton + leather pants + mullet + Sadeness = EROTIC

BOUND

LEBSIANES

― enchilada sauce (get bent), Monday, November 7, 2011 4:53 PM (23 seconds ago) Bookmark

Bound was hot. I remember watching that and being like O_O omg what did I just see ON TV?!!

also where is "Angel Heart"?

Of the seven films I've seen on the list, the best is easily Eyes Wide Shut, which is not a thriller. (even if that's how WB tried to sell it, cuz "Tom Cruise thinks/dreams about extramarital fucking, doesn't do it" isn't much of a box-office hook.)

The Last Seduction and Wild Things are fairly old-fashioned noirs with nudity etc.

also I assume the Blown Away on this list is the softcore porn featuring that chick from Baywatch and the two Coreys yes?

Surprised not to see any David Lynch films in this list.

Basic Instinct when Michael Douglas tries to blend in at the danceclub = roffles (and NSFW, I seem to remember, so I'll just link the scene here.)

"Wild Things" is nonstop bananas moment after bananas moment

xx-post - Nicole Eggert. Yes, I think that's a safe assumption.

Wild Things is easily the best actual film on here, the rest are pretty much just cheap lolz but oh the many lolz to be had...

Color of Night (1994), this film is astonishing

the last seduction was one of those movies that was a big deal at the time but no one talks about it anymore. sorta like hal hartley.

Emmanuelle is 70s; I know there were 80s sequels, but not much of a thriller element in those.

Probably go for Single White Female, just because running a double film w/Schroeder's classic Maitresse would be fkn good.

double bill

x-post - COlor of Night = Full frontal Willis!

cuz yeah most of these movies are neither thrilling nor erotic

xp

I confused

http://m.imdb.com/title/tt0103843/

With

http://m.imdb.com/title/tt0109303/

Full frontal Willis!

eh he does this all the time

He does?

Defend the Indefensible: psychologically raw films about sexual obsession

:)

he's very proud of Li'l Bruce afaict

xp

Had to double check Jade is on here so laughter does reign supreme. (Again an NSFW clip.)

Emmanuelle is 70s; I know there were 80s sequels, but not much of a thriller element in those.

yeah, i was thinking of the '80s/'90s spinoffs.

other films Bruce Willis gets naked in:

12 Monkeys
shows his ass in 5th Element iirc

xp

Body double one of my fav movies, btw lol 'erotically trilling', gangster

"Erotic thrillers" of the 1940s would be a much better poll.

I can't believe nobody has mentioned Poison Ivy yet. I've seen that movie so many times. Darlene! Drew and Skeritt on top of a car in a scene that left me traumatized for years!

thx for reminding me - I need to see that

oh wow, you really do

> 9/5 Weeks was a thriller?

no, but still maybe my fave plotless movie

totally surprised Wild Orchid isn't on here...?

Body Double is 100% bravura ridiculousness but Craig Wasson is pretty terrible.

I really really hated EWS but the Ligeti piece that is the cornerstone of the soundtrack ("Musica Ricercata" mvmt 2) is one of my favorite things in the entire world

Wild orchid does seem to be a really obv omission.

guys have you read the original script for Jade online. You really should.

So I am thinking I should see this jade movie.

i def have a soft spot for 'single white female'

last seduction is really good. body double is dope and i like how it's almost a slasher film, too. very giallo as much as hitchcockian. wild things is cool. if this was expanded to the nineties i might consider a vote for unfaithful, which was better than it had any right to be.

"Sliver" shouldn't work at all... and it doesn't. It does have Lords of Acid on the soundtrack, tho

but it does have "Unfinished Sympathy."

Craig Wasson is pretty terrible.

yeah srsly. Is this the worst performance in a De Palma movie before TBOTV?

omg "Unfaithful"! I had forgotten about that movie

Mine:

Dressed to Kill
Sea of Love (one of Pacino's few believable performances of the last twenty-five years; good Barkin and John Goodman work too).
The Last Seduction

sorry not the nineties, the 00s

Few movies as forgettable as Sliver have soundtracks as awesome as that one does.

ellen barkin is like a one woman erotic thriller in any movie from the late 80s to the mid 90s

yeah it's like the 'empire records' of erotic thrillers

I have Sliver to thank for introducing me to Heaven 17

billy baldwin was the most useless actor hollywood tried to foist upon america as a star. well maybe not as useless as chris o'donnell.

"Wild Things" is a masterpiece of some sort. Want to say this movie is a key component in the Bill Murray critical comeback, too. But really, everyone is perfect in this, and as erotic thrillers go, it's pretty sneaky. Plus, full frontal Bacon. "

Last Seduction" holds up well, too. Hate pretty much all the De Palma on here as anything more than camp.

Some real batshit stinkers here, from Jade to Color Of Night to Body of Evidence to Sliver. Joe Eszterhas, man. This guy went from esteemed journalists to lines like "I guess he got off before he got offed."

Eszterhas once saved the life of a friend while covering an Ohio race riot.

1. Dressed to Kill, 2. Fatal Attraction, 3. Eyes Wide Shut. I like Body Double, and I'd throw in Disclosure, too.

Wild Things is an excellent comedy.

It's hilarious. And the ending credits flips are inspired.

The jokes come fast, the first of which is Matt Dillon wearing Tevas in 1998.

i'm p sure i've told this story before, but in college some friends had a movie night at their house, and for some reason i succeeded in lobbying for both movie picks, and for some reason those movies were "wild things" and "the cook the thief his wife and her lover" and no i was not allowed to pick movies again.

gotta be body double for the soundtrack alone

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYQmsyYxSFk

Wow, looks like "Wild Things" was John McNaughton's last feature film. Wonder what's up with that?

also lol at the fact that 3 of these movies have "body" in the title

tightrope is a good thriller, not sure how erotic it is

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXD0ZdYxOuM

i'm p sure i've told this story before, but in college some friends had a movie night at their house, and for some reason i succeeded in lobbying for both movie picks, and for some reason those movies were "wild things" and "the cook the thief his wife and her lover" and no i was not allowed to pick movies again.

oh man

all you needed to add in there is "Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down" and "Eat Drink Man Woman" and that would have been the lol-90s-college-est movie night ever

and Threesome.

this is tough!

I need to watch Tightrope again -- I love Genevieve Bujold in most anything. The first Serious Clint movie, no?

DePalma owns this thread. Dressed to motheruckin' Kill.

Body Double is 100% bravura ridiculousness but Craig Wasson is pretty terrible.

― Mohombi Khush Hua (ShariVari), Monday, November 7, 2011 10:07 PM (38 minutes ago) Bookmark

He's pretty bad (and looks distractingly like Bill Maher) but his intrinsic wienerdom works for that character, IMO

He is a lost soul

And dumb

These are exactly the sort of movies that I never know whether they hold up at all to their positive memory. Loved Wild Things and The Last Seduction at the time. But I also loved Body Double when I was 14, and watching that one again last year, it did not hold up at all.

Whispers in the Dark (with Annabelle Sciorra and Alan Alda, and maybe Jason Patric or Adian Quinn?) is the one missing from this list that I liked at the time.

"the cook the thief his wife and her lover"

yeah someone got this for some lol-90s-college-dorm-movie-night thing and just ugh... I hate Peter Greenaway, I think.

Voting for Dressed To Kill, even though that's equivalent to 1980's Raging Bull being the Best Movie Of The '80s for many.

Dressed to Kill without any real runners up. (Eyes Wide Shut is awesome and all, but not much in line with the rest of these.)

Love Body Double's satire of Tangerine Dream.

Never saw Whispers In The Dark but still lol at it nearly 20 years later cause of this:

http://siskelandebert.org/video/34MNK6G6NOAW/The-Worst-of-1992

Color Of Night and Basic Instinct win my silver and bronze, mostly for the LOLs though

xpost oh man the "twist" of Whispers In The Dark is so awesome

LOL, I'm now going to spend my evening watching S&E's year-end worsts.

u guys saying body double doesnt hold up or that wasson is bad are crazzzyyyyy

this is tough!

― The sham nation of Israel should be destroyed. (Princess TamTam), Monday, November 7, 2011 11:49 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

Jagged Edge would fit onto the list, although it does overlap with the courtroom-drama genre.

That S&E site is dangerously addictive. ESPECIALLY the year-end worst shows.

i should add that i thought both movies kicked total ass

oh no doubt, they are fantastic movies

Hey shouldn't CRASH be on here?

the CRASH with Matt Dillon in Tevas?

I guess it's debatable whether Elias Koteas takes the film to hypothetical "thriller" status

xpost wah wah

I'd definitely rep for Dreamlover, where Madchen Amick gets all up in James Spader's business. For a list of erotic 80s and 90s stuff this feels low on James Spader.

yeah where's Bad Influence?

or White Palace?

For a list of erotic 80s and 90s stuff this feels low on James Spader.

^^^

Does Wild at Heart count?

I guess it's how you dudes are defining thriller?

Like, straight up drama with sex is not an erotic thriller. Gots to be some crime and killing and stuff.

White Palace isn't a thriller, but oh yeah to Bad Influence.

Also Internal Affairs, which I confuse with Bad Influence

What about Polanski's Frantic? I always liked that one. I suppose the erotic element is light, though there is Seigner...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRoRo5mUV5o

not enough erotic in Frantic, I'd argue.

No Way Out?

Presumed Innocent has an "erotic thriller" box cover, but I bet its deceptive like the White Palace one

xpost No Way Out sort of separates the erotic part and the thriller part, but its famous for both so sure.

How about Never Talk To Strangers; the unforgettable (and not in a good way) team up of Rebecca De Mornay and Antonio Banderas from 1995.

as a massive perv I have to say that every one of these I saw left me disappointed

Just remembered Consenting Adults, the erotic thriller where Kevin Spacey tries to murderously wife swap with Kevin Kline.

xpost Never Talk To Strangers is a slam dunk.

xpost as a pubescent pre-ethernet I was very grateful for all these movies.

That's because these aren't films for massive pervs. I sympathize.

xp

my perversity was not disappointed by Bound xp

also a good movie imo and has my vote

Bound is awesome.

No love for Body Heat? Kathleen Turner! William Hurt's mustache!

Body Heat is almost a masterpiece, but the whole thing is so sleepy and dull in the end. Kael was otm about that movie -- Mickey Rourke is the only actor in the movie that seems awake.

Wow, looks like "Wild Things" was John McNaughton's last feature film. Wonder what's up with that?

He makes tons of TV.

I have seen every one of these movies - most in the theater!

Black Widow and Beseiged, two films where undercover agent Debra Winger gets caught up with a murderer in a sexy way.

Betrayed, not Besieged.

I still need to see body double and cat people.

I'm really sad that this era of filmmaking is over, even though the genre is filled with junk. At least it's junk for adults.

Wow, Tom Berenger was in Besieged, right?

I am going to make one of these movies. It will be called An Excuse for Fucking.

― HI DERE, Tuesday, May 27, 2008 3:41 PM (3 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

<3

I'm really sad that this era of filmmaking is over, even though the genre is filled with junk. At least it's junk for adults.

seriously! I don't want to settle for R rated TV. I don't want to invest more than two hours in this business.

this era was a good time to rent beach front property to production companies, I bet, though all the night shoots must have sucked for neighbors.

That S&E site is dangerously addictive. ESPECIALLY the year-end worst shows.

No joke. 1982 had some great bad movies. (And bad commercials.)

http://siskelandebert.org/video/N44N7DM9RKON/At-the-Movies-Stinkers-of-1982

Black Widow is soooo dull: pretty scenery, and Theresa Russell's talent for draining the life out of anything she's in. Hence the title.

has anyone mentioned Masquerade (Rob Lowe, Meg Tilly)?

Speaking of Tom Berenger, there was Someone to Watch Over Me, right? Then Sean Young and Matt Dillon in A Kiss Before Dying?

^^^ good choices

yeah A Kiss Before Dying is actually pretty good

Speaking of Sean Young...Love Crimes.

When was the last time two actors embraced all erotic thriller like on a movie poster? I doubt Dragon Tattoo counts.

I feel like Angelina Jolie might have been the last actress to really grab this bull by the horns (Original Sin, Taking Lives)

http://images.art.com/images/products/large/10082000/10082263.jpg

to really grab this bull by the horns

o yeah

i think one "erotic thriller" element oft-overlooked is the presence of male nip on the movie poster.

http://www.movieposter.com/posters/archive/main/99/MPW-49586

nice poll! was almost going to say "no mention of Poison Ivy?" but then realized I overlooked it

voting Dressed to Kill

I'm really sad that this era of filmmaking is over, even though the genre is filled with junk. At least it's junk for adults.

yeah, although I don't think the vibe is around anymore... partly because of the death of that soft 'video' aesthetic, but also the sense of (moral?) danger around sex isn't as strong I guess, sex doesn't have the same punch

Chloe tried to revive it last year. Didn't really work.

one thing about 'jade' i remember is there's the not insignificant role of this wise-cracking older cop who was played by an actor who literally never appeared in anything before or since, which i thought was strange.

omg chloe was so bad

my fave thing about jade (Aside from obvious stuff like caruso line readings) is that William Friedkin threw in a car chase going the wrong way through what may have been a chinese new years parade. Slowly.

Slam Dance is a 1987 thriller directed by Wayne Wang and starring Virginia Madsen, Tom Hulce, and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio. It was screened out of competition at the 1987 Cannes Film Festival.

A married cartoonist named C.C. Drood becomes involved in the cover up of a political sex scandal after his lover, Yolanda, a call girl, is found murdered.

Bobby has betrayed his wife Helen with the exotic Yolanda, who takes him to a club where the patrons slam dance, violently crashing into one another on the dance floor.

Bobby Nye, a former lesbian lover of Yolanda's, hires a hit man named Buddy to do away with Drood, who is also hotly pursued by the police. Drood ultimately comes to believe that Bobby and Buddy are the ones responsible for Yolanda's death. A corrupt cop, Gilbert, is doing everything in his power to pin the whole thing on Drood, but a police colleague, Smiley, intervenes on the wanted man's behalf.

(Act 3 spoilers excised)

Virginia Madsen as Yolanda Caldwell
Tom Hulce as C.C. Drood
Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio as Helen Drood
Don Keith Opper as Buddy
Adam Ant as Jim Campbell
John Doe as John Gilbert
Harry Dean Stanton as Smiley
Judith Barsi as Bean
Lisa Niemi as Miss Schell
Herta Ware as Mrs. Raines

was hoping you guys were talking about an erotic thriller starring Chloe Sevigny :(

xp

Body Heat Double Indemnity is almost a masterpiece

fixed

Virginia Madsen as Yolanda Caldwell
Tom Hulce as C.C. Drood
Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio as Helen Drood
Don Keith Opper as Buddy
Adam Ant as Jim Campbell

we need to do a John Doe film poll...

god this was such a big deal

http://img.auctiva.com/imgdata/1/2/9/8/0/3/4/webimg/494218694_tp.jpg

i think one "erotic thriller" element oft-overlooked is the presence of male nip on the movie poster.
there aren't a whole lot of appropriate places to put this story, but this seems as good as any

when i was in 3rd gr my two bffs and i went with one girl's dad to see an erotic thriller (can't even remember which one, but i know it was "boring" and seemed "foreign") and there was this part featuring male nip that we found extremely hilarious, so we devised this three-girl assault of scream-chanting PALE BOOB NEEDS CHLOROPHYLL (we were learning about photosynthesis in school) and tormented the dad with this chant all the way home

Steve Martin as Dad

he looked a lot like steve martin! his name was jeff.

Double Indemnity is almost a masterpiece

fixed

― Dr Morbois de Bologne (Dr Morbius), Monday, November 7, 2011 11:55 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

bro, I said Body Heat was boring. You can't even agree with me when you agree with me smh

one thing about 'jade' i remember is there's the not insignificant role of this wise-cracking older cop who was played by an actor who literally never appeared in anything before or since, which i thought was strange.

― omar little, Monday, November 7, 2011 11:52 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

IIRC he's the best thing in the whole movie

although the death of angie everhart's character is hilaaarrrious

Presumed Innocent has an "erotic thriller" box cover, but I bet its deceptive like the White Palace one

― da croupier, Monday, November 7, 2011 5:21 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

I remember PI having a fairly explicit sex scene, though I may be overestimating it because my parents took my sister and I to see it when we were 11 and 12 and, um, awkward.

Purple Rain could've been a good erotic thriller.

Has the Richard Gere/Kim Basinger film Final Analysis been mentioned yet? I remember digging that one as a kid in a kind of "I hadn't seen the movies it was ripping off, so I didn't really know better" kinda way.

went for Single White Female b/c hot psychopath Jennifer Jason Leigh is hot. I mean, it is totally ridiculous, but then most of these probably are.

The scares & performances in Fatal Attraction are def superior to the others here that I've seen (about half of them), but the awful misogyny kinda ruins that film imo

no Never Talk To Strangers no credibility

PALE BOOB NEEDS CHLOROPHYLL!

A: PALE
B: BOOB
C: NEEDS
ABC: CHLOROPHYLL!

repeat as needed

still helplessly lol-ing

the big easy!

speaking of movies watched with parents, awkward

the big easy is awesome iirc.

i always associate this genre with adrian lyne. did he really direct jacob's ladder? seems out of character.

i think it goes without saying that i watched all of these erotically thrilling movies as an adolescent: some in the theater, some on cable, some on sleazy video

Lynne also did Damage, the upscale psychosexual thriller.

I have seen every one of these movies - most in the theater!

So have I, I feel slightly creepy about that.

This thread is also making me miss 90s Cinemax, they had a lot of straight to cable erotic thrillers.

Easy access to online porn = the death of the erotic thriller.

Man, you've been busy!

Also: ellen barkin is like a one woman erotic thriller in any movie from the late 80s to the mid 90s

― omar little, Monday, November 7, 2011 5:36 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark

LOL

I mean, it was already established upthread that porn and erotic thrillers do not appeal to the same audience, but I still suspect that many an 80s/90s adolescent was resorting to one in the absence of the other.

The banishment of Joe Eszterhas = the banishment of the erotic thriller.

1992: Sherry Lansing is hired [3] to run Paramount and spends $3.6 million in less than a week, $2.5 million [4] for a two-page outline of Jade by Joe Eszterhas, and $1.1 million [5] for the script Milk Money by John Mattson.

I mean, there's no reason an erotic thriller with Mila Kunis, Lindsay Lohan, and Ruffalo wouldn't be a hit if done well.

pity there were no foreign erotic thrillers in the '80s and '90s.

Imagining the Hollywood remake of Monsieur Hire.

A superior remake of an Amerindie:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117394/

Body Double is 100% bravura ridiculousness but Craig Wasson is pretty terrible.

― Mohombi Khush Hua (ShariVari), Monday, November 7, 2011 10:07 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

What that movie needs is JAMES SPADER.

Every movie could use a little Spader imo.

what about Diva?

(can't use Spader though)

Easy access to online porn = the death of the erotic thriller.

Online porn is so thrilling.

xp

I love Diva so much. I was sort of obsessed with that movie when I was maybe 13 or 14.

Will Smith and Whitney looked into doing a remake of that for a while.

there are still some seriously terrible non-porn 'erotic thrillers' on the straight-to-DVD/premium cable circuit...i discovered one unintentionally hilarious one that i've been trying to get someone to help me assemble a highlights reel youtube video of, if anyone w/ the technical abilities wants to collaborate on it w/ me.

christ the ending of No Way Out or rather the last third in fact, sinks a really good film up to that point. Sliver is a dreadful piece of garbage.

no Jagged Edge? not very um.. erotic i guess.

Swimfan was a noble '00s experiment in the final frontier of EROTIC THRILLER TEEN MOVIES

SET IN GLISTENING BODIES OF WATER

Swimfan is so funny.

someone in my nabe keeps tagging things with 'swimfan_69' and it makes me laugh every time i see it

Body Double is 100% bravura ridiculousness but Craig Wasson is pretty terrible.

― Mohombi Khush Hua (ShariVari), Monday, November 7, 2011 10:07 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

What that movie needs is JAMES SPADER.

― something of an astrological coup (tipsy mothra), Tuesday, 8 November 2011 02:23 (43 minutes ago)

No, Body Double is about a hapless dweeb's trip into the world of sleaze.

Spader has too much knowing sleaze in him already. Though I'll give him credit, he fared pretty well as a non-sleazy nerd in Stargate.

I saw Color Of Night in the theater in college, I never forgave my friend for dragging me to see it. Retinal scrubbing continues to this day.

Bound gets my vote. HAWT.

I saw Body Heat when it was first shown in theatres. All I remember is (1) it was boring and not at all erotic, and (2) about every ten minutes someone would complain about how hot it was.

Wasn't Swimfan PG-13? A PG-13 erotic thriller is the very definition of useless.

obsessed is pg-13 too; i feel like it shouldn't be.

I mean, there's no reason an erotic thriller with Mila Kunis, Lindsay Lohan, and Ruffalo wouldn't be a hit if done well.

Black Swan is kind of an erotic thriller.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

I saw Body Heat when it was first shown in theatres. All I remember is (1) it was boring and not at all erotic, and (2) about every ten minutes someone would complain about how hot it was.

― Everything else is secondary (Lee626), Tuesday, 8 November 2011 03:42 (1 week ago)

Ted Danson dances.

color of night. taught me a lot of things.

i saw body heat pretty recently, i dug it. easy to see why it made kathleen turner a star. mickey rourke and ted danson have fun smaller roles

cat people is one i always wanted really badly to like, but it kinda sucks. nobody has ever been hotter than nastassja kinski was in it though

basic instinct seems like it should be fun junk too, and it sorta is for a while, but i feel like it wears out its welcome pretty fast

the last seduction - actually a good movie

jade - biehn, caruso, friedkin... esterhas. i need to see this

i havent seen bound since the 90s, but i remember digging it a lot back then

wild things is really funny and awesome

eyes wide shut might be the most strikingly shot movie i've ever seen

there are still some seriously terrible non-porn 'erotic thrillers' on the straight-to-DVD/premium cable circuit...i discovered one unintentionally hilarious one that i've been trying to get someone to help me assemble a highlights reel youtube video of, if anyone w/ the technical abilities wants to collaborate on it w/ me.

― some dude, Monday, November 7, 2011 9:51 PM (1 week ago) Bookmark

this offer still stands, if anyone's good at that kind of thing

something i wish wasnt left off - FEAR starring mark wahlberg. now ive popped both your cherries!!!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pW2OWZ96h0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wC8Ab5AZeE

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/1/1e/Fatal_instinct.jpg/220px-Fatal_instinct.jpg

um..

I was just thinking a few days ago of throwing up a Fatal Attraction/Basic Instinct/Disclosure poll (just rewatched BI for the first time since it came out), but I guess there'd be no point. Loved seeing all the Seinfeld alumni in BI, though it's hard to take the guy who plays Kruger seriously as a bad guy. Confession: I didn't get the ending. If anyone wants to explain the last shot with a suitable spoiler alert--anyone except Newgod--I'd appreciate it. Is it supposed to be ambiguous or incriminating?

SHE DID IT

I thought so, I guess I just over-analyzed that away as being too pat. (So does that mean they go on to get married, and every night for the rest of her life she goes to kill him but has second thoughts?)

sliver is a candidate for the worst movie i've ever seen

Rejected tagline: "If you loved Rear Window and The Tenant, you'll wonder why we bothered."

what's the one where sharon stone and sly stallone bone in the shower? it's probably not even an erotic thriller but it sure was filmed like one.

sharon stone and a minor baldwin iirc

and/or tom berenger

i mean wow

Rocky VII: Fatal Rendezvous? Rocky XIV: Cruel Obsession? Rocky VXIV: Exotic Intruder?

The Specialist, dudes.

My college paper ran a still of Stallone from that film, ripped and veiny, that just read "looks like a penis."

The government taught him how to kill. Now, he's using his skills to help one woman seek revenge against the Miami underworld.

HOW DID I MISS THIS POLL????!?!?

COLOR OF NIGHT, OBV

that girl, Jane March, TALK ABOUT FREDDY MERCURY MOUTH. Wow!!!!

the entire movie is on Youtube, enjoy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcYFnMyXKAE&skipcontrinter=1

yesssssssssssssssss

Yeah Jane March had unfortunate teeth. Do you remember when she was poised to be the next big thing? She was in that and The Lover and then I don't think I ever saw her again.

tbf we'd seen pretty much all of her by then

Color Of Night was on TV in Spanish when I was flipping channels the other night

I have not seen Cat People. Should I?

yeah i kinda liked that movie, even though it's a bit unrealistic, but the acting from the leading actors was very nice, ruben blades is a great sidekick, and overall it is atmospheric with it's music score, that's what i like in erotic thrillers, when the music is atmospheric in correlation with the scenery of L.A

HOW DID I MISS THIS POLL????!?!?

― homosexual II, Friday, May 25, 2012 12:37 AM (3 weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

when I got to the "6 months pass..." break my first thought was "why have I not seen any mandee posts by now?"

why did the genre come to an end lately????

I just said this on the gay thread but Wild Things has to be the most convoluted "film" ever created.

It's basically a farce disguised as an "erotic" "thriller" and has more plot twists than every Hitchcock film combined and ugh jeez it's so ridiculous

It is like Showgirls-level ott/melodramatic/weirdly acted. I mean, "My daughter does NOT get raped in Blue Bay", what???

Like is this regarded as being in the same canon as Showgirls? Why is this not Showgirls-level notorious?

Also pathetic how there's all this nonstop lez action and then when they get to the Bacon/Dillon part that is SO SO FUCKING GAY they just pass it off as like two totally straight dudes just hanging out/being naked/saying things like "why don't you hang around and kick back for an extra day" you know nbd no homo

Wild Things is def the connoisseur's choice here

Like is this regarded as being in the same canon as Showgirls? Why is this not Showgirls-level notorious?

It isn't. Because it's not as much a masterpiece as Showgirls.

Stevie everything you're hating on is being done v v deliberately by Wild Things. It's directed by John McNaughton!

and it's really not like people don't KNOW that Wild Things is a ridiculous movie

I saw it in the cinema and we laughed so much that a guy who was not there to enjoy it in the same way got up and left

This poll was so long ago I forgot what I voted for! I thought I had voted for Jade but obviously not.

I'm not hating! It just, I don't know, didn't seem deliberate in its boring cliches (look, a rowdy classroom! You can tell its rowdy because someone is throwing a paper airplane!) and stuff. I know nothing of the director. It just felt like it was supposed to be dramatic/thrilling in adult way and not a comedy but who knows. I enjoyed it.

Wasn't Bill Murray in this?

But it seemed to take itself seriously though

Also the DVD I picked up for 99c is pan & scan and they did THE WORST job of panning. For fucking real half the film looks like a Jim Blashfield animation.

xp yeah which just added to the wtfness

Wild Things is AWESOME watched it the other night actually. so much fun.

Wasn't Bill Murray in this?

wearing a hat!

I think the only thing it takes "seriously" is the class warfare angle. the Bacon/Dillon thing is BLATANTLY super-gay! part of the joke is how both of them are total amoral pervs!

love McNaughton

Of course it's blatantly super-gay but it was just frustrating that someone somewhere was like "okay just NO KISSING OR TOUCHING bcz that would weird people out"

I'm going to rewatch it soon and maybe I'll have a diff approach but idk maybe I just went into it wrong or it's more deadpan than I realize or something *shrug*

y'know, I've never seen Basic Instinct. how bad is it.

kind of amazing Body Double got zero votes, I'd probably rate that over Dressed to Kill these days

basic instinct is classic
gotta see it!

never been able to find a copy of Poison Ivy tbh

try your local blockbuster

Other thread on these monuments of the filmic arts:

'An erotic thriller'

lol xp

Also,

I love Jade, but any movie starring Caruso should be disqualified from being "erotically thrilling".

= truth bomb

never seen Basic Instinct either, but somehow have read most of two different Ezterhaus books

wait, 80s/90s erotic thrillers... and no "Hot Spot" !!??

https://forgottenfilmcast.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/the-hot-spot-1.png

As for De Palma, it's almost 90s but "Femme Fatale" was one silly movie (and the main action took place in the street I used to live in !)

I saw Body Double for the first time recently, it's really good fun, particularly the Frankie Goes to Hollywood section, which makes no sense at all but is really fun/sleazy.

yeah the film def ratchets the insanity up a notch for that sequence

o_0 @ the credits on Hot Spot: The Hot Spot is a 1990 American neo-noir film directed by Dennis Hopper and based on the 1952 book Hell Hath No Fury by Charles Williams, who also co-wrote the screenplay. It stars Don Johnson, Virginia Madsen, and Jennifer Connelly, and features a score by Jack Nitzsche played by John Lee Hooker, Miles Davis, Taj Mahal, Roy Rogers, and drummer Earl Palmer.

To the best of my recollection, only one erotic thriller was made in the 1980s and it was Crimes of Passion.

https://cdn2.bigcommerce.com/server5000/yshlhd/products/4857/images/126890/full.crimesofpassion-1sh-41702__56612.1512008766.1280.1280.jpg

We need more erotic thrillers like this. The world's a crazy place. Instead of Star Wars: Nerd Wars 12 and Marvel's Spandex Heroes or whatever the fuck's out there now.

crimes of passion is totally bugfuck iirc

I remember Bound being a very bad and not sexy Coen bros pastiche with comedy mafioso bad guys.

I'd add Red Rock West, one of the classic 1990s "let's get something from the video store with one of the Twin Peaks girls" movies.

The Wachowskis did Bound immediately before The Matrix

It is terrible, the wachowskis are incompetent

that is not true!

Red Rock West was great. There were a good handful of neo-noir flicks at the time. RRW and Kill Me Again, with Joanne Whalley-Kilmer, stood out. Slam Dance was good one, too.

More germain to this thread, Caroline at Midnight is one I haven't seen on DVD yet. Mia Sara and "Wings"' Tim Daly.

basic instinct is essentially verhoeven remaking vertigo with a joe eszterhas script, it's awesome and upsetting. doesn't quite reach the peak of art trash that showgirls does but that's a precarious peak anyway

basic instinct is overdue a critical reassessment imo

Michael Douglas dancing in a disco in a sleeveless tank top is an indelible image

Whatever it's worth, it's an incredibly entertaining movie

boy is it ever, it’s all i can think about every time i see michael douglas in anything xp

Basic Instinct was not the best of the erotic thrillers but it really was some kind of apex. Verhoeven is a very intelligent guy making a fairly smart flick about an extremely stupid man who is basically seduced and destroyed by an obvious psychopath because he decides the sex is going to be worth it.

Michael Douglas is quite good, he takes his Black Rain and Fatal Attraction roles, adds the dumb twist, a bit of Pacino in Cruising, and voila.

Sharon Stone is exceptional though, I mean it’s a very brave performance in a lot of ways (beyond the obvious) and she’s just alive and fully committed to it.

Good point about Stone. Makes one wonder why Sliver was so stiff and joyless in contrast.

*coughbillybaldwincough*

also: in basic instinct stone gets to play a playful, manipulative vamp with a murderous streak while in sliver she is a proto-anastasia steel with a sleek bob haircut and has to pretend to find the idea of billy baldwin jerking off in front of a bank of crt monitors irresistibly sexy

Speaking as a hopelessly cishet person, the appeal of most of these men is going to elude me. That said, merely the fact that Douglas was a sex symbol for most of my lifetime is still bewildering. I mean, he was kinda roguish and self-mocking in Romancing the Stone but otherwise? Gah.

in Sliver, they decided to cast Stone in the Michael Douglas type role. also the Billy Baldwin stuff is toothless because he's not even the killer, he's just a dopey voyeur.

My very Baptist dad took me and my little sister to Basic Instinct when we were kids. He didn't know it was a hard R type flick. Aside from the constant cringing, I remember being totally into it. "She's evil... she's brilliant!"

my podcast is doing 9 1/2 weeks of erotic thrillers curated by ilxor Mandee

She picked some good ones. Animal Instincts is a cuck cop movie.

Speaking as a hopelessly cishet person, the appeal of most of these men is going to elude me. That said, merely the fact that Douglas was a sex symbol for most of my lifetime is still bewildering. I mean, he was kinda roguish and self-mocking in Romancing the Stone but otherwise? Gah.

― ~ cows come home (Ye Mad Puffin), Thursday, June 21, 2018 1:24 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Pop Falling Down into the VCR and just try to refrain from pawing yourself.

The one where he's married to Gwyneth is the most ridiculous example

wow i do not remember making this poll

a perfect murder

something like that anyway = xpost

xxpost What about that show where he was married to Karl Malden? I didn't buy that at all.

Also, Romancing the Stone was one of my favorite movies as a kid and I'm sure it impacted my ideas of romance and stuff and he was hot in that. He pulled up to her fucking apartment in NY on a yacht wearing the damn alligator on his feet. That is a badass move if I've ever seen one.

Falling Down is great.

But not in a erotic way, mind.

the men in these movies are rarely appealing imo

Bruce Willis in Color of Night is super blechhh just a couple years after being super cute in Moonlighting.

Is it the case that yr genuinely handsome doodz (Clooneys and whatnot) tend not to appear in erotic thrillers? Is this by accident or by design?

z-post yeah but he did go full frontal in the color of night

it was more of a side-frontal iirc

why am i debating bruce willis’ dingus on the internet

I guess because it's frowned upon in the workplace.

luv2frown at bruce willis’ dingus with my co-workers

their characters are pretty gross most of the time, probably keeps the good looking quality actors away

Whispers in the Dark ftw

Also used to recommend Fear all the time, then watched it again and was wholly embarrassed to have done so.

fear is an amazing, embarrassing movie

Generally, all the characters in erotic thrillers are gross or messed up... they're like the erotic side of noir.

To find the women appealing, you'd have to have an unhealthy attraction to danger and stupidity. Which is sort of the point with a lot of these movies.

there is not a (real) kathleen turner thread, so

this is great: http://www.vulture.com/2018/08/kathleen-turner-in-conversation.html

Do you have sympathy for actors who choose differently?

Certainly in terms of film, there is intense pressure to repeat successful characters. I’ll give you an example, but you mustn’t include her name. [Very famous Hollywood actress] has played the same role for 20 years. She even looks pretty much the same. She’s probably one of the richest women out there, but I would shoot myself if I were like that, only giving people what they expect.

my guess is Mariska Hargitay (who has only played herself or Olivia Benson in the past twenty years except for two small roles)

https://editorial.rottentomatoes.com/guide/erotic-movies-ranked-worst-to-best/

99% thrillers, obv. (why are so many erotic movies thrillers??)

because if you add a thriller element you can say it's a dark exploration of the human psyche etc and so it has an alibi of semi-respectability, while if you make a happy sexy movie there's no fig leaf for the perving?

I've always found it weird too because dark explorations of the human psyche are kind of a turn-off

The Crush got slept on in this poll.

SHOWGIRLS (1995) 23% #127

lol bye

Spoilers.

It's not all that erotic, but I took a second look at The Mean Season last night (1985, Kurt Russell/Mariel Hemingway). I recently posted about how good The Grey Fox was on another thread; the Lightbox guy who introduced it talked a bit about Phillip Borsos's career, how he left Hollywood after The Mean Season because he was fed up, and how the movie was quite good.

It's not. It's okay for the first half, starts to get worse, and then the last 15 minutes are terrible. All through the film, the killer (who's in contact over the phone with journalist Kurt Russell) is shot so you can't see his face; it seems to be tipping you off that he's one of two people close to Russell, either his editor or the photographer who works alongside him, and that he's trying to teach Russell a lesson about journalists who gain fame through grisly crime. Suddenly they decide to show him; all the earlier subterfuge had no point at all. And then the killer (Richard Jordan) tries to do some actual acting, and he's awful. Russell (who I almost always like) and Hemingway aren't much better.

im all for the big reveal being that the killer is random more of that

Has anyone seen Night Train to Venice? I only recently became aware of it - 90’s gothic-erotic thriller involving Neo-Nazis, featuring Hugh Grant, Malcolm McDowell, and Nazi-era German star Kristina Söderbaum. It looks entertainingly batshit but every review I’ve seen basically says “you’d think this would be fun but it’s just awful and boring.”

(xpost) I was fine with the randomness of the killer, I just thought the false build-up was unnecessary.

There used to be multiple copies of these things in every used sale bin for three or four dollars; now whenever I want one, it's some ridiculous price on Amazon or eBay. Three I'm after (they're thrillers--they probably don't fit this thread exactly): Deceived (Goldie Hawn), Eyewitness (Sigourney Weaver/William Hurt), Storyville (James Spader). I saw the first two when they came out, not the third.

Oh man, I just threw away a copy of Eyewitness a few weeks ago. Watching it recently for the first time, I was kind of surprised that such a solid thriller with an A-list cast has been so completely forgotten... yet it falls rather short of greatness, and I'm in the process of forgetting it myself.

Damn. I think it was the film Peter Yates made right after Breaking Away.

Yeah with the writer of Breaking Away as well

Keys to Tulsa is the most Spadery Spaderness that ever Spadered.

Storyville is meh in comparison.

I feel like William Hurt must have made some bargain with the devil because for a while it seemed like he was in every movie.

Actually found Keys to Tulsa cheap, so went ahead and Spadered it. The thing that caught my attention with Storyville is that it's directed by Mark Frost, Lynch's partner on Twin Peaks.

Spader's whole career was just preface to his 12-step guy on Seinfeld.

The latest (or one of the latest) episodes of How Did This Get Made focuses on "Jade," and there is a lot of talk of erotic thrillers. Pretty funny stuff.

Deceived is on Disney+ (under their new “Star” imprint).

Damn, don't get it...Jade is a good example of what I mean. New copies sell on Amazon (Canada) for between $100-$600. Ten years ago, you would have found it any flea market or thrift shop for nothing. '90s erotic thrillers are turning into the 13th Floor Elevators and Chocolate Watchband albums of a different universe.

Apparently (I learned this from the podcast and, later, wiki)

An unrated "director's cut" version featuring additional scenes and more explicit sexual footage with an additional 12 minutes was later released to VHS, though it is now out of print; the theatrical cut was used for the subsequent DVD and Blu-ray editions. The planned unrated versions for DVD, LaserDisc, and Blu-ray were cancelled, due to poor sales of the unrated VHS version.

ty for tip, I greatly enjoyed them trying to decode the plot like The Big Sleep

nb: I have not seen Jade

watched wild things last night. absolutely incredible. i think it's lacking perfect erotic thriller dna but it is a wonderful movie.

The Lat Seduction > Body Heat > Jade > Exotica > Thief of Hearts

*Last

Wild Things is one of those movies you can't quite believe is real while you're watching it, like Road House or Point Break.

("The Lat Seduction" was a planned erotic thriller set in the world of high-end personal trainers, but it was stuck in development.)

i like the last seduction a lot but it was panned by my erotic thriller watch crew. glad i am not alone on that corner.

Love Wild Things, but it is perhaps too ironic in its lurid erotic-thrillerness.

They're releasing an extended director's cut with an additional seven meta-twist endings.

I saw Deceived in high school -- weird to think these things were hits

When we rented Decieved, my dad made me pause it at one point because he was finding it too suspenseful and needed a break (in fairness, I remember it being a bit jumpy in parts). I'll probably watch it again on Disney+ one of these days.

Wild Things is a masterpiece, and I assumed it was just a fluke by writer Stephen Peters, who never had another film produced, or a heavy uncredited rewrite. Until 12 seconds ago, when I read that in 2013, Peters' agent pitched McNaughton on an Amanda Knox-inspired sequel about Neve Campbell and Matt Dillon's kid getting involved in a sex murder while on student exchange with Bill Murray's kid, and they tried to sell it as "Wild Child Things".

So clearly, he's a hard-done-by genius.

hahahah that's amazing

Wild Things is pretty out there but Color of Night is BONKERS

I am now a proud owner of a copy of Wild Things, found a DVD for a buck at AmVets. I made my wife watch it because she'd never seen it and she agreed it was quality pulp. So much fun.

I saw a preview screening of Wild Things with a packed theatre of college students, the perfect venue.

Damn, don't get it...Jade is a good example of what I mean. New copies sell on Amazon (Canada) for between $100-$600. Ten years ago, you would have found it any flea market or thrift shop for nothing. '90s erotic thrillers are turning into the 13th Floor Elevators and Chocolate Watchband albums of a different universe.

There are new DVD copies of Jade on Ebay for $20. Amazon always has a range of crazy listings, for whatever reason - people using it as a placeholder, people taking a flier, people using automated repricing that glitches when supply is low.

I always check eBay, and you're right, things are cheaper there. It's still bad if you're in Canada--$40-50 by the time you pay shipping and exchange. I just wouldn't pay that much for any DVD, least of all a junky thriller. Once this thing ends, I'll back to scouring thrift stores and such, and it'll turn up before long.

sell on Amazon (Canada) for

If they aren't completed listings, they're not selling for that price. It's literally the equivalent of an op shop putting a $200 sticker on a Beatles LP.

Color of the Night: staggeringly, monumentally awful. I really didn't know much going in. "Richard Rush? Oh, he directed The Stunt Man--that's supposed to be pretty good." About half an hour in, I started to wonder if it won any Razzies (not particularly meaningful, except maybe as confirmation of something you're sitting there thinking yourself). It did--worst picture--and had a bunch of other nominations. Including one that gave away the supposed big twist. Not sure how to take the two votes above. I didn't find it Ed Wood funny or anything--I derisively laughed a few times.

Bad-film aficionado Nathan Rabin wrote quite a funny piece on that. My personal remembrance of the film is only that it was playing at the only cinema in Peterborough the last time I was there.

Oh, no doubt. It's a really terrible movie, but I can't quite imagine a world that doesn't include it.

Its awfulness is as clemenza says: monumental. The low-rent-Shyamanliness of the OmG TwIsT EnDInG is impressively bad.

Even the sex - which seemed rather racy at the time - seems bad in retrospect.

But just the fact that it exists - that a whole bunch of people heard the pitch or read the script or whatever, and said "wow, sounds great" - is just kind of impressive.

I think I felt most sorry for Rubén Blades--talk about a thankless role (which I'd like to believe would never happen in a studio film today; probably not true). Lance Henriksen and Kevin J. O'Connor quite awful too. Brad Dourif and Leslie Ann Warren didn't embarrass themselves. Willis and Jane March...Willis was sometimes okay and sometimes painfully over-the-top. I've never seen Jane March in anything else, so I don't know if she's any kind of actress. You wouldn't want to answer that question with this as your sole evidence.

I bought a copy of Chloe at a thrift store today. Wikipedia: "Chloe is a 2009 erotic thriller film directed by Atom Egoyan..." I find that funny in much the same way as this famous bit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CNyzdmXhe0

It's probably closer to the mark generically than, say, The Adjuster.

Clemenza, prior to Color of Night, my primary association with Lesley Ann Warren was a 1965 TV version of the Rodgers & Hammerstein Cinderella.

So, young Puffin had a somewhat confused reaction...

Playing God--paired with Color of Night on a budget Mill Creek Blu-ray--not a whole lot better.

I remember Tarantino saying he saw The Color of Night and skipped Natural Born Killers the weekend both opened.

gotta support your bois

Chloe is a riot.

I thought this might be chiming in on the recent discussion of hollywood being worryingly sexless in the recent past. Has this been in any of our threads?

Are you referring to this (fantastic) article?: https://bloodknife.com/everyone-beautiful-no-one-horny/

Lots to discuss there, but I am also wondering if there is a more appropriate thread in which to do so.

Yeah, it's funny that blew up after everyone went nuts at her for shitting on fanfiction

It's been translated into a couple of other languages now

i'd guess one of the main factors in the production of olde tyme horndog films was the relative difficulty (& social opprobrium) of acquiring quality smut back in the dark ages. whereas now once you're old enough to type naughty words into google without a parent hovering nearby the entirety of human sexual ingenuity is available in 4k surround sound smellovision, and if you're kind of a scumbag you can pretty easily find nudes hacked from celebrities' phones. erotic thrillers pale in comparison. the big money'd be in films for the whole family that kids will drag parents to twenty times, and you can't have titties in those or the children will get possessed by satan and then good luck because it's fountains of blood vomit and locusts scourging the fields, nobody's got time for that

which bland & obvious normie take has probably been expressed more succinctly several times upthread, but the thread is long and i am lazy, you're welcome

oh, and the international market. china doesn't want sexy sex in their movies.

first response otm

im sure its a great article but i need to take a deep breath and count to 10 after this opening sentence: "When Paul Verhoeven adapted Starship Troopers in the late 1990s, did he know he was predicting the future? The endless desert war, the ubiquity of military propaganda, a cheerful face shouting victory as more and more bodies pile up?"

GOSH YEAH I WONDER

that article sucks ass ftr

good quality actually sexy erotica is as rare as it ever was imo

Karina Longworth has a new package of You Must Remember This podcasts that focuses on erotic thrillers. The first batch out this spring is called Erotic 80s, to be followed (after a summer hiatus) in the fall by Erotic 90s. The first episode, which sets the scene by covering the porno chic of the '70s and the rating system, is up now. She promises eventually to deal with the "sexless Hollywood" phenomenon of today.

Great episode and start for the series for sure -- the focus is on Deep Throat and Last Tango In Paris for that.

Should Angel Heart have been on this list?

Cool! I haven't listened to her in a while, but she is great.

So far so good on this series.

The non-anglo film doesn't really go anywhere much for me in this list but it reads nice enough

https://www.vulture.com/article/best-erotic-thrillers-streaming-netflix-hbo-showtime.html

Rating Jade over the Last Seduction is kind of a challop

Loving this season of the Longworth podcast. The episode on Bo Derek is both enlightening (to someone who was an infant at the peak of her fame) and infuriating (to someone when knew John Derek was a piece of shit but maybe just not how much of a piece of shit). Longworth’s comment about 10 being all but forgotten today was curious; I had assumed it still held a reasonably “classic” status, but when I looked I couldn’t find it either on any of my streaming services or at my local library.

Thanks for thr alert.

yeah am enjoying the series so far, learning a lot.

re the poll, i had the deep misfortune of seeing Color of Night in the theatre. My roommate wanted to see it & he paid so i went along for the free movie. Bleuchhhhh no free movie is worth that

i would have voted Sea of Love. i think it’s underrated. it’s a great thriller & pacino & barkin have such great chemistry. i think Richard Price wrote it iirc?

Listening to the second episode of the podcast. It's interesting, but Longworth's delivery is weird; every other sentence, she'll pronounce an ordinary English word like she just learned it.

That’s canonical longworth

My theory is she over-pronounces to compensate for natural under-pronunciation

I don’t know what her pronunciation deal is, but I know there’s no excuse for it. You can’t mispronounce “Lovelace” 100x and expect us to take you seriously

Perhaps this podcast is not for you

That said, focusing on 10 is interesting, and something I wouldn’t have thought of, but it might make some kind of sense. I do remember when that film came out. It’s erotic but in no way a thriller. Yet it may have paved the way for the genre.

The delivery is … pretty unerotic, fwiw.

Karina Longworth treats Jagged Edge as a kind of forgotbuster, which actually makes sense--I'm old enough to remember my parents going to see it (I would catch it on cable some years later) and the still-hilarious controversy over the ending*, but from my Letterboxd feed, it looks like the film is now unknown to most people who were not alive and/or paying attention to film in 1985. The film's status rather perfectly reflects its quality, I think: a solid, enjoyable thriller (albeit one with a sloppy conclusion) that needed the hand of a Brian De Palma or even an Adrian Lyne to distinguish it, but instead got the guy who did Return of the Jedi. Oh, and Robert Loggia somehow got a Best Supporting Actor nomination out of the whole thing.

*on that ending, fast forward to the last segment of this (SPOILER-y!) Siskel & Ebert episode if you don't know but care about what I'm talking about: https://siskelebert.org/?p=3635

This was big news in my household, if only because my older sister and mum were majorly crushing on Jeff Bridges at the time

Bridges is definitely at his hottest in Jagged Edge.

This plus Fatal Attraction/Someone to Watch Over Me/Cape Fear all seem to merge into a single blob in my head even though they’re very different films

I remember my folks seeing Jagged Edge and catching the end with my mom once when it hit cable the following year, and it was legit huge indeed. But when Karina teased Glenn C would be featured in discussions of two movies in the series, I went "Well Fatal Attraction...wait, what's the other one?" and absolutely had no idea it would be Jagged Edge until the episode hit, and hadn't thought about it in DECADES, though the poster immediately came to mind after the mention. Truly a memory hole of a movie. (Marquand, said ROTJ director, really had a weird career in retrospect -- he followed up said Star Wars entry having gotten the job with Eye of the Needle with a romantic melodrama with Karen Allen, Until September, then Jagged Edge, then Dylan's Hearts of Fire! Then the poor bastard dies of a stroke.)

Poor guy!

Maybe it was different in a pan and scan vhs version but I don’t recall the last shot being very confusing?

Bridges is definitely at his hottest in Jagged Edge.

― Les hommes de bonbons (cryptosicko),

And how!

My unofficial theory about the demise of the erotic thriller: Joe Eszterhas killed them.

For those who haven't heard the Longworth podcast, Eszterhas's current political (and religious) allegiances are pretty much what you'd expect.

*on that ending, fast forward to the last segment of this (SPOILER-y!) Siskel & Ebert episode if you don't know but care about what I'm talking about: https://siskelebert.org/?p=3635

― Les hommes de bonbons (cryptosicko), Thursday, May 26, 2022 7:32 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

off topic but: oh man, i've been watching old siskel & ebert episodes all week so thank you for this resource

(they loved to spoil the best parts of movies and the show comes off like on cinema... more often than i even expected)

lol i watched jean claude van damme vehicle nowhere to run a couple of weeks ago -- not an erotic thriller unless you count JCvD perving on at rosanna arquette's butt thru a window bcz but it does have an eszterhas script (which is just pitiful garbage)

I’m pretty sure that NTR had a soft-cory sex scene as well, which makes perfect sense given Eszterhas

ill have to quiz my co-watchers, it was empirically unmemorable

It’s the only thing I remember!

oh man, i've been watching old siskel & ebert episodes all week so thank you for this resource

― flamenco drop (BradNelson),

Same! They keep popping up on YouTube.

I get the podcast is shifting talk on these films and category but c'mon Jagged Edge in no way fits

as an erotic thriller? Why not? Wouldn't you kill for Jeff Bridges?

Wouldn't we all

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/45/25/ef/4525ef29e3f09411e51d05227ce137e7.gif

THE HAIR

Longworth is trying to forge a thematic link to AIDS, which kind of works in the case of Jagged Edge, but might have been better served by a different film. 1985 alone had A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy's Revenge, which would at least have allowed for a discussion of the kind of explicit(ish)ly queer text that Longworth claims that the 80s otherwise avoided.

The Erotic Adventures of Freddy

Red Blood Diaries

The 1987 episode of You Must Remember This is probably the best yet (of this season; I haven't heard previous ones). Positioning Fatal Attraction and Dirty Dancing as conservative vs liberal box-office mirrors of each other is a creative read, but it totally works; her identification of Patrick Swayze's Johnny Castle as the antidote to Reagan-era toxic masculinity (encapsulated, here, by Michael Douglas in FA) almost makes me want to take a look at the film--hell, both films--with fresh eyes.

I think I've told this story on the board before, but when I was 10 and really wanted to see FA, my mom finally agreed (I was persistent verging on harrassing when it came to movies I wanted to see) on the condition that we "talk about" the film afterwards. I agreed, thus leading to a discussion of the sex scenes ("that is not the way that people have sex") which I think may have constituted my "sex talk" with my parents. When I tell this story, people are always divided between this being my mom's genuinely earnest attempt at a 'teachable moment" or her zinging me for insisting on such inappropriate viewing material.

i love how Longworth often gets me to reconsider movies I thought I had made up my mind about. I dunno if i will rewatch Fatal Attraction but I am definitely thinking about it in new ways thanks to her.

I met Sherry Lansing 10 years ago at a work function & had dinner with her but knew zero about her history at the time so mostly exchanged smalltalk & pleasantries. Kicking myself tbh.

Anyway. Enjoying this season immensely.

actually more like 20 years ago re Lansing - time flies when yr old lmao

True story: in 1983, I was in 8th grade Unitarian Sunday school. We got to vote on what movie to go see as an end-of-year treat.

The final tally was: 9 votes for "Risky Business" and 1 vote for "Terms of Endearment."

So I first saw Rebecca de Mornay's breasts with my church youth group.

I still don't know who voted for "Terms of Endearment."

Enjoying this season immensely.

Yup, very good. I don't really have much of a desire to reconsider histories from times I've lived through -- it mostly frustrates me thinking about idiotic things that happened within living memory, if you get my drift -- but this has been a good way to reframe many things.

The 1987 episode of You Must Remember This is probably the best yet (of this season; I haven't heard previous ones). Positioning Fatal Attraction and Dirty Dancing as conservative vs liberal box-office mirrors of each other is a creative read, but it totally works; her identification of Patrick Swayze's Johnny Castle as the antidote to Reagan-era toxic masculinity (encapsulated, here, by Michael Douglas in FA) almost makes me want to take a look at the film--hell, both films--with fresh eyes.

You really should. Dirty Dancing is sharper and more erotic than its reputation suggests -- and, of course, as men we condescend to stuff young girls like. But Jennifer Grey, in a charming performance, is sexually alert, and the film respects her sexual maturation: it's rare in an '80s picture -- any American picture! -- in which the male star consents to be the object of desire.

And, of course, Cynthia Rhodes gets an abortion and there's no -- not a one -- consequence or regret.

A couple weeks ago I finished Michael Koresky's Films of Endearment, about re-watching with his mom some of those '80s films starring the decade's essential actresses (Lange, Weaver, Pfeiffer, Cher, etc.).

True story: in 1983, I was in 8th grade Unitarian Sunday school. We got to vote on what movie to go see as an end-of-year treat.

The final tally was: 9 votes for "Risky Business" and 1 vote for "Terms of Endearment."

So I first saw Rebecca de Mornay's breasts with my church youth group.

I still don't know who voted for "Terms of Endearment."

― Nutellanor Roosevelt (Ye Mad Puffin), Wednesday, June 8, 2022 7:01 PM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Lol, I saw "Trading Places" with my church youth group.

xp a really great read

My 11th grade French teacher took our class to see Betty Blue, the most serious of erotic thrillers.

lol sure

I watched that last year, that is a p wild choice!

This is in the neighborhood: Trapped, with Charlize Theron, Kevin Bacon, and Courtney Love. 2002, so not '90s; not remotely erotic, though it tries a couple of times; and tense for a while, not at all after that.

First hour, it's an okay diversion. The last 20 minutes, though, has to rank with the most ludicrous resolution of a thriller I've ever seen.

The upcoming You Must Remember This pod season is covering '90s Erotic Thrillers/Neo Noir etc.

i took a Neo Noir film class in my first year of uni, i am kinda looking forward to the new series. I loved the last one.

xpost -- Very much waiting on that series. Her 80s one was excellent.

Halfway through the 80s one, was savouring it, but will need to speed up.

really wish there was an easy way to view some of these films, lifes just too short to hunt around all the streaming services, and try to keep on top of it all.

its like listening to a classic albums podcast but each song might be on a different streaming services and some songs completely missing...

If you have public libraries in your area, many of them stock these things on DVD.

I really have to see Jade again someday

David Corelli : Cristal, Baluga, Wolfgang Puck... it's a fuckhouse.

Just over a week away:

The next season of @RememberThisPod begins in just 11 days! Make sure you're subscribed wherever you get your podcasts for new episodes of #Erotic90s every Tuesday starting March 28: pic.twitter.com/Xrcu9OdSMu

— YouMust RememberThis (@RememberThisPod) March 17, 2023

Aaaaand, as if on cue, Criterion is streaming a bunch of these titles starting next month:

https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/8101-the-criterion-channels-april-2023-lineup

Erotic Thrillers
Sleekly stylish, deliriously plotted, and unabashedly steamy, the erotic thrillers of the 1980s and ’90s are both the ultimate guilty pleasure and an illuminating reflection of an era’s changing attitudes toward sex on-screen. As the ’70s came to a close, with studio filmmaking in decline, home video and cable on the rise, and new X-rated movies ushering in an era of “porno chic,” Hollywood studios and independent filmmakers began pushing boundaries to cash in and create popular films that could never have been made before. Often dismissed as disreputable byproducts of the video-store era, these carnal classics can now be seen as rich cultural texts, laden with tantalizing ideas about gender, the relationship between sex and violence, and the cinematic gaze. Encompassing masterful genre deconstructions by directors such as Brian De Palma (Body Double), Paul Schrader (The Comfort of Strangers), and the Wachowskis (Bound*) as well as lesser-known titles now ripe for reappraisal (Color of Night, Dream Lover, Fleshtone), these late-night cable staples are journeys into our collective fears and fantasies.

FEATURING: Dressed to Kill (1980), Body Heat (1981), Crimes of Passion (1984), Body Double (1984), The Bedroom Window (1987), Sister, Sister (1987), Call Me (1988), The Comfort of Strangers (1990), Poison Ivy (1992), Dream Lover (1993), Color of Night (1994), Criminal Passion (1994), Fleshtone (1994), The Last Seduction (1994), Jade (1995)*, Bound (1996)*; COMING MAY 1: Single White Female (1992); JUNE 1: Basic Instinct (1992)

i am excite!

Skinterion

Interesting lineup. I expect some "the orange in Call Me vs. the peach in Call Me By Your Name" discussion once people get a load of that one.

I don't know if Dream Lover's quite "ripe for reappraisal." It does have Mädchen Amick, my fourth-favourite person from the '80s with umlauts attached.

One of these days I'll double feature Poison Ivy and Color of Night on Criterion because it's perverse

rich cultural texts, laden with tantalizing ideas

Yeah that's totally why I watched Body Heat when I was 14.

The tantalizing ideas, the rich cultural text.

This is what I was asking for upthread, a shame its US only and not available in UK.

I could futz around with VPNs etc. but its never an easy solution, always more work than necessary when I just want to sit down and enjoy the rich cultural texts..

Feel like Karina has turned her enunciation game up a notch.

Xpost Hamildan

If you want to watch on a laptop you only need a VPN to sign up as a member - you can use any of the chrome browser vpn plugins. After that, the site will take a UK payment cards and you don’t need to use the VPN when you’re watching movies.

It’s possible to download the app via VPN too but I can’t remember how I did that!

I've needed this to return as winter drags on.

my god The Bedrooom Window, which I saw as part of Criterion's Isabelle Huppert series, has her worst performance and presents Steve Guttenberg as an erotic figure.

The he has the same malleable sexuality as peter riegert in crossing delancy

presents Steve Guttenberg as an erotic figure

Clearly you have not yet taken in the magnificence that is Can't Stop the Music.

that's my Guttenberg Bible

https://townsquare.media/site/341/files/2013/02/morgan_0.jpg

Guttentag!

iirc the bedroom window also has steve guttenberg give the least convincing use of the word "bitch" in a movie ever

That movie has a lot of Least Convincing things, for example the Art Deco nightmare of a bar they hang out at.

Who made him a star, anyway?

Hey, let's not forget Short Circuit, where he has a threesome with Ally Sheedy and a robot:

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/c4/60/f2/c460f240be5066d3830fd6e52bb3baac.jpg

Guttenberg > Selleck > Danson

well, compared to the last two, Guttenberg is Alain Delon.

Have only listened to the first 15 of the ep but, damn, if this turns into a 14-episode arc of how much the '90s sucked when it comes to sexual politics, it's going to be amazing.

Having finished listening to it, especially with her personal note at the end, I'm thinking your guess is right. Also looking forward to next week, which was fairly clearly signalled.

Will be interesting to see how this all comes together with the main impetus for the project, which is how the American cinema came to turn its back on depictions of sex almost entirely

One not mentioned yet. Save Mewith Lysette Anthony and Harry Hamlin.

Hamlin glowers through a telegraphed plot where red flags are slapping him constantly, and yet the show goes on. Plus, Michael Ironside in the cast!

Watched a couple of the Criterions (second viewing for each).

I actually tried to buy The Bedroom Window a couple of years ago and found it a little pricey. Hard to believe that when assembling the cast, someone said "erotic thriller" and someone else said "Steve Guttenberg!" I think Isabelle Huppert was getting lots of acclaim at the time for her French films, but to me she seemed miscast here. The only Robert Palmer song I ever liked, "Hyperactive," is used, the one thing I still remembered about the film, and Carl Lumbly, the detective, did a great job a few years ago providing Miles Davis' voice in Birth of the Cool.

Dream Lover is sillier but more interesting, I'd say, mostly thanks to Madchen Amick. Truly bizarre coincidence: after I finished watching last night, I was flipping around and came across two stations playing Seinfeld. One was airing the episode with Larry Miller as the doorman, the other had the episode with James Spader doing his 12 steps. Honest to god. (Both in Dream Lover, if you don't know.)

Here we go …

The enemy gained a very powerful ally today https://t.co/774eiUrFeX

— Brandon Streussnig (@BrndnStrssng) April 13, 2023

Although it's played for laughs, I find the Robert DeNiro/Bridget Fonda sex scene in Jackie Brown to be very unpleasant. Maybe it's a good thing he feels this way.

per latest Karina Longworth episode, Theresa Russell's career is truly interesting but she's difficult to assess as an actor. I thought she was amazing in Bad Timing but had an opposite reaction when I saw her in Whore (during its brief theatrical run). But I suspect the problem in Whore is that Ken Russell's natural staginess overrides her skills somehow; would be interesting to see that again after all these years. Rewatched Crimes of Passion with Kathleen Turner and that film has a similar staginess problem although Turner does a good job in it.

I'm glad you brought her up; except for in Black Widow I've never considered her a watchable actor.

(xpost) She's fantastic in Straight Time--small role, might be her first film.

Worth a read: https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/8117-the-wet-dreams-and-twisted-politics-of-erotic-thrillers

Watching The Bedroom Window right now and I swear I’ve seen this exact same premise in an Italian giallo. Man’s girlfriend witnesses a crime from their apartment window… man reports it to the police as if he had witnessed it. Ring any bells to anyone? Early ‘70s Italian giallo?

lol I read that as "gelato"

Steve Guttenberg and Isabelle Huppert as a couple is a fantasy that only Hollywood’s dream merchants could bless us with

I saw The Bedroom Window at a second run theater when it was new and recalled sort of liking its neo-Hitchcockisms, but rewatching last night it's really not very good.

The You Must Remember This episode yesterday on Basic Instinct was unsurprisingly great. (Also a nice move to use selections from Sharon Stone's audiobook reading of her autobiography at points.)

Haven’t gotten to that one yet but anything that dissuades her from doing impressions is a plus (her Eastwood was a struggle!)

I'm still haunted by her Susan Atkins.

yeah i enjoyed this episode a lot, the stone audio was a nice touch. She did the same iirc for Carre Otis in the Wild Orchid/Rourke episode & it really elevated the ep i thought

lol Call Me is so bad. Why am I watching these things when there are other actually good movies on Criterion?

Is that a rhetorical question?

Dream Lover is currently on Criterion ending this month, and I thought it was entertaining, some offbeat dialogue, good supporting characters and plot turns. And Madchen Amick is beautiful.

Have we talked about The Hot Spot? Dennis Hopper directed 1990 adaptation of the very hood Charles Williams novel about car salesmen, sex and robbery? I lived that book so I’m gonna watch this one asap. May actually start it now, before work.

Have we talked about The Hot Spot? Dennis Hopper directed 1990 adaptation of the very hood Charles Williams novel about car salesmen, sex and robbery? I lived that book so I’m gonna watch this one asap. May actually start it now, before work.

I can’t type on my phone sorry.

Interested to see what you think.

Well... so far, I like the shots of the small town location. The acting is not particularly great. It's certainly erotic, and certainly a thriller. The sexy stuff can be a lil over the top (already, hardly into the film) but, I'll enjoy it. Probably finish this evening or tomorrow.

B-b-but what about the soundtrack?

It's not the worst, but definitely helps to date the film. The eating-pussy-in-the-car scene was a littttttle extra, if you know what i mean.

Enjoyed the heist sequence itself.
Now off to work.

Rep theatre screening of Basic Instinct. It really is kind of terrible. Two good things: Sharon Stone's performance--she seems to be the only one who's onto how campy and overwrought it all is--and four Seinfeld people.

(Six actually, checking online--four I knew.)