Erotic thrillers are dead, but the conversations they started arent even close to climax.
Make Hollywood Horny Again
A week-long celebration of erotic thrillers.
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Kill her off now!
when Close was onscreen.
A little further down, you read all about the films labyrinthine journey from an idea to a blockbuster.
Its sad, you know, because it kind of doesnt work.
Its kind of unattractive, however liberated and emancipated it is.
It kind of fights the whole wife role, the whole childbearing role.
Sure you got your career and your success but you are not fulfilled as a woman.
My wife has never worked.
Shes the least ambitious person Ive ever met.
Shes a terrific wife.
She hasnt the slightest interest in doing a career.
She kind of lives with me, and its a terrific feeling.
I come home, and shes there.
And how could younotwatch them?
Or Jennifer Tilly guiding Gina Gershons fingers across her breast tattoo just before saying, Isnt it obvious?
Im trying to seduce you, and begging her to kiss her already (Bound).
Now its 2022, and Lyne and his soapy psychosexual dramas are back in the public consciousness.
And I wanted it to be good.
Was I asking too much?
It had been so long.
ButDeep Waterdidnt end the dry spell.
For the fun of it?
For the kink of it?)
All of Lynes musty moralizing is still here.
Melinda is fucked up!
they all cry confusedly.
Melinda is also completely financially dependent on her billionaire husband.
Its a sex scene that feels like the movie is afraid of sex.
There is no foreplay, no luxuriating in the act, nothing that feels remotely kinky or surprising.
(They try: Melinda asks Vic to kiss my ass, a weak gesture toward anilingus.)
It was that special blend that made an erotic thriller an erotic thriller.
The single woman is dead, and the family unit will survive despite her.
Everything could go off a cliff at any moment with a flick of a red-nailed finger.
They genuinely turned viewers on and genuinely terrified them.
(The bat and the cat … they fuck.)
An embarrassment of horny and problematic content.
This was the peak of the genre.
Steamy long shots of gloriously grimy Soho made frequent cameos.
These women are what make the films memorable.
Ive always responded to their sexual liberation and determination.
(Necessary when so much of the sex in these movies is tinged with violence.)
Elizabeth Berkleys flail-acting, and the over-the-top How did his dick not break?
sex scenes, pushed the genre into the realm of parody.
Critics hated it, and it tanked at the box office.
It made it difficult to take this material seriously, Longworth says.
You didnt want to run into your friends at the movie theater and admit you were seeingShowgirls.
I dont know if people cannotlaugh at those things now.
We ponder why the genre died every time theres an attempt to reboot it, no matter how hollow.
And, of course, we are analyzing it now in the wake ofDeep Water.)
With every piece that chronicles how they fell off, theres a plea for them to come back.
But like Alex Forrest, we just cant accept that its over.
Its possible that tastes have changed too much.
I love erotic thrillers deeply, but even I can admit these movies are corny.
We just dont fuck like that anymore.
The nostalgia bath of it all allows us to enjoy these movies while distancing ourselves from their obvious shortcomings.
The focus on white hetero men and their hang-ups.
Filmmakers got away with misogyny in a way that would ignite Twitter today.
Its easy to smugly acknowledge how out-of-date these movies are.
What was considered shocking was born from the kinds of topics that dominated dinner parties in 1991.
We can only analyze the power and the politics and the gender dynamics, not the primal reaction.
It also just feels easier to look backward.
Because weve stopped being able to talk about sex actual fleshy, part-to-part, carnal enjoyment of sex seriously.
To me, its clear we still have a use for erotic thrillers.
Its why we keep reconsidering the old ones.
even through the distant gaze of fictional characters.
Its hard to look at the darker parts.
(The cover story was retracted almost 20 years later, though are we still over that statistic?
I dont know.)
When Alex asks, If your lifes so damn complete, what were you doing with me?
the film doesnt answer, but we know the answer now: whatever he wants to because he can.
The films premise that Dan is sympathetic doesnt hold up anymore.
You feel a creeping sense of doom because Gallagher got away with it.
Hes in black, and hes set a little bit away from his family; his eyes are hard.
The music never settles into less sinister tones.
The villain still lives to fuck someone other than his wife again in six months.
So much ofFatal Attractionis outdated, but the core threat is still relevant.
You have to imagine it will attempt to restore the original feminist parable.)
There is big Are men okay?
energy in a lot of these movies, says Longworth.
And thats still a question on a lot of our minds.
Maybe, as Martin recommends, we need to toss out most of the playbook.
More sex, less violence.
I think shes right, and, just, someone, get on it.
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