Erotic thriller  

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The erotic thriller is a film subgenre defined as a thriller with a thematic basis in illicit romance or erotic fantasy.

Most erotic thrillers contain scenes of softcore sex and nudity, though the frequency and explicitness of those scenes can differ from film to film.

Erotic thrillers emerged as a distinct genre in the late 1980s, bolstered by the popular success of Fatal Attraction in 1987 and continuing into the early 1990s. Studio films of this “classic period”, such as Paul Verhoeven’s Basic Instinct, were box office hits, helmed by big-name directors, and starred high-profile actors. The popularity of the genre spawned a lucrative cottage industry for the burgeoning home video and cable television markets. By the end of the 1990s, cultural changes and the rise of the Internet led to the decline of the genre's popular appeal and production volume.

The genre became popular in the 1980s with the rise of home video and coincided with the end of the sexual revolution.

Precursors include Peeping Tom (1960), Klute (1971) and Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1975).

William Friedkin's Cruising (1980), Dressed to Kill (1980) and Body Heat (1980) ushered in the Golden Age of the erotic thriller at the beginning of the 1980s.

The genre also includes such films as Body Double (1984), Fatal Attraction (1987), Basic Instinct (1992), Eyes Wide Shut (1999) and In the Cut (2003).

These films feature two female stereotypes: femme fatales and damsels in distress; and one male: the fall guy.

The "erotic thriller" sub-genre owes much to hardboiled crime genre.

Origins

The erotic thriller is a direct descendant of 1940s and 1950s film noir, a thriller genre exemplified by stylish crime films and mysteries that explores the dark underworld of post-World War II America. 1981's Body Heat, one of the first films of the erotic thriller's classic period, was itself inspired by the film noir Double Indemnity (1944).

The erotic thriller also has its roots in the mystery genre, the horror genre, and pornography. Brian De Palma's Dressed to Kill (1980), another early 1980s erotic film, contains several direct references to Alfred Hitchcock's psychological horror film Psycho (1960). Though the R-ratings, theatrical releases, and notable actors differentiate erotic thrillers from pornography, both erotic thrillers and pornography, as notes Keesey in "They Kill for Love: Defining the Erotic Thriller as a Film Genre" (2001), "feature sex scenes occurring at regular intervals, and in low-budget erotic thrillers, the plot, as in porn, may be mainly a pretext for the sex".

Other forebears of the erotic thriller include the romance novel, the soap opera, and works of gothic fantasy. Softcore sex films are often romances of some kind, and the genre has a long tradition, particularly in Europe. Directors such as Radley Metzger (Theresa and Isabelle 1968), Joseph Sarno (Inga 1968), and Just Jaeckin (Emmanuelle 1974) were influential pioneers of the softcore-romance film. Their "middlebrow sexploitation" films (as noted in Soft in the Middle, 2006) put stories of female desire at the center, and helped pave the way for softcore's reemergence in the 1990s.

Characteristics of the genre

Femme fatale

The character type of the femme fatale—an alluring, mysterious, and seductive woman—is common to many erotic thriller films. Villainous, even deadly, femme fatales manipulate and entrap the male characters, at times being in complete control of the men. Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct and Linda Fiorentino in The Last Seduction are promiscuous yuppies who reject domesticity. In erotic thrillers, power dynamics are subverted as femme fatales take controle over stupid men.

The femme fatale of erotic thrillers took shape against the backdrop of the "neosexual revolution," "a tremendous cultural and social transformation of sexuality during the 1980s and 1990s”. Feminist movements of the 1960s and 1970s resulted in greater socioeconomic opportunities for women of the 1980s; thus, the femme fatales in erotic thrillers embody male anxieties over women's economic independence. Although these female characters wielded agency and power, they were usually limited to using their bodies and sexuality as weapons. Furthermore, some films saw the male protagonist ultimately triumph over the femme fatale, subduing the threat she represents.

The fall guy

The counterpart to the femme fatale is the "fall guy"—a man who is easily manipulated by the femme fatale. The fall guy is often sexualized himself, with some films featuring full-frontal male nudity in addition to female nudity, as in the films American Gigolo, Color of Night, and Wild Things. The fall guy usually works in a white-collar occupation.

1980s-1990s: Classic period

William Friedkin's Cruising and the aforementioned Dressed to Kill and Body Heat arguably ushered in the Golden Age of the erotic thriller at the beginning of the 1980s. The next few years saw a flood of titles, including Body Double (1984), Jagged Edge (1985), and 9½ Weeks (1986). Fatal Attraction in 1987 was seen as the first visible success in the genre, as it was a critical and commercial hit. The film was a mixture of psychological thriller action with brief scenes of softcore sex and illicit romance. Spending eight weeks in the No. 1 spot at the box office, Fatal Attraction grossed more than $320 million worldwide, making it the biggest film of that year. Hoping to repeat the film's success, Hollywood studios released a spate of erotic thriller films over the next several years, including The Hot Spot (1990), Presumed Innocent (1990), Shattered (1991), Sleeping with the Enemy (1991), A Kiss Before Dying (1991), Consenting Adults (1992), Single White Female (1992), Love Crimes (1992), Unlawful Entry (1992), Poison Ivy (1992), Final Analysis (1992), Malice (1993), The Crush (1993), Indecent Proposal (1993), The Last Seduction (1994), and Color of Night (1994).

Basic Instinct, directed by Paul Verhoeven and written by Joe Eszterhas, was released to great success and controversy in 1992. Featuring overt sexuality and violence, including a plot depicting a bisexual woman as a murderous psychopath, the film is seen as the apotheosis of the genre. Though it received mixed reviews, it was a significant box office smash as it grossed $352 million worldwide. Sliver attempted to duplicate this success—with the same screenwriter, Eszterhas, and star, Sharon Stone—the following year. Though Sliver fared even worse with critics, it also opened at No. 1 at the box office. Disclosure, directed by Barry Levinson, was met with considerable success in 1994. The film—which concerns a computer specialist (played by Michael Douglas, his then third film of the genre) who is sexually harassed by his female superior and former lover (played by Demi Moore)—grossed $214 million against its $50 million budget.

Cultural factors

The popularity of the erotic thriller during the 1980s and early 1990s has been said to reflect the cultural fear of AIDS, as the rise of the genre overlapped with the early years of the epidemic.

Post-classic period

1995 is seen as the hypothetical endpoint for the classic period of erotic thrillers, as that year saw the major box office flops of two anticipated big-budget features, Showgirls and Jade, both written by Eszterhas. Though Showgirls does not readily qualify as an erotic thriller, it was a heavily hyped re-teaming of Eszterhas with Basic Instinct director Verhoeven, whose reputations as pioneers in the genre preceded the film. Jade, directed by William Friedkin and starring Linda Fiorentino in the femme fatale role, earned only $9,851,610 at the North American domestic box office. These films’ critical and financial disasters led to the dismissal of erotic thrillers—and similar films with risqué content—as a studio risk. Though Basic Instinct is seen as the pinnacle of the erotic thriller craze, some argue it also signaled the genre's demise. Writer Nicholas Barber opined the film “took every aspect of the erotic thriller to such outrageous extremes that there was nowhere left for any film in the same vein to go".

Some films of the mid-to-late 1990s were lauded for elevating the genre, despite not matching Basic Instinct’s commercial success. Canadian filmmaker Atom Egoyan’s The Adjuster, Exotica, and Chloe all trade on the audience’s perception of what an erotic thriller should be with their complexity and depth in plot. David Cronenberg’s Dead Ringers and Crash propel the genre into the near future, where sex, obsession, and erotic desire are played out in hypermodern settings mediated by potentially destructive technologies.

Bound (1996), the Wachowski siblings’ directorial debut, was the first major film of the genre to feature a lesbian relationship after Basic Instinct. However, unlike Basic Instinct, which was heavily criticized for its negative depiction of lesbians and bisexuals, Bound was praised for offering a realistic portrayal of a lesbian relationship that did not feel crafted for the male gaze. Other films that were commended for their subversion of common erotic thriller tropes were Gus Van Sant’s media satire To Die For (1995) and David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive (2001).

1999’s Eyes Wide Shut was another high-profile film of the late 1990s due to its famed director Stanley Kubrick and its stars (then couple Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise). Though it contained elements of the erotic thriller genre, some critics found its self-serious tone and arguably conservative message were a departure from the thrills and entertainment of films of the classic period.

Decline in popularity

The turn of the 21st century saw the erotic thriller genre as all but dead. One of the foremost reasons cited for the death knell of the genre's heyday is the Internet.

Further developments of the genre

With few mainstream erotic thrillers being made in the United States or the UK today, many films of the genre have been relegated to the European and Asian art-house cinema. and the South Korean film The Handmaiden (2016). Paul Verhoeven premiered his French-language erotic thriller Benedetta at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival.

The 2000s and 2010s saw erotic thriller films with non-white lead actors, such as Obsessed (2009), The Boy Next Door (2015), and When the Bough Breaks (2016). Unforgettable (2017), which starred Rosario Dawson as a co-lead, was written and directed by women. Although the Fifty Shades film series was anticipated to revive the genre, the films were widely panned as lacking chemistry and sparked criticism for the depiction of BDSM and consent.

As television has flourished as an art form, many have argued the graphic sex scenes that were previously limited to the erotic thriller have migrated to TV shows on premium cable channels and streaming services. Netflix's Bridgerton, HBO's I May Destroy You and Euphoria, and Hulu's Normal People have all featured graphic scenes of nudity. Current erotic thriller films include The Voyeurs (2021), a film in the vein of the voyeuristic erotic thriller, as well as the 2022 films Deep Water (directed by genre pioneer Adrian Lyne) and Don't Worry Darling (directed by Olivia Wilde).

Notable erotic thrillers

1980s

• Dressed to Kill (1980)
• Body Heat (1981)
• Cat People (1982)
• Crimes of Passion (1984)
• Body Double (1984)
• Blue Velvet (1986)
• Angel Heart (1987)
• Fatal Attraction (1987)
• Sea of Love (1989)

1990s

• Internal Affairs (1990)
• Sleeping with the Enemy (1991)
• Basic Instinct (1992)
• Blown Away (1992)
• Poison Ivy (1992)
• Single White Female (1992)
• Body of Evidence (1993)
• Boxing Helena (1993)
• The Crush (1993)
• Sliver (1993)
• Color of Night (1994)
• The Last Seduction (1994)
• Devil In a Blue Dress (1995)
• Jade (1995)
• Bound (1996)
• Crash (1996) - A husband is in an open marriage. One day he is involved in a car accident in which the passenger in the other car is killed. While seeing the exposed breast of the surviving driver, they both get aroused and subsequently begin an affair, but one which involves recreating their experience in the smashed car.
• Wild Things (1998) - A high school guidance counselor is accused of rape by two female students. It turns out that the three had been working and sleeping together, and planned to split the settlement money. A detective enters the plot to tell them that the male conspirator had already transferred the money to an off-shore account and one girl panics. The girls have sex, but nevertheless the other girl decides with the male conspirator to eliminate her. The detective kills the other female conspirator; and later it is revealed that the detective was working with the male conspirator.
• Eyes Wide Shut (1999; although partly marketed as such, this film's status as an "erotic thriller" has been challenged. See Eyes Wide Shut genre and marketing)

2000s

• Quills (2000)
• Unfaithful (2002)
• In the Cut (2003)
• Killing Me Softly (2003)
• Swimming Pool (2003)
• Murder (2004)
• Basic Instinct 2 (2006)
• Lust, Caution (2007)
• Chloe (2009; theatrically released by Sony Pictures Classics on March 26, 2010)

2010s

• The Housemaid (2010)
• American Horror Story (2011–present)
• Passion (2012)
• Jism 2 (2012)
• The Canyons (2013)
• Plush (2013)
• Enemy (2013)
• In Secret (2014)
• Ragini MMS 2 (2014)

See also

• The end of the sexual revolution
• Stalking
• erotic film
• psychological thriller
• Erotica
• Erotic literature
• Eros and thanatos
• Film genre
• Hardboiled
• Stranger by the Lake

Bibliography

• Douglas Keesey
• The Erotic Thriller in Contemporary Cinema (2005) - Linda Ruth Williams