The reprehensible character of Michael Douglas’ Nick Curran was intended as an audience surrogate, the good guy of a big-budget thriller, simply because he was a straight, white, male cop.
If you would like a quick snapshot of how much the tastes of the moviegoing public have changed in the past 30 years, reflect on this. The biggest film of March 1992 was Basic Instinct, an erotic thriller featuring an established movie star in explicit onscreen couplings with a sexy up-and-comer.
It arrived in theaters preceded by months of controversy and hype, became the hot topic around water coolers and in newspaper editorials, and grossed an astonishing $352 million worldwide.
This month, on the other hand, sees the [long-delayed] arrival of Deep Water, an erotic thriller featuring an established movie star in explicit onscreen couplings with a sexy up-and-comer. Despite its tabloid-friendly stars and the return, after a 20-year absence, of director and erotic-cinema specialist Adrian Lyne [Fatal Attraction, 9 1/2 Weeks], Deep Water did not even receive a theatrical release, and has instead been quietly added to the Hulu streaming service.
It is hard to reconcile the markers of commercial and cultural ubiquity in 2022 — “four quadrant” appeal, family-friendly rating, recognisable IP — with the success of Basic Instinct, an unapologetically R-rated parade of sleaze that was also accused of misogyny and homophobia.
It had been a controversial property throughout its production. Joe Eszterhas [screenwriter of ’80s sensations such as Flashdance and Jagged Edge] had sold this story of a cop on the trail of a kinky serial killer to indie studio Carolco for a record $3 million in 1990, only to noisily depart the project over creative differences with the director of the film, Paul Verhoeven.
The scribe claimed that “Verhoeven’s intention is to make Basic Instinct as a sexually explicit thriller,”…