Basic Instinct (1992)
Directed by Paul Verhoeven
Amid echoes of Hitchcock and Argento, Verhoeven’s tale of sex, drugs, rock ‘n’ roll—and blood-sodden icepicks—is lurid and orgasmic. What the film lacks in substance, it makes up for with audaciousness, particularly in Sharon Stone’s brainy, bisexual heiress, Catherine Tramell. When her musician boyfriend turns up murdered the same way she’s penned in one of her novels, dipsomaniac Detective Nick Curran (Michael Douglas) interrogates Tramell, which leads to a hodgepodge of sexual depravity and murder; each of the characters is a deviant, and their pruriences seem tangled. Jan De Bont’s camerawork entices onlookers to strew themselves within this web of overzealous, dangerous liaisons—where fantasy and reality don’t seem to exist. Samantha Vacca (Apr 17, 4:15pm, 9:30pm at BAM’s “The Vertigo Effect”)