Their movies fed the appetites and egos of the era’s biggest box-office draws, from Bruce Willis to Demi Moore to Tom Cruise, who fumbled through an orgy in 1999’s naughty-illuminati opus Eyes Wide Shut. By then, the erotic thriller had matured into one of Hollywood’s most lusted-after genres, attracting high-end filmmakers like Verhoeven, Curtis Hanson, and even Aaron Sorkin. It was the most talked-about movie of 1992-which was already a sexed-up year thanks to the release of such smart, twisty tales as The Hand That Rocks the Cradle, Single White Female, and Poison Ivy. Basic Instinct inspired endless spoofs, countless knockoffs, and nonstop controversy. Their sexy apex arrived 30 years ago this month with the debut of Paul Verhoeven’s masterfully sleazy Basic Instinct, a film about a troubled cop (Michael Douglas) following the bloody trail of a salacious crime novelist (Sharon Stone). From 1980 to 2002-a sweaty heyday that starts with Richard Gere knocking boots in American Gigolo and ends with him knocking off his wife’s lover in Unfaithful-erotic thrillers dominated box-office charts and dinner-party conversations alike. Such a downswing would have once been unimaginable. The most recent semi-soft-core drama to pass the $100 million mark was 2018’s Fifty Shades Freed-and even that relatively tame film was a rarity for its time. But major studios, and major stars, have all but abandoned the kinds of stylish, titillating mysteries that were once a date-night staple. Sex hasn’t disappeared from theaters-there are racy moments in some of last year’s critically revered films, from Red Rocket to Titane to The Worst Person in the World. Still, the most shocking aspect of The Voyeurs may be that it was made at all. Even the film’s theme song, a gauzy cover of Billy Idol’s ’80s hit “Eyes Without a Face,” is a nod to the silk-sheet decadence of the era that inspired it. The Voyeurs has all the hallmarks of the genre-some skin, some sin, and a vengeful, no-one-saw- that-coming finale. In 2021, Mohan finally released an erotic thriller of his own: Amazon’s The Voyeurs, a lush peeping-tom story of a young couple (played by Euphoria star Sydney Sweeney and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom’s Justice Smith) who become obsessed with their exhibitionst neighbors. “ you end up arguing with the person you love about the characters’ decisions.” “The best of these films don’t leave everybody in the audience feeling the same way,” he says. By the time he was finished, Mohan had burned through nearly 50 titles while keeping a journal that noted their many fatal attractions and gonzo third-act twists. “It didn’t make sense that they went away,” he says.įor research, and for fun, Mohan began watching as many throwback thrillers as he could: everything from tawdry neo-noirs ( Sea of Love) to tense relationship dramas ( Indecent Proposal) to gnarly “blank-from-hell” movies ( The Temp). Mohan figured he wasn’t alone in mourning them. Those grown-up dramas ruled the ’80s and ’90s, only to vanish after the turn of the century. The Ex-Sex director became fascinated with steamy classics like Body Heat, Disclosure, and Jade-tales of infidelity and revenge featuring R-rated love scenes and A-list casts. Turns up in the genre, shit’s gonna get really weird.A few years ago, filmmaker Michael Mohan set out to revive a long-extinct Hollywood species: the erotic thriller. A professor and a grad student must work together to stop murders linked to mathematical symbols.
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