Among the darker pleasures of moviegoing is the spectacle of men and women enacting scenarios that link illicit sex and less-than-accidental death, sensational events few have experienced but for which some may, perhaps, secretly hunger. Restrictions on what could be shown or spoken yielded decades of film classics that required reading between the lines. But once those cinematic taboos were broken, filmmakers actively pushed the censorship envelope, daring actors to disrobe and dissemble, and holding up a mirror to audiences’ changing mores. By the 1990s, the erotic thriller was a genre and a cottage industry unto itself. In looking forward to the Valentine’s Day release of François Ozon’s delirious psychosexual mystery Double Lover, the Quad turns up the heat with a torrent of risky couplings, deadly obsessions, bad girls, worse guys, criminal behavior, and bodies either heading for each other or heading for the morgue.
Angel Heart Alan Parker, 1987, US/UK/Canada, 113m, 35mm
Basic Instinct Paul Verhoeven, 1992, US/France, 127m, 35mm
Black Widow Bob Rafelson, 1987, US, 103m, 35mm
Body Double Brian De Palma, 1984, US, 114m, DCP
Body Heat Lawrence Kasdan, 1981, US, 113m, 35mm
Body of Evidence Uli Edel, 1993, US/Germany, 99m, 35mm
Bound The Wachowskis, 1996, US, 108m, DCP
Cat People Paul Schrader, 1982, US, 118m, 35mm
Cruel Intentions Roger Kumble, 1999, US, 97m, 35mm
Double Indemnity Billy Wilder, 1944, US, 107m, 35mm
Dressed To Kill Brian De Palma, 1980, US, 105m, DCP
Fatal Attraction Adrian Lyne, 1987, US, 119m, DCP
Femme Fatale Brian De Palma, 2002, France/Switzerland, 114m, 35mm
The 4th Man Paul Verhoeven, 1983, Netherlands, 102m, 35mm
In the Cut Jane Campion, 2003, US/Australia/UK, 119m, 35mm
Jade William Friedkin, 1995, US, 95m, DCP
Poison Ivy Katt Shea, 1992, US, 89m, 35mm
Single White Female Barbet Schroeder, 1992, US, 107m, 35mm
Tightrope Richard Tuggle, 1984, US, 114m, 35mm
Trans-Europ-Express Alain Robbe-Grillet, 1966, France/Belgium, 105m, 35mm
Unfaithful Adrian Lyne, 2002, US/Germany/France, 124m, 35mm
Vertigo Alfred Hitchcock, 1958, US, 128m, DCP
Year of the Jellyfish Christopher Frank, 1984, France, 110m, DCP
Double Lover
Opens Weds February 14
François Ozon, France, 107m, DCP
Adapted from Joyce Carol Oates’ 1987 short story, François Ozon’s suspenseful and mind-wrenching psychodrama is a kaleidoscope of kinky eroticism and cinematic double takes that raises the stakes of the classic erotic thriller. Marine Vacth (Young & Beautiful) plays an intense Parisian museum guard who begins a steamy affair with her psychiatrist Jérémie Renier (Criminal Lovers). It’s all amour and jouissance—until she thinks she spots him with another woman, pitching her into a downward spiral of schizoid delirium. Featuring Jacqueline Bisset and the year's most outrageous opening shot.
Official selection: Cannes Film Festival
"Continuously surprising, ingeniously imaginative, always ahead of the awed and astonished viewer...brilliantly performed and directed."
— Joyce Carol Oates
"A deliciously twisted erotic thriller." —Variety
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