View all newsletters
Sign up to our newsletters

Support 110 years of independent journalism.

  1. The Staggers
2 May 2023

The erotic thriller has lost its sex appeal

Recent attempts to revive the genre, from Netflix’s Obsession to Paramount’s Fatal Attraction, are neither erotic nor thrilling.

By Anna Bogutskaya

Erotic thrillers should be – stay with me here – erotic. The genre was ubiquitous in the late Eighties and Nineties, with high-budget sleaze in Fatal Attraction (1987) and Basic Instinct (1992) and a lucrative side-Hollywood of direct-to-video productions such as Night Eyes (1990) and Animal Instincts (1992) that were cheaper, quicker and only one step removed from softcore porn. These films were steamy, but not obscene. They traded on pleasure and danger, revolving around illicit affairs, dangerous individuals, the possibility of prison or death not too far away from the best sex you’ve ever had.

Recently there has been a considered re-evaluation of the genre, the context of its production, and its legacy, through Karina Longworth’s “Erotic Nineties” season of her acclaimed podcast You Must Remember This. This critical revival goes hand in hand with an almost monthly online debate about the necessity of sex scenes in film, the declining horniness of cinema in general, and a glut of attempted revivals of the genre. Last year, Adrian Lyne tried it with Ben Affleck, Ana de Armas and a bunch of snails in Deep Water. It flopped. Netflix’s recent series Obsession, based on the novel by Josephine Hart, which had previously been adapted into the charged Louis Malle film Damage (1992), has been derided. Fatal Attraction, a genuine cultural phenomenon in its day, has been stretched into a ten-part limited series released on Paramount+ last week. Series adaptations of Presumed Innocent (1990) and Cruel Intentions (1999) are also on the horizon.

[See also: “Erotic dreams about a man half my age”: Sarah Ladipo Manyika reveals the value of pleasure]

Yet these attempted revivals have lost what made the genre so appealing. They’re giving us a lot of talking about sex, but the sex itself is hardly the selling point anymore. The stories are too self-aware, the sex scenes are bland and the chemistry between the leads is lukewarm at best. Without any heat, the sexual obsession that drives the genre doesn’t make sense. Why would you ruin your life for a half-hearted quickie in an alleyway? Under the guise of feminist reimaginings, the contemporary femme fatale has been made less wicked and more meek. Damaged, but in a hot way. In Obsession, we learn nothing about Anna except for a past trauma that, apparently, made her irresistible. Fatal Attraction has more room for Alex Forrest (played by Lizzy Caplan), fleshing out a character that became derisively known as the “bunny boiler” – but it’s still more interested in absolving its cheating leading man, Dan Gallagher (Joshua Jackson). These revivals seem to be confusing trauma with desire, as if its female characters are horny only because they’re damaged.

Back in the Nineties, the appealing opportunity to watch movie stars go at it in steamy sex scenes and view elevated porn movies in the privacy of one’s home ensured the genre thrived both at the box office and in the home video business. What can these current films and series show us that we haven’t seen already, and much more explicitly, on pop-up ads for porn sites? So far, all these nouveaux erotic thrillers suffer from a pathetic lack of thrill and build-up. Erotic cinema is built on titillation, and nobody making erotic thrillers today actually seems to be that interested in sex. The original wave of the genre was built on the allure of the forbidden. Now that we can access every conceivable form of pornography online, matched to our particular kinks, the erotic thriller must give us something beyond just flesh. Hyper-sexualised does not equal sexy.

Select and enter your email address Your weekly guide to the best writing on ideas, politics, books and culture every Saturday. The best way to sign up for The Saturday Read is via saturdayread.substack.com The New Statesman's quick and essential guide to the news and politics of the day. The best way to sign up for Morning Call is via morningcall.substack.com Our Thursday ideas newsletter, delving into philosophy, criticism, and intellectual history. The best way to sign up for The Salvo is via thesalvo.substack.com Stay up to date with NS events, subscription offers & updates. Weekly analysis of the shift to a new economy from the New Statesman's Spotlight on Policy team. The best way to sign up for The Green Transition is via spotlightonpolicy.substack.com
  • Administration / Office
  • Arts and Culture
  • Board Member
  • Business / Corporate Services
  • Client / Customer Services
  • Communications
  • Construction, Works, Engineering
  • Education, Curriculum and Teaching
  • Environment, Conservation and NRM
  • Facility / Grounds Management and Maintenance
  • Finance Management
  • Health - Medical and Nursing Management
  • HR, Training and Organisational Development
  • Information and Communications Technology
  • Information Services, Statistics, Records, Archives
  • Infrastructure Management - Transport, Utilities
  • Legal Officers and Practitioners
  • Librarians and Library Management
  • Management
  • Marketing
  • OH&S, Risk Management
  • Operations Management
  • Planning, Policy, Strategy
  • Printing, Design, Publishing, Web
  • Projects, Programs and Advisors
  • Property, Assets and Fleet Management
  • Public Relations and Media
  • Purchasing and Procurement
  • Quality Management
  • Science and Technical Research and Development
  • Security and Law Enforcement
  • Service Delivery
  • Sport and Recreation
  • Travel, Accommodation, Tourism
  • Wellbeing, Community / Social Services
Visit our privacy Policy for more information about our services, how New Statesman Media Group may use, process and share your personal data, including information on your rights in respect of your personal data and how you can unsubscribe from future marketing communications.
THANK YOU

We don’t need more flesh, we need more tension. If we’re not getting the pleasure, and we’re not getting the danger, what is the point?

[See also: Harry Wootliff’s True Things is a lacklustre tale of erotic obsession]

Content from our partners
The promise of prevention
How Labour hopes to make the UK a leader in green energy
Is now the time to rethink health and care for older people? With Age UK

Topics in this article : , ,
Select and enter your email address Your weekly guide to the best writing on ideas, politics, books and culture every Saturday. The best way to sign up for The Saturday Read is via saturdayread.substack.com The New Statesman's quick and essential guide to the news and politics of the day. The best way to sign up for Morning Call is via morningcall.substack.com Our Thursday ideas newsletter, delving into philosophy, criticism, and intellectual history. The best way to sign up for The Salvo is via thesalvo.substack.com Stay up to date with NS events, subscription offers & updates. Weekly analysis of the shift to a new economy from the New Statesman's Spotlight on Policy team. The best way to sign up for The Green Transition is via spotlightonpolicy.substack.com
  • Administration / Office
  • Arts and Culture
  • Board Member
  • Business / Corporate Services
  • Client / Customer Services
  • Communications
  • Construction, Works, Engineering
  • Education, Curriculum and Teaching
  • Environment, Conservation and NRM
  • Facility / Grounds Management and Maintenance
  • Finance Management
  • Health - Medical and Nursing Management
  • HR, Training and Organisational Development
  • Information and Communications Technology
  • Information Services, Statistics, Records, Archives
  • Infrastructure Management - Transport, Utilities
  • Legal Officers and Practitioners
  • Librarians and Library Management
  • Management
  • Marketing
  • OH&S, Risk Management
  • Operations Management
  • Planning, Policy, Strategy
  • Printing, Design, Publishing, Web
  • Projects, Programs and Advisors
  • Property, Assets and Fleet Management
  • Public Relations and Media
  • Purchasing and Procurement
  • Quality Management
  • Science and Technical Research and Development
  • Security and Law Enforcement
  • Service Delivery
  • Sport and Recreation
  • Travel, Accommodation, Tourism
  • Wellbeing, Community / Social Services
Visit our privacy Policy for more information about our services, how New Statesman Media Group may use, process and share your personal data, including information on your rights in respect of your personal data and how you can unsubscribe from future marketing communications.
THANK YOU