Basic Instinct Blu-ray Review

The iconic erotic thriller Basic Instinct is the latest film to be given a new home release by Studio Canal. Once again Studio Canal shows they put a lot of effort into their re-releases.

Nick Curran (Michael Douglas) is a homicide detective who is assigned a case involving the murder of a man who was killed during the act of lovemaking. The prime suspect is Catherine Tramell (Sharon Stone), a novelist who was the victim’s girlfriend and had written about a murder that played out the same way. As the police investigate Nick gets close to the suspect who seems to know a lot about the detective.

Basic Instinct was one of the biggest hits of 1992 and one of the most successful erotic thrillers. Even people who haven’t seen the film know some of the famous scenes i.e. Catherine’s police interrogation. It was the film that made Sharon Stone a star. It was, and still is, a cultural touchstone.

It was a shocking film because of its scenes of sex and violence. The film opens with a provocative scene with two characters having sex and ending in a horrific murder involving an ice pick. This was hardly a surprise considering the director was Paul Verhoeven, a filmmaker who was known for pushing boundaries. He was also known for making entertaining sci-fi films and brought that energy to Basic Instinct. He was able to do that with the violence, sex, and chase scenes. He ensured that there was a lot of tension during the sex scenes because it looked like it could turn into a murder.

Verhoeven had a great team working with him. The cinematographer was Jan de Bont who was famous for working on Die Hard before becoming a successful director himself. The music was composed by the legendary Jerry Goldsmith. This team was able to heighten the tension and suspense. The interrogation was filmed with tight close-ups which gave the scene an off-kilter feel to it. Goldsmith’s music added to a feeling of tension, especially during the sex scenes.

Basic Instinct aimed to be a Hitchcockian style thriller. The film had some of the same tropes of Hitchcock’s thrillers. It had a femme fatale and centred around a mystery of the suspect really did do the crime. The setup of Basic Instinct would have enticed Hitchcock if he was alive in the ‘90s. Basic Instinct even shared the setting with Vertigo, the city of San Francisco.

Catherine Tramell was the ultimate femme fatale: she was beautiful, seductive, and was willing to use sex as a weapon. She was able to trap men in her web. The thrust of Basic Instinct was Nick believing Catherine was the murder suspect and Catherine using her methods to persuade him otherwise. It was a role that deservedly turned Sharon Stone into a star because her character was cunning, and the actress relished the role. As a Bond fan, I can’t help but think Basic Instinct was an influence on Goldeneye. As stated Basic Instinct started with murder during intercourse, and in Goldeneye the henchwoman Xenia Onatopp used her thighs of death to kill men.

However, Basic Instinct has issues. After the initial 30 minutes Basic Instinct lost a lot of momentum. It turned from being an investigation about a murder to a slower story about Nick’s obsession with Catherine and their ‘relationship.’ The film was protested by the LGBT community because it had a villain who was bisexual. Looking at it with modern eyes the portrayal of other sexuality was pretty tame because Catherine was a character who manipulated everyone around her and Nick, who was heterosexual, was far from sympathetic.

The most uncomfortable scene in the film was when Nick was with Beth Garner (Jeanne Tripplehorn) in his apartment. They have a love scene that turned into rough sex and the way it was portrayed it was like a borderline rape scene. The aim of the scene was to show Catherine’s corruption of Nick, but it was unpleasant to watch Nick ripping off Beth’s underwear and bending her over an armchair.

Basic Instinct was one of the better erotic thrillers due to the talent that was involved and having an intriguing storyline. It does work as a twisty mystery as well as a black widow story.

Special Features: The Blu-ray re-release came with a number of features. Disc One has two commentaries and a 50-minute documentary about the production, casting and the impact the film had on Sharon Stone. The second disc has a 30-minute featurette of the making of the film which included the backlash from the LGBT community, cast and crew interviews, comparisons between the scenes and the storyboards, and the actors’ screentests.