movie fiction
  • Basic Instinct
  • AKA:
    Ice Cold Desire
  • Author: Joe Eszterhas
  • Director: Paul Verhoeven
  • Producer: Mario Kassar
  • Year: 1992
  • Country: US
  • 127 minutes
Nudity
3
Sex
3
Violence
3
S&M
2
movie cover
Other images
Description:
Controversial, film noir-ish cop thriller about detective falling for sexy bisexual murder suspect. Oozing kinkiness from every pore, it's more for those seeking an erotic charge than for suspense-packed whodunit junkies.

QVamp says:

A dark thriller that showcases the start of GLBT outrage at negatively portrayed queer characters. GLAAD was up in arms about the portrayal of a bisexual woman being a killer.

The movie does showcase female empowerment, in a psychotic sort of way. The main character and her girlfriend are both stunning, but have more substance than existing solely for male titillation.

While this film is somewhat enjoyable, and fairly well-known, it was made, nevertheless, at a time where GLBT characters were only shown as evil, depraved monsters.

Rating
B
Queer Vampire Rating
B+
Amount of Queer Content
same-sex relationship
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User Ratings
By: condreye b.
Overall Rating: A Queer thriller Rating: B

I followed this movie's controversy with interest. 1992 was a big year for accusations of homophobia from the gay P.C. JFK and the feminist thriller Silence of the Lambs were dissected carefully in the Village Voice and elsewhere. But I didn't actually see B.I. until quite recently. Paul Verhoeven is a deadpan ironist whose sense of humor eludes many viewers.

There are scenes in B.I. that are as silly as anything in John Waters' canon - Wayne Knight leaning forward into the camera, the preposterously opulent sex scenes. What we have here is more like a Hitchcock film than anything else. The film is full of Hitchcock motifs, the second woman ( Jeanne Tripplehorn's Beth), the murder weapon as fetish and of course the cool blonde.