8. The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover (1989)
The first time I’d ever seen Peter Greenaway’s unforgettable The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover I remember thinking I’d never seen a film so raw, so lavish, and so fucking lewd. It was also the first time I recall seeing Helen Mirren in anything and I’ve been a fan ever since.
Without giving much away, Greenaway’s strangely romantic, sloe-stained comedy involves, as the title suggests, a cook (Richard Bohringer), a thief (Michael Gambon), his wife (Mirren), and her lover (Alan Howard) and wow, do their lives come to intersect in surprising, horny, ornery, and unfortunate ways.
While smashing every taboo under the sun and still being titillating nearly every step of the way, the film also manages to be, as Caryn James of the New York Times put it: “A work so intelligent and powerful that it evokes our best emotions and least civil impulses, so esthetically brilliant that it expands the boundaries of film itself.”
7. Bad Timing (1980)
Certainly Art Garfunkel isn’t the first name that springs to mind when you think of sex symbol, but that might not be the case if you’ve ever seen Nicolas Roeg’s scandalous X-rated mini-epic Bad Timing.
Expat American psychiatrist Alex Linden (Garfunkel) lives in Vienna and has a potentially dangerous sexual obsession with Milena (Theresa Russell).
Told in a nonlinear fashion, which is not unusual for Roeg, Bad Timing explores some upsetting places, and may read as experimental arthouse inanity for non-fans or those not so adventurous. But Roeg takes pains to detail the wistful and lascivious elements of an affair, how despairing people still hold powerful passions, and how some actions are too horrible to be easily or ever forgiven.
6. The Fourth Man (1983)
His final film before shuffling off to Hollywood, Dutch director Paul Verhoeven’s The Fourth Man couples black comedy with trashy titillation and repurposed Catholic imagery in this steamy and suspenseful adaptation of Gerard Reve’s 1981 novel, “De vierde man.”
Violent, gory, and brimming with sex, The Fourth Man stars Jeroen Krabbé as Gerard Reve, a hard-drinking novelist and Renée Soutendijk as Christine Halslag, his seducer and potential destroyer.
Intricate, paranoid, witty, repulsive, and incredibly erotic in turns, this is an unpredictable tour de force from Verhoeven that plays out, more or less, like a pulpier, punchier Basic Instinct precursor. Missing it wouldn’t be wise.
5. Eyes Wide Shut (1999)
The final film from Stanley Kubrick, Eyes Wide Shut weaves a sexy spell straight from the pages of Arthur Schnitzler’s 1926 novella “Traumnovelle” with additional work from Kubrick and co-writer Frederic Raphael.
This carnal nocturnal odyssey is set in New York City as Dr. Bill Harford (Tom Cruise) and his wife Alice (Nicole Kidman) comes into contact with a secret society fond of orgies and creepy Venetian masks.
There’s more to it all, of course, and nothing’s what it seems, as well, and while the glacial pace and ambiguity may put some viewers off, there are rich rewards for the patient viewer.
It’s rare that a film create so vivid a dreamlike atmosphere, and that such famed A-listers as Cruise and Kidman present themselves so vulnerably, so raw, and so ribald, as if the dissolving marriage of their characters’ echoed their own. Who’s to say it didn’t?
4. Dressed to Kill (1980)
There’s good reason why Brian De Palma’s name keeps popping up throughout this list of outstanding erotic thrillers and Dressed to Kill is as sharp and explicit as it gets and still manages to keep its tongue firmly planted in its cheek all the while.
From its fetishized slo-mo opening with a soft-core flourish as housewife Kate Miller (Angie Dickinson) has a sudsy fantasy in the shower to her brutal Psycho-esque butchering––complete with vivid violin score––in an elevator before the first act has finished, this is a masterfully made symphony of sensuality and terror.
Eye witness Liz Blake (Nancy Allen), an unreliable escort, Kate’s intelligent teenage son Peter (Keith Gordon), and Kate’s eccentric psychiatrist Dr. Robert Elliott (Michael Caine) may hold the secret to Kate’s death.
Dressed to Kill dips into dark fantasy on several occasions, combining sensuality and danger at every turn, smashing taboos––gender dysphoria is portrayed with acrimony––and it’s all done with such wild and varying techniques and flourish that it will leave you gasping for air. A thrill.
3. Blue Velvet (1986)
David Lynch’s darkly disturbing Blue Velvet takes the seeming innocence of small-town America and parades sadism, sickness, and deviant sex at every voyeuristic about-face, of which it takes several.
The idyllic bliss of Lumberton, aka Lynchian middle America, is lurking horror for Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle McLachlan), the prodigal son returned home after his father’s stroke. He’s barely back in his old haunts before he stumbles upon a severed human ear in a bucolic field near his home and before you can say “you’re so fucking suave!”
Jeffrey’s path will intertwine with the wholesome teen Sandy Williams (Laura Dern), the seductive lounge singer Dorothy Vallens (Isabella Rossellini), and the dangerous psychopathic monster Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper).
With numerous nightmare sequences that are hard to forget, including a perverse Peeping Tom pretension in Dorothy’s closet, and a lip-synced Roy Orbison performance from Dean Stockwell, Blue Velvet is a shocking, symbolic, stylistic, and erotic tour de force. Arguably Lynch’s finest film, it certainly displays all of his oddities and affections, and makes for his most elusive and unforgettable narratives. Essential viewing.
2. Body Heat (1981)
This sweltering hot directorial debut from Lawrence Kasdan (The Big Chill) launched Kathleen Turner’s career while updating noir genre tropes in one of the most stylish erotic thrillers ever. Set during a relentless heatwave, bumbling lawyer Ned Racine (William Hurt) embarks on a lascivious affair with Matty Tyler Walker (Turner), the smouldering wife of an oblvious and very wealthy businessman (Richard Crenna).
While many of the story cues run like an X-rated variation of Double Indemnity––which isn’t a bad thing at all––the highly-charged results, suggestively softcore but also inventive and surprisingly erudite, make for a moody and imaginative neo-noir. The 1940s noirs that Body Heat takes pains to pastiche could never be this sexually provocative and libertine, which gives the genre a vigor which was previously only left to the imagination.
Kasdan’s visual daring and storytelling smarts also allows for some sparkling and telling dialogue, such as when Matty smartly and wittingly observes to Ned, “You’re not too smart, are you? I like that in a man.”
1. Body Double (1984)
Brian De Palma gleefully toys with Hitchcockian themes of obsession and voyeurism in this erotically-charged overture, the subversive, sleek, and deliberately trashy Body Double.
Jake Scully (Craig Wasson) is a B-actor of bad horror films now fallen on hard times, His actor pal Sam Bouchard (De Palma regular Gregg Henry) takes pity on him and hooks him up with a house sitting gig at a ultra-modern home in the Hollywood Hills. Before you know it Jake is spying on his sexy neighbour who does salacious stripteases like clockwork each night, in front of her bedroom window, curtains wide open for easy peeping.
Using every stylish flourish in his expert attaché, the thriller that unfolds is bounteous with twists and turns, astonishing reveals, fearsome flashbacks, rakish innuendo, and mounting tensions. Body Double keeps piling on the peril and the panache and then unleashes a gobsmacking turn late in the film from Melanie Griffith as porn star Holly Body. Holly is somehow stitched into the labyrinthine yet airtight plot that keeps going too far.
As sleazy objet d’art and enjoyable escapist pleasure, Body Double is De Palma’s most indulgent delight. It just doesn’t get any sleeker, sexier, or risqué as this subversive chef d’oeuvre.
Author Bio: Shane Scott-Travis is a film critic, screenwriter, comic book author/illustrator and cineaste. Currently residing in Vancouver, Canada, Shane can often be found at the cinema, the dog park, or off in a corner someplace, paraphrasing Groucho Marx. Follow Shane on Twitter @ShaneScottravis.