‘Sliver’ (1993) - and those other terrible 90s erotic thrillers

Here is the Classic Trailer

Sharon said her dead grandmother visited her in intensive care after her stroke. She told her not to move her neck. So Sharon used a teddy bear to hold her head in place. The next day she begged the doctors to do another exam and this time they found an artery in her upper back shredded like a straw that had gone through a garbage disposal, bleeding out into her tissue.

They had to insert 5 artificial coils to replace it.

Sliver was terrible. Even the actors said so. Try Basic Instinct, The Last Seduction, Angel Heart, The Grifters

I had a friend who worked at the publishing company where they filmed Sharon Stone's work scenes in Manhattan. When she came in to film, a PA bitchily told them whatever they were did, they were "not to look directly at Miss Stone." My friend said of course they ALL stared directly at her as much as they liked when she came in, since they knew of course they wouldn't be fired.

[quote]What were other films like this crap?

"Jade," starring David Caruso.

"9 ½ Weeks"

"Unfaithful"

"Fatal Attraction"

"One Night Stand"

Joe Eszterhas was the author of several of these screenplays (he also did "Showgirls," which is almost in this category). This was his big thing.

Oh I heard Miss Stone was a real piece of work after Basic Instinct shot her to stardom and then she was in Total Recall which was a blockbuster. She became huge.

Unfaithful was NOTHING like those others.

Unfaithful was just well done with great acting. Diane Lane was my Oscar pick that year.

Let's not forgot Madonna's timeless classic, "Body of Evidence"

Bound. Except, not terrible.

There is another Bound, with Charisma Carpenter. It’s awful.

Body Heat

Poison Ivy

Crash

Does Single White Female count?

Jagged Edge

Body of Evidence

Madonna’s “acting” always made me cringe in ‘Body of Evidence’

Not to be confused with Margot Kidder’s ‘Body of Evidence’

Fair Game, with Cindy Crawford/William Baldwin. I’m going to see this one day, the trailer made it look so good (I.e. cheesy bad)

R16 it’s not. It’s terrible. And she is an even worse actress than Madonna

When I think of erotic thrillers, I think of all those cable channels like Cinemax and Showtime that regularly featured crappy, softcore porn titles like Red Shoe Diaries, Night Rhythms, and Body Language. Then those started to infiltrate the theaters with titles like Two Moon Junction, 9 1/2 Weeks, Wild Orchid, etc.

I think most of this stemmed from the notion that sex in the mid-80s had become dangerous. Yes, sex was fun, but now sex can be deadly.

[quote]Unfaithful was NOTHING like those others.

I agree. Diane Lane was nominated for an Oscar for her performance.

Oh man, Jade takes the cake! Thanks for the reminder, R5. I have a distinct memory of going to the movie theatre when The Tie That Binds in September 1995, and the trailers for Showgirls and Jade were attached (and so was the Strange Days trailer, which opened the same day as Jade, October 13). It's a good trailer, for sure.

Oops, I meant opened in September 1995. Here's the trailer for Strange Days. Although it's not technically an erotic thriller, the trailer is still spectacular.

I miss those movies, at least people were horny and fucking back then. Movies today (especially superheroes films) are devoid of sex and intimacy.

intersting that R5 picked a bunch of movies that are shitty in their own ways, but all are from very well respected directors (at least in some points in their careers). HOW DID THIS GET MADE just did an episode on JADE.

Did they, R23? I must watch it! I remember how sleazy I felt watching that movie, especially when Trina grinds her heel into that dude's crotch. And I remember being very attracted to Chazz Palminteri's sleaziness. Man, that trailer is great.

Another Strange Days fan? I thought I was the only one. Very underrated (or possibly just not rated - most people I ask haven't even heard of it) film. Juliette Lewis was perfect, never sexier. Also one of Ralph Fiennes best performances. Kiss at the end one of the most romantic I've ever seen. That trailer, above, makes it look shitty tho.

Michael Douglas starred in a few derivative thrillers after Basic Instinct. Disclosure is one of my favorite so bad it's good films. Unbelievable stupid, with a quaint virtual reality sidetrack. Demi Moore has devil hair in the film, she must have pissed the hairdressers off.

I know, it's crazy how Strange Days is not just underrated, it's almost totally unseen. I remember seeing that teaser trailer on some Canadian TV show, and being very aware of when it opened. It's a great movie, but trying to find anyone who has even heard of a $42 million dollar James Cameron-produced flick, when all it grossed was a sorry $7.95 million, is practically impossible.

Yes, one of Ralph's and Angela's best performances, and the soundtrack is incredible: it introduced me to Skunks Anansie, Tricky, Deep Forest and the one-two punch of Lori Carson's "Fall in the Light," followed by Peter Gabriel & Deep Forest's "While the Earth Sleeps" is amazing.

Goddamnit, I meant Skunk Anansie. I also discovered a number of artists on the Showgirls soundtrack, like My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult and Siouxsie and the Banshees. New Skin..

Angela as well, of course. I'm used to her being great. Whoever cast Strange Days got every role exactly right.

I was going to mention the soundtrack and then didn't, out of fear of sounding over-enthused ha ha. That final scene, the overhead shots, the floating confetti and Fall In The Light playing and then, as the credits begin to roll, fading into the Deep Forest track is chef's kiss perfection.

Another favourite scene? Fiennes character watching Faith perform, the longing on his face, the sadness, ugh he was so excellent in that sad sack role.

I need to watch it again. It's one of those movies that leaves you feeling all hopped up. I remember the first Matrix movie doing that to me as well. Oh and Katherine Bigelow directed! How tf is is not better known? I mean, I guess it bombed at the box office (I didn't see it until a few years later)?

I remember getting grounded because my dad caught me watching Final Analysis when I was 10. At the time, Batman was one of my favorite movies and I had a little crush on Kim Basinger.

She played the wife of an abusive man (Eric Roberts), and Richard Gere plays her sister's (Uma Thurman) psychiatrist, with whom she begins an affair.

R27 You're not that west coast Canadian poster with the trans kid, are you?

Eyes wide shut. That was in usual rotation among the movies my roommate went crazy for. It was he who rented us Sliver when we were in HighSchool.

R30, that movie is so bad/good, especially with the plot of murder under the influence of cough syrup.

I will always have a thing for Sliver, both the real estate and William Baldwin’s ass turn me on.

As a young gayling in the 90s, let me tell you, those terrible pervy thrillers were ESSENTIAL if you wanted to see hot guys in the raw and simulating sex. SLIVER alone is worth it for the beauty of a young William Baldwin who pounds Sharon Stone in a couple of insanely hot scenes, including one when he takes her from behind. Ditto for FINAL ANALYSIS, JADE (I had a weird crush on David Caruso), SHOWGIRLS (I mean, Kyle M back then...)

R22 R34 YES! I remember these movies, and the soft-core stuff on Showtime, HBO and Cinemax. It was basically the only way to see the closest thing to porn before we had access to the internet. And the fact that I was always looking at the men, instead of the women, was the beginning of it all. LOL!

But yeah, it almost feels like the 80s and 90s were a bit grittier and sexier when it came to entertainment. Even if the content was cheesy and campy at times. Not to say there isn't graphic stuff out there today, but it almost feels like post 2000s mainstream entertainment actually became more conservative. As much as culture as supposedly progressed, it's all so devoid of sex.

Looking back, Jagged Edge looks like a "seminal" precursor to this genre. It was a hit and Joe Eszterhas' first film of this kind (I watched it a few years ago and found it so unfortunately limp and bland). It also starred Jeff Bridges, who was in The Morning After a year later. Glenn Close would then star in what might be a film that helped get this genre financed for a decade, Fatal Attraction. Adrian Lyne would go on to direct Indecent Proposal and Unfaithful. He has Deep Water coming out next year with Ben Affleck (which I kind of want to see!). Fatal Attraction also had Michael Douglas, of course, who would go onto Basic Instinct, Disclosure, and A Perfect Murder. He was the perfect "persecuted white male" prototype. Richard Gere seemed to attract projects like this as well (Final Analysis, etc).

Eszterhas' pairing with Stone in Basic Instinct led to Sliver. And Linda Fiorentino's performance in The Last Seduction led to her getting paired with Eszterhas in Jade. Last Seduction's director John Dahl also did Unforgettable, Kill Me Again, and Red Rock West (not all bad). Eszterhas wrote the screenplay for Jessica Lange's Best Actress nomination for The Music Box (!). Costa-Gavras directed it, along with Betrayed with Debra Winger (who was in Black Widow), which was released in 1988, but certainly a terrible erotic thriller (with some interesting social commentary that resonates today!).

Billy Baldwin's bare butt in Silver.

I never found Billy Baldwin good looking but he was incredibly charismatic and sexy in Sliver.

Jade was intended to make Fiorientino the household name Stone is and Caruso a big sexy movie star. I remember seeing the film in theater with an exasperated audience who laughed and sucked their teeth. So bad it's bad.

My mom and stepdad loved Jade. Idk why but they did. They even bought the vhs

Internet porn basically killed this genre. All the Skinemax softcore movies were done when that happened.

The skinemax movies were still a thing up to a decade ago.

Most households didn’t have a computer yet when this genre died by 1997.

I thought the soft core cable porn movies lasted until the early 2000s

R43 no. They exited the adult entertainment game in 2018. Here is an article.

I actually saw Sliver in the theatre--best laugh out loud moment was when SS and BB were at dinner and she removed her panties under the table and threw them in his face, saying "I win".

As another poster said upthread, I think these movies were a backlash against the 80s uptight Reaganism/conservatism. Like see how naughty we are with our sexytime games? And you know all of those repressed Republicans got a thrill by seeing these movies. Us normals just laughed and thought they were campy and fun.

Omg not everything has to do with rebelling and politics. The reality is that a movie was made that was an adult thriller with a lot of sex and it became a box office hit. Studios saw this and wanted to bank in on that and made tons of them because they saw this could be profitable.

By the mid/late 90s these films were no longer making money so they stopped being made in mainstream media.

There is actually something quite inadvertently smart about Sliver. In an almost meta way, it barely functions as a thriller... until it decides to upend the usual ending of these things (good guy stops bad guy) with an ending where good guy (Stone's book editor) berates not-as-bad guy (Baldwin's digital perv). In a weird way, it's as if the movie is saying, "forget the conventional bad guys and murderers of yesterday.. the new evil are those who use Digital technology to manipulate others". Let's face it, most people in the 21st century are far more likely to fall prey to some on-line freak or scammer than some murdering book agent (Ala Tom Berenger). And now we're living in a world where we see that the truly evil people are the Baldwin-esque Mark Zuckerbergs.

Wasn’t there a different ending originally but test audiences hated it so much they rushed and changed the ending right before it was released? I remember reading about that.

Also, Baldwin and Stone loathed each other while filming, so much so that they both demanded that their scenes be filmed separately as often as possible.

They tried getting Johnny Depp to play Zeke but he refused. Then they tried Val Kilmer and he refused. They ultimately went with William Baldwin.

Also, the script originally called for full male frontal nudity, but William Baldwin changed his mind after the scenes had been shot so they cut all the frontal scenes out.

Everyone was terrible in Body Of Evidence. Not even Julianne Moore could save that film.

Is Sliver the movie where the ticked off film crew pissed in Sharon Stone's bath before filming the scene?

They also tried getting River Phoenix but he declined.

The original ending was that Zeke was the killer after all but it failed so miserably with test audiences they rushed and filmed alternate endings before releasing it. They ended up going with the one we see, and the writer of the script/screenplay hated the ending because he didn’t write it.

Saw body of evidence in a movie theater too, the theater was mostly empty save for a few of us M fans. Another so bad it's bad films.

I have a friend that tells a story of going to see Showgirls in a theatre in Hot Springs, Arkansas. She said an older couple sitting behind her HARUMPHED! and walked out after the first 15 minutes.

We still to this day laugh about that. What did they think they were paying to see?????

Eyes Wide Shut, The movie theater was packed with people who openly laughed and talked throughout. There was silence during the orgy scene. I was a die hard Kubrick Stan and couldn't wait to see this. Very disappointed.I was disappointed but I already knew Kidman and her ex starred in mostly bad movies, this wasn't an exception.

Well the movie would have been better had the studio not interfered r56

The visual quality makes it almost unwatchable, but this is surviving evidence of Sliver’s original ending. Not only is Baldwin the killer, but he and Sharon go plunging into a volcano in a helicopter.

Doubtful. Kubrick was ill and dying. Dying is a distraction to your project.

He was killed.

[quote]Also, the script originally called for full male frontal nudity, but William Baldwin changed his mind after the scenes had been shot so they cut all the frontal scenes out.

Sweet Jesus, that would've been amazing.

BTW, has anybody mentioned that the novel Sliver was based upon was by Rosemary's Baby author Ira Levin?

Mortal Thoughts was another one . Demi Moore and Glenn Headley both were good in an underrated movie.

There is a sex scene in Sliver that was the hottest thing 15 year old me had ever seen. Something that really hit me on that not-just-so-hot-I'm-sweating level but that teenaged 'this feels different and deeper I think this might be MY THING' level. I barely remember it now, only the vibe between the characters (she was vulnerable and upset, Baldwin's character was comforting but also sexually in charge). Watched it again a couple of years ago and although i still see why young me loved that scene so much it didn't have the same charge. That vibe is still my thing, to be clear, but I dunno, I guess I just had different/lower/not as refined by experience tastes back then.

I also vaguely remember seeing a movie where Michael Douglas runs across a room naked and nails a brunette woman from behind in one movement. Like there is not stopping to insert etc he just sort of run-penetrates her.

That sounds like Basic Instinct, an over the top, so bad it's good film.

Shannon Tweed was like the queen of the soft core porn movies on Skinemax during the 90s. It was funny, because she was pushing middle age and looked hard as nails, not the type you would think would be so successful in that genre.

[quote]no. They exited the adult entertainment game in 2018. Here is an article.

What we're talking about here are the soft core cheesy shit movies, those ended LONG before 2018. Once internet porn was everywhere, there was no longer any need for these movies. It was around the late 90s/early 2000s that that genre died out.

Final Analysis

R66 that doesn’t change that the stuff still got aired late at night up until a few years ago.

That article was talking about Real Sex and reality-type shows. The erotic thriller genre ended many years ago.

Nope r69

R69 erotic thrillers? Yes. SOFTCORE porn? No.

They aren’t the same

We're talking about the cheesy erotic thrillers, not softcore porn. Erotic thrillers were done when internet porn became commonplace. Movies like this one....

r68/r70 doesn't understand the assignment.

Demi Moore did The Juror with Alec Baldwin. It was interesting when I watched it as a teenager. Not sure what I would think watching it now.

Malice with Kidman and Baldwin is a well made thriller, suspension of belief required. It's not an erotic thriller but there is a lot of sex in it.

I watched The Juror recently, r74. It’s entertaining even if the plot is ridiculous. I can’t recall any erotic scenes though so it probably doesn’t fit with the theme here.

R72 yes. But you were talking about Skinemax, which was SOFTCORE porn. Not erotic thrillers.

I don’t have Cinemax but Showtime still shows softcore “adult programs” late at night

R78 yup. But don’t tell that person who claims it ended years ago. He may lose it.

[quote] has anybody mentioned that the novel Sliver was based upon was by Rosemary's Baby author Ira Levin?

It wasn’t one of Levin’s better books. I actually hoped the movie might improve the story but it managed to make it worse.

We're talking about cheesy erotic thrillers r79. The kind that starred Shannon Tweed. Not softcore porn.

Red Shoe Diaries was another staple of that era.

Some of these movies were absolutely pointless. It’s basically the deal, what stars and director can be put together that will justify a budget of so many dollars. Joan Didion wrote that criticizing a movie is pointless, it’s all about the deal memo.

[italic]Whispers In the Dark [/italic] with Annabella Sciorra and Jamey Sheridan.

People thought they were getting another Basic Instinct when they paid to watch Sliver. They even used the same score from BI in the trailer. I imagine there were a lot of people wondering why Sharon's character wasn't flashing cooch and stabbing men.

The films trailer was very straight forward.

I would love to see the the shot footage of Baldwin doing full frontal.

if anyone watched the sliver original ending at the youtube clip here, what's going on in that scene? Its clear she knows he's a killer and says she has footage to prove it, but what's up with flying into the volcano. it seems to be on purpose and she's giggling about it. im just really befuddled.

I haven't seen Sliver in ages but this thread makes me want to watch it again.

I couldn't watch the alternate ending, it bored me. Haven't watched the film in it's entirety either.

R86, you can see why original audiences did not like it. My best guess is that, like Michael Douglas at the end of Basic Instinct, she’d gone all in on “I’m in love with a killer/let go for the ultimate death thrill” scene. (In the original script of Basic Instinct, there’s no ambiguity, Cathrine Trammel is the killer and will ultimately off Michael Douglas).

Of course, the new ending of Sliver wasn’t any better. At the end when Sharon’s character yelled at Baldwin “Get a life!” someone in the audience reportedly yelled back “Get a movie!”

I love early 90’s erotic thrillers.

I would add “The Crying Game” to this genre. Even though it’s not erotic, I feel like it still fits that early 90’s era of taboo and shock value that erotic thrillers had going for it.

I would also add “Species”

It was the science fiction erotic thriller.

You watch the scene OP posted and you imediatelly understand why Madonna was so threathned at Stone.

There could only be one blonde slut in town!

I also love “Boxing Helena”

My parents rented "Sliver", and we watched it as a family. During the tub masturbation scene my mother kept saying "What is...what is she doing?" I was mortified.

I definitely knew. And I think she did too.

Anyway, that's my one memory of that film, and I haven't seen it since.

I BEGGED my babysitter to take me to see Sliver which had a single from it that I liked as a kid. I remember Sharon Stone fingering herself in that round bathtub and having one of those awkward laughs. Watching OP's trailer, they used the same soundtrack from Basic Instinct. I read the book, which was by Ira Levin, I believe a long time ago.

I think the two best erotic thrillers from that era was Fatal Attraction and Basic Instinct, both I still enjoy watching today.

I will give Body of Evidence a so bad, it's good award. "Ever watch animals make love?". Madonna just doesn't have Sharon's heat.

I like the 90's trailer for Basic Instinct. The music is good, it's sexy. Sharon Stone is stunningly beautiful. This was her star making role.

R96 we are more than aware of what made her a star dear.

R87 it’s on HBOMAX. Both Basic Instincts also

Night Eyes (1990) with Tanya Roberts and Andrew Stevens is really what started the huge glut of direct-to-video and Cinemax and Showtime. That movie was the highest renting tape for for a long time. Basic Instinct started the theatrical trend.

Tanya gave Shannon a run for her money for the queen of those movies. I think Shannon made more movies overall than Tanya did though. Shannon was very honest about why she made them. It was the only acting work she could get at the time and the money she made was pretty good.

Besides Andrew Stevens, there were other male actors who's career ran out of stream started to do them. Martin Hewett, for example, did several.

[quote] we are more than aware of what made her a star dear...flashing her pussy.

She was tricked into showing her beaver because the white from her panties was so blinding that it was ruining the shot and they promised her the audience wouldn't see.

R100 me neither. I bet it was her idea. She knew it would be shocking at the time. And it worked.

R99 I think Fatal Attraction started the theatrical trend.

Acter Craig Stepp did reveal his pendulous dong in one of those awful Shannon Tweed movies.

[quote] The skinemax movies were still a thing up to a decade ago.

Haven't glanced at the schedules for either for a very long time now but some years back I noticed they were taking regular XXX films editing out the hardcore and showing them as hard R.

As for Jade I liked that film. Fiorentino two sided character was interesting and Angie Everhart as an unglam junkie hooker was more effective then you'd expect. Richard Crenna as a villain was a nice change of pace. And besides anything else it was the first time I heard the music of Loreena McKennitt which I loved immediately.

Has anyone ever seen “Meridian: Kiss of the Beast”?

R104 yes, I was actually gonna mention that a lot of the late night “skinemax” movies were hardcore porn films with the hardcore edited out.

I saw a movie there that started Voodoo, a hetero porn star. I recognized him and then realized what they did. Show hardcore porn without the penetration and dicks. Aka now it’s softcore

Watching that Sliver scene at the restaurant in OP makes me realise that Baldwin wasn't that interesting and had a smugness that oversold what he had to offer.

He has kind of a punchable face similar to Brian Laundrie. I can't believe I found him attractive back in my teens.

The disgusted woman at the table nearby reminds me of Rob Reiner's mom in When Harry Met Sally. "I won't have what she's having!"

Why are we mentioning Brian Laundrie like he’s a celeb? He’s a murderer.

[quote] Why are we mentioning Brian Laundrie like he’s a celeb? He’s a murderer.

These things happen to even the most upstanding politically reliable types.. Don't be so judgmental.

Fun Fact: David Cronenberg was attached to direct Basic Instinct 2 back in 2000. He eventually left the project. At the time, there were rumors that he and Sharon Stone didn't get along, but he later claimed that he only backed out when the studio didn't want to hire the production team that he works with on most of his projects. I believe him because he's turned down multiple films for that reason.

R110 it’s true. They wouldn’t allow him to bring his own crew and cinematographer etc. so he backed out.

The Director of the sequel basically said she’s an impossible woman to work with.

R104 I'm a Jade defender too! There's a lot of good stuff in there, but it doesn't quite gel. I think if the screenplay had gone through a couple of more drafts it would've been something special.

The craptacular remake of [italic]A Kiss Before Dying [/italic] with Matt Dillon and DL fave Sean Young.

My favourites were “Basic Attraction”, “Fatal Proposal” and “Indecent Instinct”.

If these came out today, the titles would be more like

FtM ATTRACTION

and

BINARY INSTINCT

I remember talking to a guy I knew in Buffalo in 1993 or so. He said “I really like just bizarre strange movies.” I’m oh cool. Like art house foreign movies. French new wave, stuff like that?

He’s like “oh, like the movie Sliver”

Bye girl

R18 9 1/2 Weeks was not Skinemax, it was Adrian Lyne.

Andie MacDowe regrets turning down the film, now.

"Andie MacDowell regrets turning down the film, now."

I can only imagine the Glenn Close dubbing.

Why was Andie dubbed?

R119 - A reference to Glenn dubbing Andie's voice in Greystoke earlier in her career.

Because of Andie's southern drawl, I think.

Andie couldn’t do a British accent? Pitiful

Marc Singer in Body Chemistry gave me the vapors as a gayling. There was a scene where he's fucking some chick down a hallway and you see his naked ass and simulated orgasm.

[quote] Unfaithful was NOTHING like those others.

I agree it's much, much, much better. But it's still an erotic thriller.

Which one was the erotic 80's thriller with Kathleen Turner? Body Heat? My dad was so into Kathleen Turner when she was hot. Was she like the Sharon Stone of the 80's?

If anyone’s in the mood for a kind of 2021 take on these, check out a movie called The Voyeurs on Amazon Prime. It’s sexy and twisty and really reminded me of one of the better versions of these types. Don’t watch the trailer. It gives away too much.

I’ve never seen it but there’s one called Animal Instincts that starred Maxwell Caulfield and Mitch Gaylord that my young gay self was always curious about.

The infamous “Illegal In Blue” starring Stacey Dash and Dan Gauthier was another

I LOVED watching the Shannon Tweed movies when I was little. There was one where she plays a sexy psychiatrist and fucks the patients as a "surrogate". It was kind of hot, but that's all I had.

Another one is as “Traces of Red”, with the ludicrously-cast Jim Belushi (!) and Lorraine Bracco (!!) Seeing these two strenuously trying to generate sexual heat was a hoot!

r129 that sounds like a horror movie!

No love for the late Julie Strain, star of "Night Rhythms," "Sorceress," and "Virtual Desire"? The poor dear was incorrectly reported deceased in January 2020, then again in January 2021.

[Quote] I would also add “Species”. It was the science fiction erotic thriller.

If you're into tentacles 😄. I think Eve dies in the sequel by fellatio.

Color of Night, featured then A-List Bruce Willis in a lead role. Apparently nobody else saw this movie. Mention it and people will stare at you cross-eyed.

Another Strange Days fan here. What a great ending. I miss the 90s, so many of the films remind me of my late ex.

r133 People remember when you say its the movie with Bruce Willis' penis in the pool. It also has spectacular and zany cinematography. It's supposed to be a little goofy and fun. Anyone who watches it should see the director's cut.

The theatrical cut was supposed to disappear forever and somehow re-emerged to rent or buy online.

R135, I thought that it's gay villain was too creepy to make it fun, but you do remember the pool scene. As someone at the time said, no wonder Demi Moore is pregnant all the time.

Color of Night was close to the peak of Bruce Willis' sexy years, and he had insane chemistry with the female lead. I may or may not have watched certain scenes in that movie repeatedly and not for cinematic reasons.

Any other 90s favourites R134? Did you see the 90s Movies thread that was posted recently?

I don't know if this one counts, but the original Crash (1995), with Holly Hunter and about people turned on by car crashes (?!) was certainly an odd moment.

Color of night was supposed to make Jane March a star in the US after the lover made such a big splash but it never happened.

Dressed to kill and body double are good erotic thrillers. In the Cut was a bad one.

The straight to cable/late night cable movies of the early 90s initially starred c and d list actors who had some success in mainstream film/tv. Then they starting hiring struggling actors who had tried their hand at mainstream success and maybe got a line or two on a show or something like “hot girl/guy in car” blink and you’ll miss part in a film. Someone who worked on these films said the actors changed their names in the films quite a bit because they still thought the would make it and didn’t want the movie to show up on their IMDb credits.

In its death throes known porn stars were used in softcore programming and it finally died out.

Dressed To Kill is one of my favorite movies, it's so craptastic. It could never get made today.

"Jennifer 8" with Uma Thurman playing a blind girl and Andy Garcia as a cop is worth mentioning, as well as "Whispers in the dark" with Annabella Sciora as a shrink with some horny blonde lady as her patient and Alan Alda as the (spoiler alert) secret bad guy. Man, they would play the latter on cable CONSTANTLY in the mid/late 90s.036

Mention of Bruce Willis' penis made me suddenly think of Kevin Bacon's penis baring in "Wild Things". This was actually pretty good.

Also, this corny ass one. Richard Gere and Kim Basinger....I never watched it but I .get the feeling those 2 didn't generate a lick of chem

R129, Jim had a window, albeit a narrow one, of hotness.

The great thing about 90s erotic thrillers was that you got to finally see a good amount of naked male ass in a movie.

Unless it was Michael Douglas’s saggy ass

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

Angie Everhart was surprisingly good in Jade. When she failed to become a mainstream star, she tried her hand at being a star of direct-to-video erotic thrillers in the 2000s. I don't think she was very successful because a couple of years later, she was just doing reality shows. I always thought she might've found more success if she had embraced being an erotic thriller star when that genre was still hot.

Angie Everhart was also in the awesome Bordello of Blood.

Central air conditioning in 1993 - smell Miss Moneybags over here.

Sizzling!

Wasn’t Angie a supermodel?

Have to admit, “Jade” is kind of a guilty pleasure of mine, too — stylish silliness. David Caruso is no leading man, and Linda Fiorentino’s casting might have seemed like a great idea, but she exhibited none of the spark she showed so wonderfully in “The Last Seduction”. Like some of the posters above, I too thought Angie Everhart did nice work in the film.

I never understood why they pushed so hard to make David Caruso a thing. I think cheese-fest CSI:Miami was well suited for him, though.

Two Moon Junction with Sherilyn Fenn from 1988 springs to mind; haven't seen it in decades

R153 Yes.

Consenting Adults (starring DL fake Kevin Spacey) was the low-point of this genre.

The only thing I remember about Sliver is that Enigma song.

LOL, R151! That central air line jumped out at me in the “Sliver” trailer, too!

Was central air not common in the early 90s?

R161 in NYC? No.

I miss the less-erotic ones too, like Malice, The Game, The Hand That Rocks the Cradle, etc.

A movie called 'Whore 2' used to show late nights on our pirate Pay-Per-View. I remember thinking that I couldn't believe the original Whore was so good that there needed to be a Whore 2...

R164 The original Whore is hilarious!

R165, I never saw the original Whore, but the synopsis makes it sound like trashy fun!

R166 this is a sliver of the absolute comedic gem that is this movie:

R167, brilliant. LOL.

R163 none of those mentioned were erotic thrillers. Just thrillers.

[quote] Jane March a star in the US after The Lover

Jane March had a face like a rodent to me. I always thought she looked like a little mouse.

There are different categories of erotic thrillers to me. The Skinemax ones were low budget, bad script, bad acting but they had more sex and nudity. I haven't seen many of these actually.

A lot of the others are more neo-noir with people cheating and scheming and double-crossing each other. I think Body Heat in 1981 with Kathleen Turner and William Hurt was way ahead of its time and a blueprint for the film cycle that really had its heyday in the late 80s into the mid-90s.

A couple that haven't been mentioned that I've seen (Amazon Prime) in the recent past are Dream Lover (1993) with James Spader and Madchen Amick. You can see Madchen's minge if you like that kind of thing. And Spader's butt makes an appearance, of course. Shattered (1991) with a hot rugged Tom Berenger and Greta Scacchi is another one.

I find these movies extemely watchable whether they are well done or unintentionally hilarious (like Body of Evidence).

R170 the Skinemax ones were SOFTCORE porn. Not theatrical erotic thrillers

I agree r171. Some posts up above mentioned them. Sorry, should have clarified, that's a whole other genre though some of them might have some thriller elements. Again sorry, should have left that out of my post.

Wild Side (1995) was a strange one. A pre-Ellen Anne Heche plays Alex, banker-by-day/hooker-by-night. She's raped by a dirty cop (Steven Bauer) who enlists her to hook up with Christopher Walken (in one of his strangest roles). She winds up falling for Walken's wife (Joan Chen) and getting into lots of trouble.

Director Donald Cammell committed suicide shortly after the studio fucked up his film. Wild Side is not perfect, but it's stuck with me.

R173 I've never seen it, but that movie has a following among film geeks.

Not the 1990s but not long after it anyone remember an erotic thriller starring Joseph Fiennes and Heather Graham set in London in 2002 I think? He was hot butt naked!

The movie Sliver was terrible but the soundtrack was fantastic. All my lesbian uni friends loved it.

r175, a terrible film but they both look good.

I used to have a crush on Joseph Fiennes

Why can’t you talk about the Timothy Hutton film which I was BRILLIANT in and it was not well SOLD in this COUNTRY? Why can’t you talk about POSITIVE THINGS?

[quote]r53 They also tried getting River Phoenix but he declined.

Lucy was going to play Billy Baldwin’s role in Sliver, but Gary talked her out of it.

[quote]r104 it was the first time I heard the music of Loreena McKennitt which I loved immediately.

Basic Instinct has the best music. Sometimes they play this in the background on that Art fraud series (“Fake or Fortune”?) and I think, “What IS that??”

The Temp is coming to bluray next year from Shout/Scream Factory. I'm not counting on a commentary track from La Dunaway

A Perfect Murder was a good too

Chitty Chitty BANG BANG gets me hard.

A Perfect Murder wasn’t erotic

R175 That's Killing Me Softly, not to be confused with Killing Them Softly, the crime movie starring Brad Pitt.

Sliver would've been so much better with a different leading man.

R181 It's so jarring when scores show up in a different context than what you associate them with. Some years ago, there was a commercial for eyeglasses that used the score from the movie Badlands in it.

The likes of [i]Poison Ivy[/i] with 16 year old Drew Barrymore and silver Fox Tom Skerrit was the younger sibling to these movies.

Did anyone want to see Tom Skerritt’s geriatric bare ass boning Drew Barrymore, though? That was an UNerotic thriller

Oooh remembered another one...a sort of teen-ish version but it was actually not terrible and kind of hot

Me and my sister were obsessed with that movie r191

Its not an erotic thriller, at least barely one.

Probably already mentioned but Blown Away was the true teen version of the genre. I watched it so many times to see Corey Haim’s bare ass. With Nicole Eggert, Corey Feldman and 90210’s Kathleen Robertson

R193 I remember when that came out and I wanted to see it (I was 6) because it had Nicole Eggert and Cory Haim but obviously I wasn’t allowed to lol

r186 thats the one! thank you!Some brilliant sex scenes inside the house but not in the bedroom in that film!

[Quote] Did anyone want to see Tom Skerritt’s geriatric bare ass boning Drew Barrymore, though? That was an UNerotic thriller

Which is the one thing i could appreciate about those silly sequels. Seeing Johnathan Schaech getting his ass eaten by Alyssa Milano was great.

[quote] Seeing Johnathan Schaech getting his ass eaten by Alyssa Milano was great

Jealous!

Yes, we need to make a distinction between movies that were basically direct-to-video (Poison Ivy, Blown Away with the Coreys, etc) vs. those big budget Hollywood productions that usually involved the likes of Joe Esterhazy. The latter were the ones with Sharon Stone, Michael Douglas, Madonna, etc., highly publicized with big name directors and trying to ride the same big commercial wave of success that movies like Fatal Attraction had indicated there was an eager adult audience for. Basic Instinct was the biggest - maybe the only true - breakout out of all of these. In fact, when you look back, most of the rest of them were commercial disasters (Sliver, Jade, Body of Evidence, Color of Night, etc.) The Poison Ivy series and movies of those ilk were aimed at horny teens for home video. The Basic Instinct trend was wagering that the adult moviegoing audience was ready for these kinkier, more explicit movies. When that trend turned out to not have the financial sizzle it had anticipated, Hollywood retrenched and sadly mainstream studio movies became much more prudish - even sexless - ever since.

Sliver was a box office success. You’re looking at these films with modern day lenses r198.

Sliver made profit. It wasn’t that expensive and earned $116 million worldwide.

Actually I just read it cost $33 million to make Sliver, so it was expensive, but still made back it’s money

A 1993 article about the film from EW

Is Mr. Stepp a homosexual?

Class. No twat shots or titties falling out.

Damn, I need to find Color of Night again. I was 12 when I saw that movie, and naked Bruce Willis was catnip to me at that time. (I don't crush on Willis anymore, not like I did at that age.)

One of the things that I remember most, aside from the Bruce nudity, is the opening scene: lady is sitting at a bureau putting on lipstick. She then pulls out a gun and starts sobbing as she points it at her head. But oh no wait, now she's fellating the gun, as one does. Then she's in Bruce's office, blah blah blahing. I do remember the "your cocks pointing straight down to hell where you belong" line. Lady decides the view is nice from Bruce's office, and then flings herself through the plate-glass window, and falls, falls, falls forever, lots of shots of lady falling, until she explodes on the pavement below. Bruce, watching from his office, suddenly sees everything in black and white.

I remember the reveal of the strange creature named Richie, one of Bruce's patients, is actually Rose, the limber teenager Bruce has been fucking his brains out with. (12-year-old me thought this reveal was amazing; 12-year-old me wasn't as well versed in obviousness.)

I remember Rubén Blades playing a detective, shouting "you fucking daffodils!" at people.

But what I remember most is Lauren Christy's "The Color of the Night," and I remember the instrumentals that played while Bruce was fucking Rose (I know her character isn't actually a teenager), and it sounded so romantic to 12-year-old me:

Once the internet took off and everybody could get unlimited amounts of porn in two seconds, the erotic thriller genre was no longer necessary and pretty much ended.

Oh, totally. But I do miss the brouhaha over which stars would be getting naked in their new films, and then to see their nudity displayed on big screens around the world was very enticing to me. That's why William Baldwin naked in Fair Game was a beacon for me. (Does he actually get naked? Or is that a double? I can't remember.)

Did anyone ever see Dream Lover with James Spader and Madchen Amick? A total B movie but I absolutely loved the ending.

Is that the one where he's in an insane asylum and she comes to visit him?

[quote] Has anyone ever seen “Meridian: Kiss of the Beast”?

Oh yeah, as a fan of both Twin Peaks and werewolf movies I had to see that one.

I was big into William Baldwin in the 90s, so Sliver, Fair Game, Shattered Image, and Curdled were very much my jam. Along with non-thriller movies like Backdraft and Three of Hearts that he bared ass in.

r204 Love that song. From same guy who wrote the score for The Stunt Man. Could have been one of the greats in scoring but i think he married a billionaire and didn't need to hustle. this score was a favor.

sorry meant to imply the color of night score and the adapted song were a favor. he was a working composer in the 70s. here is the faster version of the score that the dusty springfield song was adapted from

[quote] Disclosure is one of my favorite so bad it's good films.

My favorite line from it is after Demi Moore unsuccessfully tries to make him have sex with her in her office, and as he runs out, she shouts after him, "You come back here and finish what YOU started!!"

R208, I used to jerk off in high school to that scene in Thief of Hearts where he’s shirtless and his long long nipples are erect while he’s making out with the girl.

That James Spader film, Dream Lover is one of my favorites. I don't think it's terrible or a b movie. "Killing me softly" was on last night, ridiculous from start to finish and I lost interest during but both actors are hotter than fire.

Copycat with Sigourney Weaver, 1995, the most explicit and sleazy movie I ever saw.

[Quote] My favorite line from it is after Demi Moore unsuccessfully tries to make him have sex with her in her office, and as he runs out, she shouts after him, "You come back here and finish what YOU started!!"

Demi's monologue about being sexually aggressive is great. As is when Michael Douglas tells her to go fuck the two champagne bottles.

"I'll give you everything I am / And everything I want to be I'll put it in your hands / If you could open up to me, oh Can't we ever get beyond this wall 'Cause all I want is just once To see you in the light But you hide behind the color of the night"

"I'll give you everything I am / And everything I want to be I'll put it in your hands / If you could open up to me, oh / Can't we ever get beyond this wall / 'Cause all I want is just once / To see you in the light / But you hide behind the color of the night"

Striptease, starring Demi Moore.

LOL.

She’s now claiming the director wanted her and Billy to really fuck.

Sliver was not good but the soundtrack is one of my favorites of the 90's.

None of the Baldwins were attractive except Alec.

It's 1981 but Tattoo could fit OP's description. Bruce Dern insisted that he and Maud Adams really had sex in the film though she denied it. I'd love to see it again.

R12, are you referring to Crash by David Cronenberg?

Really?