The Fuck of the Century: Why Basic Instinct is the Ultimate Erotic Blockbuster — VHS Revival

Some films start with a whisper. Some start with a bang. Paul Verhoeven’s Basic Instinct is one of the prime examples of the latter. In the same way that anyone who had read Joe Eszterhas’ script would have been instantly hooked, whoever had sat down to watch this in the cinema or at home would have had to reinsert their eyeballs back into their head. Opening with Jerry Goldsmith’s incredible, velvet-smooth and seductive score, we see what look like writhing bodies reflected in a soft-focus mosaic of hard-angled mirrors. Trust me, this is about as coy as the film gets. After the credits have finished, we get a bravura shot from cinematographer Jan de Bont of a mirror reflecting a naked couple having sex in bed in a warmly lit room, after which the camera then moves down to reveal that the mirror is on the ceiling, and the couple are now right there, in our faces, still grinding away, with barely anything left to the imagination. At this point the audiences back in 1992 were likely to be either discomfited or excited. Maybe a bit of both. Here we go.

via The Fuck of the Century: Why Basic Instinct is the Ultimate Erotic Blockbuster — VHS Revival