It may be time to reclassify this 2006 flop as an actual cult classic.
We don’t really have to explain Showgirls to anyone, do we?
It saw the director and the writer of Basic Instinct reunite three years after they hit erotic thriller gold with that movie, only for Showgirls to wind up a complete commercial and critical failure.
A quarter of a century later, and Showgirls is now seen in a completely different light, having garnered a reputation for being a camp classic, and one of the very best examples of the so-bad-its-great sub-genre.
However, 15 years ago this week, another awful erotic thriller arrived in cinemas, and it really should be spoken about in the same breath as Showgirls.
Released on 31 March 2006, it is time to give Basic Instinct 2 another go…
Clip via Media Graveyard
Arriving a full 14 years after the original, Basic Instinct 2 hit every potential production hurdle on its way to the big screen. Stone initially had no interest in returning to the world of erotic thrillers, wanting her career to go in a different direction. Ashley Judd and Demi Moore were considered for a Catherine Trammell-less sequel.
When Stone finally did decide to return to the role, Michael Douglas announced he wasn’t interested in coming back for the sequel (his character would be killed off-screen). Everyone from Robert Downey Jr. to Viggo Mortensen were considered for the new psychologist role, destined to play psycho-sexual cat and mouse with Trammell.
David Cronenberg (A History Of Violence) and John McTiernan (The Thomas Crown Affair) were offered the directing gig when the story was initially set in New York, but production was shifted to London to keep costs down, although it still ended up costing $70 million to make.
The hop across the Atlantic changed everything, with the then-mostly-unknown David Morrissey (now better known from The Walking Dead) taking on the co-lead, and Michael Caton-Jones (Rob Roy, The Jackal) filling the director’s seat.
Years later, Caton-Jones would tell Empire: “I remember coldly thinking ‘this is the worst filmmaking experience of my life’ at the time, but my memory of it is the good thing. We tried to give it a look and I was very happy with it. I had a difficult time with Sharon [Stone], but I had a great time with all the other actors.”
Everything was in place for a complete and total stinker, and that is exactly what we got…
… but still, it remains an oddly captivating, sometimes brilliantly (and usually accidentally) hilarious movie.
Everything we need to know is right there in the opening scene, where Trammell is driving around an apparently deserted London city centre, in her super high-end sports car, while essentially using a barely-conscious Stan Collymore (yes, really) as a human dildo, before crashing the car into the Thames at the point of climax.
It is supposed to be sexy and dangerous, but it ends up being totally giggle-inducing. Stone spends the entire film vamping up a storm, destroying any sense of subtlety from the original movie, and replacing it with a femme fatale that always feels like she is about one second away from winking directly at the camera.
Morrissey’s psychologist character feels so weak and flimsy next to her in every scene, completely out of his depth, as he begins to follow her into Soho sex dens and get a glimpse into her Crazy-Sex-Filled-Life. But this isn’t 1992 anymore, and 21st century audiences need more than a hint of S&M to shock them.
Admittedly, it was the invitation of a little bit of sadomasochism that got audiences flocking into Fifty Shades of Grey, which Basic Instinct 2 pre-dates by nearly a decade, but whereas Grey tried (and failed) to be straight-faced about it, BI2 doesn’t appear to have a serious bone in its body.
That is the only way that we can presume this movie was made, with a purposeful aim towards camp, just like Showgirls was, and in a similar way, critics and audiences just didn’t know how to take it. An almighty 6% on Rotten Tomatoes, and a weak $38 million worldwide box office, meant that a talked-about-threequel was promptly cancelled.
So, hopefully, just like Showgirls, a time will come when Basic Instinct 2 will be given its own status as camp classic, a misunderstood comedy disguised as an erotic thriller.
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