Noirvember: Nineties Nourish Erotic Thrillers

It’s Noirvember, a time to celebrate all things noir, including the 1990s noirish erotic thriller. The month is almost over and I didn’t get to do any other noir posts, so to make up for that I’ve super-sized this post.

Noirish is an apt description for the movies I’m focusing on with this post: erotic thrillers from the late-1980s into the 1990s. During those years, movie theaters were filled with salacious neo-noirs featuring classic femme fatales and hardboiled private dicks, only updated for the time period—meaning, in many cases, the femme fatales were even more ruthless than their predecessors and had a lot more onscreen sex. Sex was still used by characters as a power play in nineties neo-noirs, just as it had been in classic noir. The erotic thriller boom really kicked off with the mega success of Basic Instinct (1992). Soon films like Romeo is Bleeding (1993), The Last Seduction (1994), and Jade (1995) followed in cinemas, while at the same time erotic thrillers of varying quality flooded the home video market.

The theatrical releases I’ve mentioned shared much in common, but foremost was that they each starred a devastatingly sexy and sexually aggressive femme fatale. Sharon Stone became a superstar thanks to the heat she brought to the screen as Catherine Trammel. Linda Fiorentino made a few noir erotic thrillers, and thank goodness for that because she was about as well suited for them as any actress ever has been. Lena Olin’s voracious, sex-on-two-legs performance in Romeo’s Bleeding is astonishing. These films served as a template for low-budget filmmakers to produce cheaper, faster productions, which ignited the era’s direct-to-video (DTV) erotic thriller boom. Many of these movies deviated a bit from the cynical bleakness of classic noir, but still provided plenty of noirish stylings. At the appropriately named Noirish blog, John Grant wrote that the erotic thriller descends from the classic noir:

It’s been said by various critics that the direct-to-video erotic thriller can be regarded as the modern equivalent of the classic-era film noir. Yes, there were some A-feature noirs back in the 1940s and 1950s, but the vast majority of what we think of as films noirs—including many that have attained “classic” status—were B-movies in which the studio bosses had little interest beyond making sure they came in under their (usually minuscule) budgets. The way was thus open for directors like Fritz Lang and Robert Siodmak to do more or less what they wanted without the heavy hand of the studio bosses on their shoulder. Similarly, all that the movie companies responsible for modern erotic thrillers care about is that there’s enough sex and nudity to keep the punters happy and that the project comes in under budget. This allows enormous latitude to directors and scripters to create the movies they actually want to create . . . just so long as the other parameters are met.

When it comes to “enough sex and nudity” the nineties DTV erotic thrillers went all in, packing their running times with prolonged and seriously steamy softcore sex scenes. These were often the showpiece moments, while story and characterization were relegated to afterthoughts. No one rented these videos for the plot, though; people rented them for the promise of what was inside those lurid VHS covers. Usually the movies didn’t disappoint in that regard. It was the early nineties, so the women of DTV films wore scandalously hot Frederick’s of Hollywood lingerie and had copious amount of (simulated) sex onscreen. Even if the intermittent non-sex scenes were sometimes dull, or filled with wooden dialogue and forgettable performances, it didn’t matter, as long as they remembered to focus on the “erotic” part of the erotic thriller.

The vast majority of these films were often mediocre at best, and audiences largely hung around for the scintillating sex scenes. The best of these VHS classics were actually pretty good movies, though. These films maintained the down-on-their-luck charm that infused so many of the classic, mid-twentieth century noirs. In the seedier, grittier DTV erotic thrillers that skirted at the fringes of noir, characters were always going undercover as strippers to find a murderer, it seemed, and none of us had a problem with that plot line. These films were often more slasher than erotic thriller, in terms of plot, but for my money they offered the best of both worlds. Two of the best of this bunch include Stripped to Kill (1987) and Stripped to Kill II: Live Girls (1989), both written and directed by cult favorite Katt Shea. I love both movies, and wrote about them for Diabolique several years ago. You can read those reviews here and here.

A few years after the Stripped to Kill films, Shea scored a big, mainstream erotic thriller hit in 1992 with Poison Ivy. The film hinges on a scorching hot performance by teenage Drew Barrymore as jailbait femme fatale Ivy, who dresses like a classic noir vixen, only updated to the sexed-up early nineties—blouse half-unbuttoned, the tightest and micro-est of micro-miniskirts, and an oversized coat draped over her small frame. The movie is a stone-cold classic of the erotic thriller genre, and spawned several equally lascivious sequels, most of which went DTV.

The television series Silk Stalkings (1991–1999) ran concurrently with the nineties DTV erotic thriller boom, as did several television movies of similar style, offering the same sleazy-sexy thrills found in those VHS gems. Running late night on CBS for two years before moving to the USA Network for the remaining six seasons, Silk Stalkings was must-see TV for erotic thriller fans. Episodes revolved around a murder mystery and, like the DTV classics of the time, filled their run times with sexy femme fatales, hardboiled detectives, and an endless parade of half-naked, lingerie-clad babes. Between the series, telefilms, and the DTV films, the nineties provided a prodigious feast of trashy fun for a generation of hungry viewers.

Several performers cast a large shadow over DTV films, but one in particular shined brightest for me, and that’s the statuesque beauty who was Playboy Playmate for 1982: the future Mrs. Gene Simmons, Shannon Tweed. For my taste, only the prolific Shannon Whirry (clearly, the name “Shannon” is synonymous with “erotic thriller”) and the legendary Tanya Roberts were Tweed’s equals. Tweed had terrific screen presence, and that husky, sexy voice still makes me weak in the knees. Her VHS covers and posters were often the sexiest of the genre. Between her assured performances—she always seemed in on the fun—and her image being so highly identified with the DTV erotic thriller, Shannon Tweed gets my vote for Queen of the 1990s DTV Erotic Thrillers.

There were plenty more stars who made their bones in steamy DTV thrillers, many of whom appear on the posters in this articles. There were also scads of filmmakers responsible for these films, too many for me to get into now, but let’s just say that we fans owe each and every person responsible for these films a hearty “Thank you!” The DTV erotic thriller has long been snickered at and disregarded and disrespected, but for a contingent of movie lovers, it’s a cherished and even comforting genre that we have continued to return to, long after it’s heyday in the nineties came to an end.

This has been just a cursory overview, but for a more detailed exploration of the erotic thriller genre, check out the recent documentary We Kill For Love: The Lost World of the Erotic Thriller. It’s available for streaming and on Blu-ray through Vinegar Syndrome.

---

In closing, here’s a sexy sampling of erotic thriller posters from the DTV era. Enjoy!