(Originally written for the Blacklist website)
(Warning: this essay involves spoilers for the 1961 British film TASTE OF FEAR aka SCREAM OF FEAR)
One
of the hallmarks of erotic thrillers are Big Twists. The wife and
mistress are in cahoots! The wife and boyfriend are in cahoots! It’s an
identical twin/imposter! They killed the wrong person! They’re not
really dead/gay/crippled/blind! They’re insane/no they’re not/yes they
are/well they weren’t but they are now!
Erotic
thrillers also throw in Erotic Twists, which tend to mean one thing:
They’re Actually Lesbians (TAL). The first really notable TAL was in the
French classic LES DIABOBLIQUES (1954), which revolutionized the
thriller genre. It took a while for TAL to establish itself in
English-speaking films but once the floodgates opened, boy did they
open: BASIC INSTINCT (1992), SINS OF DESIRE (1993), BOUND (1996), WILD THINGS (1998) and its sequels, MULHOLLAND DR. (2001),
PASSION (2013), THE HANDMAIDEN (2016) are just some TAL movies.
Occasionally guys make out with each other but they lag well behind the
girls.
In
LES DIABOLIQUES the reveal the two female leads were in bed together
was a great shock. It retains some of that power today, mostly because
the scene defies expectations you instinctively have when watching a
film from 1954, even a French one. But TAL has been used so often in
recent years it has no power to surprise in a modern day erotic
thriller — it’s really there for character or titillation (depending on
the quality of the filmmaker).
There
is another sort of twist, however, that I think would still retain the
capacity to shock. It’s used in the 1961 British film TASTE OF FEAR
directed by Seth Holt and written by Jimmy Sangster for Hammer Films. At
the time Hammer were enjoying success with their horror movies, many
written by Sangster, who was getting sick of them, so he decided to try a
thriller. Inspired by LES DIABOLIQUES and PSYCHO (1960), TASTE OF FEAR
was a success and led to Hammer making a bunch of follow ups, many
written by Sangster –MANIAC (1963), PARANOIAC (1963), NIGHTMARE (1964),
HYSTERIA (1965), THE NANNY (1965) (the best of the bunch), CRESCENDO
(1970), FEAR IN THE NIGHT (1972), etc.
Strictly
speaking these films are psycho thrillers rather than erotic
ones — they usually deal with someone trying to drive someone else
insane rather than sex/obsession/desire. But TASTE OF FEAR has one
genuine erotic shock in it worth discussing.
The
plot is about wheelchair-bound Susan Strasberg (aged 23) returning to
the family home after the mysterious disappearance of her father. She
clashes with her stepmother Ann Todd (52) and creepy doctor Christopher
Lee (39) but is helped by hunky chauffeur Roland Lewis (33).
Towards
the end of the film, Todd arranges for a car to go off a cliff with
Strasberg inside. Todd then turns and passionately embraces… Lewis, a
man young enough to be her son.
It’s
a real jolt, in part because you expect Todd to be in cahoots with Lee
and kill Lewis, but also because she’s an older woman making out with a
much younger man — and it’s not a polite peck, they go for it, not once,
but three separate times.
And
while we didn’t see a lot of women in bed together on screens in 1954
but we do now, we didn’t see a lot of 52 year old women making out with
33 year old men in 1961 and we still don’t now — at least not where the
younger men are hunks and adults (often guys who go for older women in
films are depicted as inexperienced geeks/teenagers e.g. THE GRADUATE,
1967, THE SUMMER OF ’42, 1971, THE READER, 2008.)
We’re
often told it’s hard to shock audiences these days because they’ve seen
so much and society is so tolerant, but every society has things which
aren’t normally seen — and one of them is still a 52 year old woman with
wrinkles making out with a handsome 33 year old man on screen.
Erotic thrillers are still capable of erotic shocks — it’s just what you decide is erotic.
No comments:
Post a Comment