Average Rating: 6/10
Reviews Counted: 44
Fresh: 28 | Rotten: 16
No consensus yet.
Average Rating: 5.7/10
Critic Reviews: 11
Fresh: 7 | Rotten: 4
No consensus yet.
liked it
Average Rating: 3.1/5
User Ratings: 116,390
This cold, stylish erotic-thriller grossed over $100 million at the box-office despite vigorous protests at its depiction of gays and women. The shocking opening sequence features a graphic sexual encounter involving a rock-star bound with a white Hermes scarf by an unidentified blond woman. Despite the fact that the scene ends with a bloody icepick murder (horrifyingly realized by makeup artist Rob Bottin), Hermes scarves quickly sold out at stores nationwide. This seeming paradox is at the
Jan 1, 1992 Wide
Aug 26, 1997
Artisan Entertainment
All Critics (44) | Top Critics (11) | Fresh (34) | Rotten (16) | DVD (34)
Despite (or maybe because of) his obligatory nods to Hitchcock, this is slick and entertaining enough to work as thriller porn, even with two contradictory denouements to its mystery.
This erotically charged thriller about the search for an ice-pick murderer in San Francisco rivets attention through its sleek style, attractive cast doing and thinking kinky things, and story, which is as weirdly implausible as it is intensely visceral.
Basic Instinct transfers Mr. Verhoeven's flair for action-oriented material to the realm of Hitchcockian intrigue, and the results are viscerally effective even when they don't make sense.
Verhoeven's cinematic wet dream delivers the goods, especially when Sharon Stone struts on with enough come-on carnality to singe the screen.
These actors seem driven less by real emotions than Eveready bunny batteries.
A predictable, surprisingly uninvolving affair.
Excessive whodunit is definitely not for kids.
Truly bonkers, and perhaps something of a guilty pleasure.
The worst things about Basic Instinct, though, are the explicit "love" scenes. They're supposed to contribute to a heady equation in which sex, violence and psychology are fused; instead, they're gratuitous, exploitative, and entirely unerotic.
It actually works in a nasty, tasteless sort of way.
Red herrings abound, making Basic Instinct a Hichcockian noir thriller that's sleazy, slick and stands the test of time.
A lurid psychological thriller that's sexy, nasty and a lot of fun...And you were expecting subtlety from a film written by Joe Eszterhas and directed by Paul Verhoeven?
Douglas and Stone are superb, and George Dzundza (as sidekick Gus) delivers another classic hard-boiled cameo.
Can any movie live up to its hype, first about the bidding war over the script ($3 million), then protests by gay activists about the stereotypical portrayal. Despite sleek visuals, this is a hollow erotic suspenser; Hitchcock on a very bad day.
Another over the top classic from Paul Verhoeven.
The cinema of the teenage boy finds its purest expression.
Paul Verohoeven controversial erotic Thriller is a memorable film about a sexy author accused of killing her lover with an ice pick because she wrote similarities to the murder in one of her books, she is the prime suspect. Sharon Stone plays author Catherine Trammel who is under investigation for the murder and
June 15, 2011
Super Reviewer
Erotic thrillers have never had much by way of credibility. They have a reputation for being cheesy, lurid and sleazy, and are often lumped together with horror movies as the stuff that 'sensible', 'reasonable' citizens wouldn't touch with a twenty-foot pole. But as with horror, some erotic thrillers manage to explore
May 28, 2011
Super Reviewer
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