Boys and girls, die-in time is here. That's right. We're talking about Basic Instinct on Kill by Kill. Greetings and salutations, Internet. It's your old pal, Patrick Hamilton, coming to you once again from the streets of San Francisco. This is the Kill by Kill podcast, After Dark, where we talk about an erotic thriller.
In the order in which people die, in the hopes that the dumbest police detective you've ever met in your life is an untimely end. It's just the beginning of the jokes you might make at his expense. And as always, there's only one person I trust. to deposit 50K in a safety deposit box just to make me look guilty. It's a blanket thing. The one, the only.
Gina Radcliffe. How are you doing today, Gina? You know, usually I make some sort of reference to a line of dialogue as my introduction, but every line of dialogue in this movie is so disgusting. And so filthy and so perverted that I would accidentally get canceled for inadvertently sexually harassing you. I believe that would be true, and it is hard on the ears, but we will examine that script in depth because how the fuck did this happen? Who?
decided to pay 3 million United States dollars in 1991 because they just... had to get these words and ideas on the big screen. They had to get John Goodman to use the phrase magna cum laude pussy. I believe you're referring to acting legend George Zunna. Oh, okay, right. I wish it was John Goodman. John Goodman is definitely another meant to be sexy crime thriller. I can't remember which one it was off the top of my head. Not to mention the entire time I'm watching this movie, I'm like...
He ripped off this stupid shit for Jade so hard, Gina. Oh, yeah. It's just plot point by plot point. We'll get to it. Now, I don't want to scare you any more than I already have, Gina, but we are not alone. That's right. We have special guests. Now, you may know them as the hosts of How to Be a Terrible Daughter, a comedy podcast about narcissistic abuse. You put those two things together. They do each and every week. The ones, the onlys, Megan and Elizabeth. How are you both?
doing today hey doing good thanks for having us here pretty good pretty good so happy to have you both on board for this it's divine providence that you came into our digital lives before we talk about a movie that is so specifically... about various forms of narcissism. If I believed in a heavenly being, I would assume that he had steered you all in our direction. It is. It's like 31 flavors of narcissism in this movie. Oh my God. Now, usually on the show.
We'd like to ask people, and I'll start with Gina, when the first time they watched Basic Instinct was, Gina, where were you? You know what? I did not see this in the theater because... You could not escape it. I do recall it was released around the same time as Wayne's World, which I thought was, which I did see in the theater. What a double feature that might have been for some lucky lad and lad-ass. Really, really tight.
I was only like barely 20, I think, when this came out. Right. And I was in my, well, I'm not going to go see this because people do because it's popular and people are talking about it. And, you know, this was like. huge news when it came out because it was a mainstream movie with incredibly supposedly graphic sex scenes and it was a whole typical rumors oh maybe they weren't actually just pretending to have sex in it
And like, I was like, no, I'm not going to bother. And then I ended up watching it like on cable. It probably. maybe five or six years later i'm like i was unimpressed i was like oh okay i mean you know woman on to go you reverse cowgirl that's crazy i can't believe
I can't believe we're showing this in mainstream movies. You had not had an HBO subscription yet, so you were unused to such things being portrayed on the small screen. Exactly. And also by that time, I knew that they actually... strongly disliked each other in real life and to me that kind of colored the whole thing for me and may have already repugnant movie that much more repugnant. So yeah, I would say Unimpressed would be my...
general opinion about the entire thing. Megan, how about you? Did you catch us in theaters? Did you see it on home video? Where were you? Oh, yes. I saw it in theaters. I believe it was one of the... two big theaters that face each other in Westwood village. It's the Fox. And then I can't remember the other one. Yes, absolutely, on the big screen. I was very excited to see this movie. And Elizabeth, how about you? I don't remember if I saw it first in the theater.
or on video, but I saw it a thousand times. And I mean, I must have seen it as soon as I possibly could. Either way, I was in the middle of college and there was nothing like it. And I just wanted to see it so bad. So bad. It's interesting to think about its sort of place and timing in the world. I saw it in New Jersey while I was serving a mission for the Mormon church. Oh, God. And did not tell a soul, presumably. That is quite a juxtaposition.
It is. I was not a good missionary. And I mean that in multiple ways. I just sucked at it. And I didn't care for it personally. And so I tried every excuse to avoid it. And that usually meant reading a lot of books and listening to hip hop music from the radio stations in New York City. But when I could, when I could convince a companion.
to break the rules with me and go see a movie. We did. And this was one of those movies we fucking went and saw. We didn't care. And I laughed the entire way through the movie. I find this... unintentionally hilarious. I think it is delightful. and not a, wow, look at the skill on display, and its audaciousness, and its complex, simplistic stupidity. It's a lot of things all at once. I think it is a combination.
of elements that make basic instinct unique. And the first one I'm going to talk about is writer and premier self mythologizer. Joe Esterhawes, who is a giant Hungarian bear man who would type anything on paper to make money. Just... anything he could possibly think of, anything he observed, anything he kind of observed, he would just use his big fingers and sausage smash a typewriter into word salad.
And he's got an interesting backstory in that he was born in the closing years of World War II. He spends his first years on Earth in a refugee camp on the Allied side. And his family immigrates to the U.S. He grew up in Cleveland. and he has some of the most confusing politics of anyone I have ever encountered on earth. For a guy who refused to reconcile with his father after learning that he had written propaganda for Nazi-affiliated...
forces. He is currently a big fan of Nazi aficionado Victor Orban. So he is... Fucking weird. He's just an odd goddamn ball. But get used to this because he has no clue about what side of any issue he is on going forward. I will tell you things that he did in relation to this movie that will make you go, I don't think he knows or understands what he wrote. And that is true. That is my supposition. I don't think he understands basic instinct. And all the words you hear in the movie are his.
Well, that makes two of us. think he's the most interesting character because it's quite possible his i mean i have something to say when we get to this about his reasons for writing this and all and all of his other his oeuvre right sort of have some themes going through it He does. But yeah, he's an interesting guy. You know, started out a journalist and then transitions into script writing. He's kind of a, he's one of those weird idea machine kind of guys. Like, I've never heard someone.
praise him for great dialogue or compelling stories, but he is like... He'll say things and people go, well, that'll make a movie. And then he writes a script and they're like, I don't know if this makes a movie. Someone rewrite it. For example, his first screenplay, F-I-S-T or Fist. was completely rewritten by Sylvester Stallone. They saw his script and said, you know who will fix this?
Sylvester Stallone. He did write Rocky, so. And his next notable splash comes when he rewrites the script for Flashdance. You know, a movie we all remember for its sparkling dialogue. And then he becomes the highest paid script writer in Hollywood for a film called Big Shots. Have any of you ever heard of Big Shots before? Is that the one where like the two little kids like find some money? Yes.
All I remember of this movie is its VHS box of two kids in giant fedora hands and sunglasses standing in front of a Mercedes. I don't even think they were particularly famous child actors. No. That's exactly what I remember is the doors and the sunglasses. But he becomes the highest paid screenwriter in Hollywood due to this movie where a white kid runs away to Chicago's South Side and has an adventure in the hood.
And it's fucking terrible. He was paid 1.5 million for it. And the movie's budget was 10 and it earned three, which I would say is 2.5 too much. And they let him make more movies after that. That's the impressive thing. Yeah, did he not write Jagged Edge? That is the next thing I think he's most known for because...
I would say Jagged Edge. Well, not the greatest of the erotic legal thrillers. It's competent. It's competent. It is competent. I will say that. And it also resulted in one of my favorite Harvey Birdman episodes. Oh, perfect. But Jagged Edge is confident. It's well acted. It's well directed. It looks good. It's a.
perfectly great TNT rainy Sunday afternoon movie. And so Esther has, well, he's not always making the most amount of money. He's always in the mix for whatever fucking reason. And then. Shane Black took his title of most money paid for a screenplay with The Last Boy Scout. Trivia note, it was originally entitled Die Hard, but the producers took that title and said, we'll pay you back later.
And they did when they made him the highest paid screenplay writer in Hollywood for The Last Boy Scout. And so, Joe? Esterhas got up in his big bear man feelings and gender swaps, basically, jagged edge into basic instinct in 13 days. And he sold this, what he claims to be a script not written on cocaine. For three million U.S. dollars. Just reading. I'm on the quotes page on the IMDb. I'm just like shaking my head. It's filth. Every character just opens their mouth.
But it's also incompetent filth. Like, my apologies when I have three women on this show and I have to say the words magna cum laude pussy. What the fuck does that mean? What does it mean? Well, I use that in my day-to-day profession all the time. You've never heard a therapist say that in session? No, but I also haven't heard a... out of nowhere cowboy cop in San Francisco who is so reverential to his Cadillac. Is it ever explained why he shows up dressed in fucking...
Cowboy gear? The underground cowboy scene of San Francisco in 1992. You weren't aware? It's huge. According to Joe fucking Asterhaus, this giant Hungarian bear man. Basic instinct is genius. It's a travesty. It's a revolution. It's the destruction of cinema. It's his finest work. And it's a gay bashing dud. It really just depends on the hour and which way the wind is blowing. He's not right or wrong.
The one thing he really doesn't call it is dumb, and that is the one thing I truly believe it is. It is monumentally dumb. I mean, much like Jade. Which we have covered already. I believe that was our very first After Dark episode. Truly one of the dumbest erotic killers of all time. I believe was one of my brilliant ideas. Typical of a lot of... erotic stories written by men. He hates female sexuality. It makes him deeply uncomfortable to have a woman who is in charge of her own sexuality.
And so they must be made to pay in some way for that. I think he's actually terrified of women, to be honest. Like this to me just read like his unconscious fear of vagina dentata for two hours. that's what it read to me. Like women, independent women, women who have their own money, women who are queer, so they don't necessarily need men are terrifying and they're probably going to murder you.
And they're constantly conspiring behind your back to do something terrible. And it's only through your wit and your gun that allows you to murder people. Can you survive such an onslaught? And he doesn't even have wit. He just has the gun. He's got a gun and a couple of nice sweaters. That's it. Who wears a sweater to a nightclub? Who wears a sweater to a nightclub? Thank you. Well, here's the thing.
There's one person who can wear a sweater to a nightclub, and that is the vampire from Fright Night. Yes. Jerry Dandridge can pull that off, and that's about it. Also because he is not alive. Right. I mean, I haven't been to a nightclub in a long time, but I did used to go to nightclubs a lot. Those are very hot places. Yeah. And you do not want to be wearing cashmere.
In a nightclub. You don't want to be donning wool in that sort of circumstance. He should be constantly mopping at his forehead and not because he's watching two chicks grind up against each other. Is that why everybody else in the scene was dancing and he was just sort of standing there swaying gently back and forth? Maybe he was too hot. Here's the thing. I don't really like the idea.
Or the reality of Michael Douglas dancing. That's not something I need to see. There's a reason why in a chorus line. You only hear that motherfucker. I don't want to see him, you know, kicking it on stage. That is not something I need to see. I don't need to see his plie or first position. You don't want to see him doing fussy hands or anything? No, no, no.
No, I don't want to see all that jazz or any of his jazz, quite frankly. But the person whose jazz, I think, makes basic instinct actually work. The person who is one half of the reason why anyone still talks about this movie is Dutch filmmaker Paul Verhoeven. Here's a guy who had...
devoted himself to using film to push buttons and boundaries. His first full-length film, Turkish Delight, was like a cause celeb after hit theaters in Europe. For the next decade, he makes a bunch of frank, sexually explicit... violent, complicated films overseas. And it really all changes for him when he makes one of the great anti-corporate films of all time, RoboCop. You remember RoboCop.
He shot that one guy in the dick. Is that the tagline from the movie? That part I don't remember. One of my favorite photos of all time is at a fan convention. Someone wore a t-shirt to meet Peter Weller. And he obviously didn't see the T-shirt until she walked into frame and they took the picture. Because on the T-shirt.
It says, remember that one time RoboCop shot that guy in the dick? And the look of genuine joy on his face. And someone has recognized this moment and celebrated it and worn it on their chest. is I think magic. When I need a shot of happiness, that's the photo I look at. It's your puppies and kittens. Yeah. And he follows that up with a film about how autocratic power will literally charge you for money to breathe. It's entitled Total Recall. And so he's a person who finds the.
most anti-capitalist ideas within a movie script and says, that's what I'm going to focus on. Over the course of the pre-production of this thing, Verhoeven reads Basic Instinct and his first idea is to make the film bolder in its sexual politics instead of just... things you casually look at to get a, you know, virtual thrill from. And Esterhaus is aghast. How dare you? He says, someone wants to make, you know, this.
Basic instinct more exploitative? The nerve, he cries out loud into the wilderness. Verhoeven wants to put in a scene in which Catherine Trammell actually has sex with a woman. How dare- Esther House says, this is for my titillation, not for exploration. And Esther House is a man who would talk to a reporter about what he had. for breakfast. And so he does that constantly during the course of making this movie and claims that his work is being bastardized. Can you imagine bastardizing?
Basic instinct. He was upset that it was more exploitative and titillated. Yes. And almost as if someone's taking this. this child's view of bisexuality too far. Well, I think it's the same guy who, I think, like, when he also, we, you know, buried the lead. He also worked with... Paul Verhoeven on a little movie called Showgirls. Yeah. And, and also like really.
you went out of pocket with how he described what Showgirls was and what it meant to him. It was a deeply personal film that he thought people would consider to be a religious experience. And I'm like, Joe, what now? What the hell are you talking about? I would argue Verhoeven is the only filmmaker to truly realize Esterhaus's vision because he's the one who actually reads the script and says, don't change anything.
This is what we're going to film. And he does it. And then Joe Asterhas is like up in arms. How dare you do these things? These things I wrote down with my giant sausage fingers with a typewriter. How dare you make the movie I envisioned? They do bring in a script doctor at one point and they go through a bunch of different drafts, but it doesn't really get better. And so Verhoeven is like, all right.
listen, we need to make this movie, otherwise we're going to start paying penalties. We're just going to make the script that Esther has turned in. And so he's just... Joe is baffled when he receives a copy of the film's working script and not a word of his has been changed. And so you have one person who really understands what they're trying to do here, which is Verhoeven.
And Joe Esterhaus, who inadvertently has given him the fuel to make it happen, but has no concept of the actual power of the movie. There's one thing that will forever change the way you sleep, and it's the softest 100% organic cotton sheets from Bowlin Branch. You'll fall asleep faster, wrapped in the most luxurious comfort. You'll never sleep hot again with sheets that feel brief.
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Michael Douglas. He was on a roll of just playing scumbags for like a while in this period. Do I believe he's like a good guy? Not really. But do I believe he's... been, at least at moments in his life, reasonably self-aware of himself and how he appears on screen. Yeah. I do like he knew that his dad's chin and connections could only get him as far as getting on the TV police procedural. And he knew at one point that Jack Nicholson was a better fit.
For a play that he had purchased the film rights to and ended up winning an Oscar for producing One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. And he knew that his whole burnout hippie thing was losing juice. in the late 70s and early 80s, and that he could show up on screen as an asshole that you could watch by the time he hits Romancing the Stone. So...
He understood this so well, he wrote it to an Oscar for Wall Street. And then just like a string of movies that make money, including Black Rain and ultimately Fatal Attraction. Douglas understands his asshole appeal, but is also he's under some sort of delusion while making this movie that the character he's playing is in Dick Finger quotes. the hero. Yeah. Which his character is not. Let's go over real quick what this hero does. Yeah. He has killed people. Yeah. He's a rapist.
And, you know, yeah, he sleeps with a suspect several times. Sleeps with a psychologist several times. Yeah, but yeah, he is supposed to be the quote-unquote good guy in this movie. He's the one that the audience is rooting for. Hey, what? That is the mystifying thing here. I believe in his heart of hearts. Michael Douglas was under the delusion that Shooter is the hero, not the protagonist of this movie. He is the protagonist. He is not a hero.
nor would anyone who watches it for half the film, I think, believe that to be true. I just don't quite get it. But... That's where I think we really come into vogue with having two people who talk about narcissism weekly. What is going on with this fucking character? It is crazy town.
Well, I mean, I think that's one of the hallmarks of narcissists is they believe their own. It's delusions of grandeur is actually in the manual for how to diagnose them, right? They believe their own shtick. They believe they are the hero. or the victim, depending on the circumstances, no matter what. He believes both at various points in this movie. Yes. He's being prosecuted by internal affairs here. His psychiatrist is...
you know, up his butt and down his throat when he wants it to be in reverse. And he's just, he's terrible. He is in my belief. the biggest killer in this movie. He has the highest body count of anyone in the film. I'd question that though, because you've got two, you've got Catherine's parents, you've got a couple of other people. So it may be, they may be tied.
Yeah, I mean, pretty much all of the characters, the leading characters, have killed somebody at some point. Because you've got Roxy, who is Catherine's lover, that she just casually mentions, yeah, she killed her brothers when she was a kid. Who amongst us hasn't slashed their brothers to ribbons? I just collect these murderous queer women. You know how it is. It takes a village. Honestly, Gina, it takes a village.
one hand you would say it's improbable that all of these like sociopathic narcissists are are all in the same friend circle but on the other hand it's not because they actually love each other until they hate each other they do they do tend to collect each other as improbable as it is it also somehow makes sense absolutely I think that I think that she you know when she kind of sets Roxy and Nick together I don't think that she's necessarily
aware that she's going to lose Roxy. I think that she's just going to enjoy watching those two narcissists or crazy people. fight and just see, you know, she'll just take whoever's left. I do think there's an element to her character, and I definitely want to get into her more, that what she enjoys is the combustible nature of... every single one of her relationships. She seems to attract and repel people who are driven and obsessed with her and that's both a fuel but it's also an explosive.
In her mind, she can already tell that there's no way that Shooter can handle the idea that she's bisexual. Up until the point which she and Roxy, you know, grope one another in front of him. It's a concept to him, but it's not reality. And when it becomes reality, he has to absolutely leave the room. I mean, how could that happen? That's not the way I view life and bad. I must reiterate, and this goes for Jade too, these people live in San Fran fucking Cisco. Yes.
He said it. He's in his 40s. Yes. And this is the first time that he's ever encountered, like, the concept of a bisexual woman. He's generally like, like you're supposed to like, you know, one could think he's uncomfortable because it's turning him on. But no, he's like, oh, I can't I can't handle this. Like, how does he operate? How does he operate day to fucking day?
In San Francisco, and it's not like it's just gay sex on every fucking corner in San Francisco, but it's a reality. Like, this isn't science fiction. And when they... kiss, he acts like they have strapped on jet boots and taken off for the fucking moon. Also, he's a cop, so I find it very hard to believe that he has never encountered.
a queer person before. Is it the fact that they kiss or is it the fact that they kiss and it's not just a show for him? I think that is a big component of it, but that's where I feel like... For the Esterhas script version of this? It is about control. And it's about how this woman is upsetting the levers of control and doing things that she just wants to do. She doesn't fit into a stereotype. That's inherently evil.
But for Verhoeven, it's I choose to do this. This is my lover who I have sex with because I want to, because I'm attracted to them. While I have feelings for them, it's not entirely we're a loving nuclear family couple. We just have sex with one another and talk about various people we may have offed. Well, there's the whole opening scene when they first...
go to the Stinson house to meet Catherine where she says, you know, I wasn't dating him. I was just fucking him. And they hammered home. Like, you mean you were in love with him? You were just. Having sex with him? She emphasizes the casual nature. of their relationship so many times. And these grown men are like taken aback at this. And yeah, I can't help. You're absolutely right, Patrick. You cannot help.
Comparing this to Jade, because Jade is essentially the same movie, but instead of casual sex, it's anal sex. Right, in San Francisco. They are absolutely appalled. By the very idea of this. It's so puerile. It's so childish. It's so fucking stupid. But it's also so stupid. It might be smart. It might be brilliant. No, it's just stupid. I think it's kind of both. Do you think Verhoeven thought that this was actually smart or did he know that it was so stupid?
but that if he just played it straight, it would almost be funny. I think Verhoeven thought if I play this straight and I do it with style and I inject meaning. and history onto it with Hitchcock homage, because there's just no way to view this without thinking specifically of Vertigo. I mean, the soundtrack to this movie. The music is constantly referencing vertigo. It is so heavily vertigo. And then you have multiple blondes. And then you have a brunette who once was a blonde.
transforms into a blonde again it's a Whole huge Vertigo riff. And then when you go to the psychiatrist's apartment sheet, you can always see people opposite her in a different apartment building in its rear window. It's all this Hitchcock riff. And he's kind of like... You know what would be funny? If I just made a Hitchcock movie that instead of constantly implying sex, it's just full of sex. And it fucking works on that basis. On that basis. It actually works. My charitable reading of.
What Paul Verhoeven was trying to do was actually pointing out, you know, look at these big tough cops clutching their hankies and pearls over the idea of a willingly promiscuous woman. who, you know, will just have sex with whoever she wants and it doesn't mean anything and she can just walk away with no problems. But I think the problem is the audience, a lot of the audience was just as shocked as the characters were.
Whereas I think the idea is supposed to be, I don't know, it's ridiculous how these men are reacting to her. It is ridiculous that Nick is the hottest detective in this, the dumbest fucking police department of all time. I mean, they are all giant swinging dicks without a brain cell between them. It is. monumentally evident that he is
The smartest idiot in the group. And I don't even believe that after a while. Because he misses all the signs. He misses almost every clue. He is constantly being led by the no. by smarter women than he is to come to the conclusions that they want him to come to.
You know, again, with the whole Verhoeven versus Esterhas, I think Esterhas is shocked and appalled by his characters, his female characters' behavior, whereas Verhoeven is not. And I think that that's the clashing here. Like, you've got this... now, of course, famous scene in the police questioning scene where she shows up and she's not wearing underwear and she's very aware of the reaction that this is having on the men in the room. You've got Wayne Knight, like...
He's like practically pulling on his collar like Rodney Dangerfield. The only time he's ever been wetter was when he was facing off with a dinosaur in the rain. He's just like, wait, you've never seen a nude woman come on before? I mean, good. Lord. It's like, you know, she knows the effect she's having. Maybe some of you want to have a little self-control and pull it together. Half these cops are supposed to have work device as well. They're all seasoned cops. Who are like, have like.
None of these are young guys. You've got to figure they've had like 20, 25 years on the force. And again, in San Francisco, has probably dealt with some really weird shit at some point. But you've got over here's my vagina. What? What are we doing here? I've got to go take a break. You dealt with child pornographers, presumably, rapists, serial killers, and the half-second flash of a naked vagina is giving you palpitations. I mean, they're so fucking dumb.
that honestly, in my personal opinion, Dirty Harry is a better cop than anyone who's in this movie. And that's saying something, because... He's not that great a comp. He shoots all his problems too. But you have a whole host of them. They're all this fucking stupid. And when... Verhoeven has the scene with Catherine is being interrogated. The camera is absolutely still. I mean, it moves. There are close-ups, but everything is controlled. Then when you flip it...
And Nick is being interrogated and he does the, what are you going to do? Arrest me for smoking. And it's basically the same fucking scene. It's all handheld. It's all out of control. They all are in their feelings. They all can't help but pile on to one another. They all just want to solve their problems with fist penetrations into one another.
I was going to say, it feels like, you know, there's this narrative through the film of he meets this woman and, you know, loses his ability, loses control, right? Loses everything. He starts drinking. He starts smoking. He starts, you know, blah, blah, blah. And it's just this it's so funny to watch these men just fall apart because there's a woman who is.
sure of herself and sexual in nature. And I think that Verhoeven filmed that scene the way he did, because I think he thinks it's funny the way they're reacting to her. Yes. But I think that the audience is like, oh yeah, I'd be sweating and pulling on my collar too. It's like, sure, I guess. Well, if it's playing to Peoria, then yeah. Yeah. I think he's making a smart movie out of stupid material and just.
having a blast doing it. It's like, I can't believe we get, I'm getting away with this shit. And the other part that really makes it work is Sharon Stone. If you don't have Sharon Stone in this role, I don't think this movie works half as well as it does. I mean, Paul Verhoeven is still going to direct the hell out of it, but you're not going to get... basic instinct as what it could be without her absolutely knowing the exact right way to act every single scene she's in. She's in control.
consistently. Even when she's out of control, she's doing it for a specific purpose. This movie, she was sort of laughed at afterwards because she had that much power. Like, people lost their fucking mind. over her betrayal in this movie. She could barely keep a career together because nobody knew what to do with this woman who decides for herself for things. And nothing exposed the soft.
stupid underbelly of Hollywood quite like Basic Instinct. I just think I enjoy, I do enjoy her performance in this because I think that, you know, like Paul Verhoeven, she is aware that it's nonsense. Yes. And she can barely stop herself from looking at the camera and smirking. So, yeah, no, I, that. Her part is enjoyable, and I think that she, a role that could have easily been accused of being exploitative, she kept it from being that.
I think she rescues it by acting at the level that someone has to to make any of this float. Paul's doing it behind the scenes and she's doing it on camera. It is a dance between those two. And I think Michael Douglas's sort of obliviousness to his exact role in the movie works to the film's favor.
of being a weird, over-the-top comedy that it should be taken as. Now, that's not to say that you can just laugh uproariously at it and not walk away feeling a little sleazier about yourself, because there is a... decidedly misogynistic air to this not to mention the fact that the biphobia in it is run rampant and it was protested in san francisco during filming by glad
As for a very simple and knowing reason, why does every villain have to be gay? And that's that's a question to ask. My counter to that, though, is is Catherine. the villain. I would argue Nick is a menace. He believes he's above the law. He believes he's answerable to no one. He doesn't need a cause. He doesn't need a permission. He certainly doesn't need permission to date rape somebody.
It's only Joe Esterhaus' belief that Catherine is driving him to do this stuff, when in reality, he's always been doing this stuff. The camera just wasn't on him before. In my mind, we've got a Freddy versus Jason situation, and I'm rooting for one of them. Well, yeah, I mean, and I think that, you know, Esther Haas...
couldn't handle the possibility that people would actually be on Catherine's side. So even when it was revealed that she did not, she's not the killer that Nick is looking for, you know, that little, that cute little, you know, maybe she is still a killer. maybe she's going to kill him. And it's like, sure, I guess, you know, I mean, but also I think it's, you know, he wants it two ways in Nick's absolutely deplorable treatment of Beth.
his you know psychiatrist slash lover slash punching bag that you know well in the end oh well she's crazy too and actually the real killer so you know he's forgiven for his deplorable treatment of her But I also think Catherine is attracted to him because he's a disaster in the making. It's the whole I can see darkness in you kind of thing. I can see darkness in you. And I know that this relationship won't last.
You're going to end up dead sooner or later. Your luck cannot run that fucking long. And it's been the history of who she happens to have dated. They all sort of self-destruct at a certain point. They can't. She's already attracted to people who are out of control. And it's only a matter of time. They either regulate themselves and they maintain relationship or they don't. And they explode. And she's like.
But it'll make a great book. Well, yeah, I mean, she's a sociopath, so she likes people that are fun to manipulate. She likes people that if you manipulate them, you'll get a reaction, you know? But she's the sociopath I'm rooting for. Oh, yeah. Well, you know, yeah, pick your fighter here, right? Because...
He needs to be taken off the fucking streets. I'm sorry. Neither Jason or Freddie are people that you root for. But one of them's got to get taken down to notch. And... that's how i feel about this i think she's righteous in this particular pursuit she knows that he's a piece of shit And she knows that he is not as smart as he thinks he is. She clocks him instantly. Half the things she says don't relate to herself. They just relate to him and he cannot figure it out.
When she's talking to him in the car and she's like, listen, even if I was lying, I could beat that lie detector test. You know all about that. And he's like, wait a second. Hold on. I did lie and get away with it in a lie detector test. She must have done the same thing. She's talking about you cowboy. She's talking about you. fucking idiot. I, I hate, I hate Nick so much. Oh, he's horrible. He's horrible. Like, like, I've never seen, yeah, you're right. It is unclear.
I think definitely Verhoeven and Esther Haas had very opposing ideas with the audience to think of Nick. I think that Esther Haas is, well, he's a cop, ergo he's a good guy. Whereas Rehoeven is, at best, he's an anti-hero. You know, where he gets the job done, but in the most... backwards, violent, horrible way possible. Well, and he knows he's an archetype that he can use because...
A character like Nick had existed well before this and continuously when this movie comes out and even after. And that's a useful idiot. for him to create this other movie about. I'd say three quarters of the audience just took it at face value and they were shocked. And they were dismayed and they could not believe that.
a woman could control her own pathway and her own sexual behaviors. When I say, you know, you could not escape this movie. It's because, you know, and then this was pre because of the discourse. Yes. And, you know, what is bisexuality? Oh, God. I think this, I'm kidding you not, I think this is around the time that Newsweek, you know, put out that meet the bisexuals.
Like it had just been invented in the 90s. Like they were introducing themselves before the Rose Bowl. Because nobody knew what to make of it. Nobody knew what to make of the concept of being sexually attracted to both men and women. And people are like, well, how is this possible? It just is, and there's not really much any greater meaning to it, but we're going to put a lot of greater meaning to it. I think this movie probably added a lot to the lore that...
Bisexual people were inherently promiscuous, right? And also mentally ill because they are mentally ill. All of them. It did not do any favors. No. for the queer community this movie and that's the complicated nature of it because it is that thing that it you can't mollify it by saying, well, Verhoeven is making fun of it because that requires you to be aware it's making fun of it. And I don't think audiences.
were at all. They understood there was an arch nature to it. They certainly, plenty of people understood the camp elements to it, but that's the thing about camp. You know it when you see it. But if you don't know what you're looking for, you can completely miss it. I hate to be this person, but I feel like what Verhoeven is trying to bring to it is a sort of European sensibility to sexuality, particularly how it's portrayed on the screen.
Are you lighting a cigarette while you're doing this? Do you have a beret on? I have my beret. I'm going to snap my fingers. Let me put my philosophy book down. But because, yeah, you can't be pulling that shit on Americans while we're open. We weren't ready for bisexuals in 1992. But I think...
Esther House felt emboldened to a certain degree because he had pulled the wool over people's eyes with RoboCop and he pulled the wool over people's eyes. That was violence, Patrick. That wasn't sexuality. True. RoboCop is a remarkably... remarkably sexless movie. It is, however, extraordinarily violent. And, of course, Total Recall is more sexual to the point where my kid, Ollie...
absolutely wanted to stop watching once the three-breasted woman showed up. That was too much. He could not handle that. I'm not making any sage observation by saying that it did. we are able to process graphic violence more than graphic sex. And, and I, yeah, I think he, I don't want to say, oh, this is, you know, this would have worked better if it had been released 10 years later, but I do think that more people.
would have gotten and appreciated at the time what Verhoeven was trying to do and what he was trying to do was isn't it ridiculous the way these men are reacting to this and yeah it really is But, you know, at the time, people were like, of course they're reacting that way to it. This is horrible. They react to the presence of cocaine in a crime scene like they've never fucking seen it before. They cannot get over that she just, you know.
Slept with this guy for funsies. All they did together was snort coke and fuck. And it's like, my God. In San Francisco in 1992, when that was what half the population of the city was doing. Again, in San Fran... How are you investigating crime scenes at San Francisco in the 80s and 90s and there wasn't cocaine involved in some way? And then you have the element to it that... the film is operating in a time that is different than what we're operating in now in the sense that
Unencumbered sex was dangerous because you're in the middle of an AIDS crisis. This is before PrEP. The push for people to use condoms in sex was newish. So... When this is happening and no one ever mentions a condom at any given point, people are just, how are you propagating this idea? Like as if anything else in this movie is in any way, shape or form realistic.
Again, it's tied to a time it can't control. It's kind of crazy that there was this much uproar over all the sex in the movie when, like, really all you saw was boobies. It was a lot of boobies, but it was really just boobies. Like I said, when I watched that, it was less than a decade later. I was like, that's it?
You know, it's just a lot of bouncing around, you know? Yeah, a lot of bouncing boobies. Yeah, it's a lot of, you know, woman on top sex. And it's like, okay, I guess this is blowing people's minds. Once she has sex with Nick once, which is not. that interesting i mean i mean she says it herself but you know the rest of the sex that they have is so boring
No, no, no. It was the fuck of the century. Don't forget. And the thing I love about that is that he thinks that because it was the fuck of the century for him, that it was the fuck of the century for her. Of course, of course. I mean, and talk about narcissism and also just... you know, male stupidity, right? Which is like, if it was good for me, like, that's what matters. It must've been good for her, you know? Well, yeah. And of course, because really not so much now, but the...
Certainly back then, I think one of the reasons that men were so threatened by the idea of bisexual women is the idea that a woman could be better at this than I could be. And you know that idea is just eaten away. You know, they weren't going to quite go there yet, but I feel it's unspoken that, you know, he's going to make her forget about Roxy and every other woman she slept with.
Because, you know, he's got to show her that, you know, it's only the only acceptable way to do this and to have an orgasm is if a man gives it to you. And he's probably very bad at that. He's stunned when she doesn't immediately agree with him. He's worried when he realizes that Roz has been watching them have sex.
And she goes, what, do you want her to join next time? And he can't even respond to that. You're going to introduce someone else into this. You've only tied up my hands. I think Joe Esther has his idea of kink. is essentially anything more than a Playboy centerfold. Anything other than missionary. Yeah. It's great. He is repulsed. by this stuff. Yeah, I was looking at the, you know, the silk scarf and the metal bed frame and I was like, that's uncomfortable.
uncomfortable and like you could lose circulation in your hands and like i mean it just like and you know no aftercare no safe word apologize to your neighbors the next day because they're hearing that shit They're hearing that squeaking. They're hearing that thumping. But to go back to Joe Esterhaus and his, like, you know, very repressed, regressive attitude towards female sexuality, remember, and I'm going to go back to Jade again, that...
The only explanation for this female character in Jade. that she actually enjoys participating in anal sex is that she is suffering from hysterical blindness, that she goes into a fugue state. and evidently does not know what she's doing when she engages in a sexual activity that has a lot of things available to make it enjoyable.
That is how horrifying and weird that this sexual act she enjoys doing, she has to black out in order to do it. That's the only reasonable explanation. It's like, Joe, baby. People enjoy doing this, I gotta tell you. Can I use that excuse sometime, though? This is a thing, Joe. I think that Verhoeven thought he was... that the audience would get the...
get how ridiculous the prudishness was of the screenplay and see how ridiculous Esterhaus's vision was. That's what I'm saying. And he completely underestimated how prudish the general American public was going to be. He thought... people were going to think it's funny the way these men are reacting to her, flashing them and being aware that they can see her.
And no, it's just like, my God, this seemed like, can you believe the audacity of her to come in and do this? Yeah, it's fucking hilarious. Imagine how ridiculous it would be if a man comes in and his balls are hanging out of his shorts. It's ridiculous that she knowingly shows up without any underwear on for this interview.
Do I have a theory about that? I don't know that she prepares for this by not going in underwear just because I don't think she shows up anywhere with underwear on. That being said, when she sees the video camera pointed directly at her. I think her goal is to make that video not worth anything because she doesn't flash strictly at Nick, which you would think would be the target. She actually flashes straight forward.
towards the camera which is why I believe Verhoeven was so adamant that it happened again there's a lot of permission structures in the making of this movie that should make us all blanch and this is one of them And it should be noted. It's biphobia, should be noted. I would even say it's fatphobia. The prevailing attitude is that all of this is just weird and bad.
And it's noted over and over again, like, who on earth believes that having sex with a 240-pound woman would give them bruising? And George Zunda hears this. A man who probably never weighed less than 250 at any point in his life. Like, what the fuck are we talking about, people? It's not funny. but they act like it's a joke. And I think Verhoeven just puts everything that's on the page on the screen and is like,
You should laugh at this. Look at this. Look at this nonsense. Look at these fucking idiots. People took it seriously. This movie is so sexy and so subversive. And it's just like. It's a bunch of nonsense. But I think it is sexy and subversive nonsense too. And I just don't think audiences are clever enough at the time. with the way it was marketed and how people talked about it after the fact.
to actually grasp that. I think there's too many complicating factors that are worthy of discussion that actually make it a bigger deal than what Verhoeven meant. the film to be. If I could bring up a current movie in comparison, and I was talking to Megan Elizabeth when you were dealing with your bird problem. Have you seen Patrick Baby Girl yet? I have not had the opportunity to see Baby Girl. Baby Girl, it's pretty good.
I would say, again, it's overstating a little bit the raw sexuality of it. I mean, it certainly goes a little further than a lot of recent movies made for adults have, but that's still not saying much. People have been referring to this movie as an erotic thriller. I will say there's not much thrilling about it. I mean, it kind of gives the impression that this young man that Nicole Kidman's character has an affair with is going to begin stalking her. And that...
doesn't really happen. What he does is because they are in a... dominant submissive sexual relationship, he begins trying to push boundaries with her. Like he shows up at like a family event where her husband is. And again, not being menacing, just there. to kind of get a rise out of her, see how she reacts. But I would say it's kind of more a domestic drama that has some...
decent-ish sex scenes in it. But, you know, I wonder how many people are going to go into this misinterpreting what the movie's about, judging it on what they've been told it's about when it's not actually that.
the problem of trying to pigeonhole movies. I mean, yeah, this is definitely, Basic Instinct is definitely an erotic thriller. But again, I think that... you who is the hero who's the villain here is a little you know a little more muddled than people went into it originally thinking makes it even more mystifying to me because we've also covered fatal attraction
that Douglas, who understood his assignment within Fatal Attraction, misunderstood it to this degree. Not so much that he ever derails the movie. He was under this... impression right up until the point it screens for audiences that he was the hero of the movie I guess because his character has a gun and a badge but to me that's the reason
Why he isn't. He is a rogue cop. He is getting away with shit he absolutely should not if he did not possess a badge and it should be taken away from him immediately. He should be in front of internal affairs. I also want to say something that's brave. If you're not already on the edge of your seat, I would ask you to inch back. Maybe hold on to your socks. Johnny Boz, his music sucks. I said it. What? I said what I said, and I meant it. What's he doing?
He doesn't know how buttons work. He just likes pressing them. I think that is the joke there. I think that was the first of several. so badly done jump scares that were just there because otherwise the scene would be boring because there was that one and then there were several occasions where sharon stone reaches back into the covers and you're like Is it a nice pick or no? And then she throws herself in passion on top of him.
with no ice pick, that was clearly just like, wow, the pacing of this scene sucks. Let's throw in something really, really dumb so that we can have a beat of suspense here. I felt like that's what that was. I honestly felt like that was lazy writing, to be honest. Sorry, Joe. He should apologize to us, really. Joe, in his heart of hearts, believes this to be a thrill when...
In actuality, it's just playing with audience expectations and not giving them what they expect. And I honestly think that is a... good half of the movie's power is not always doing what you expect. I think at this moment in time, we've seen the regurgitations of this, that it's hard to deliver one of these things.
without falling into the well-worn tropes of it. So... I think with Baby Girl, you're seeing a lot of people expecting it to turn in this direction, and the marketing shows you that it could be that thing without actually ever... bringing it to that that pot to boil but
That is what audiences have learned to expect. It's almost like it's a slasher movie to a certain degree in that if you don't deliver certain elements of it, people will be somewhat dissatisfied because it's not hitting the... same beats i want to say for the record that the guy from the mayor's office is a real prig but also
Is not incorrect. I don't like this mayor's office. And I don't care how much money Johnny Boz was pumping into the art center. His music sucks. And he spent a lot of money.
on cocaine that he could have spent on the local school district, quite frankly. Six of one, half a dozen of the other. It's so hard to make that choice. The other... observation i had watching it this time was that there's a lot of pinter pauses throughout this movie and if people were paid by sideways glance they would have earned billions oh yeah their eyes can never stay straightforward
George just can't stop looking at Michael Douglas, no matter what anyone else says. He's just like, what's he going to think this time? Yeah, it's almost tomorrotic. It is. Like, you know, hey, what are you thinking about? Are you thinking about her? Again, at one point in the movie, he shows up in cowboy gear unexplained. They just have... dinner and they never explained why he's wearing cowboy shit and a giant belt buckle.
Why did he show up to dinner like this? What else was he doing? Where was he going before this? And what the fuck is he ever going to do afterwards? It's a crazy town. Also, beating the lie detector test? Gina, correct me if I'm wrong. Wasn't that, like, pivotal to fucking Jagged Edge, too? I believe so. It usually is. And for good reason. It turns out it's not actually that hard to feel like a detective.
Turns out it's pseudoscience, but that being said. Basically, you just have to be kind of a good liar and not start sweating and your heart racing. I mean, anybody can train themselves into not... you know, immediately reacting in a physical nature when you're lying. So, but I, but that, but that always, that always was definitely a thing in like eighties and nineties. And like, it's like, they have to be innocent.
They've got a clean lie detector. Yeah, that doesn't mean shit. That is why they stopped being admissible in criminal cases a very long time ago. The thing I love about the lie detector test is that the minute before where she offers to do it. And it's like you could tell she's played with these guys. She has taken their measure and she is bored now. And like she's tapping her hands on her on her chair and is like, do you want me? She's like, I just want to do something interesting now.
Why don't you just let's stop all this talking because I'm bored. The other thing is, do we know that she caused the accident with her parents and that she murdered that professor in college? Probably. Like, like, I mean, certainly. But did she need $10 million? She's worth $110 million. If you're worth $100, are you going to kill somebody for $10? That's really fun, but sure. Okay.
I assumed that she got the 100 after. Why am I applying logic to nonsense characters? Who's to say? Exactly. You can't ask, well, why? Because there's no explanation. Nobody acts like real human beings in this movie. But if I... If I don't do that, Gina, we don't have a podcast. You understand that, right? I get that, but particularly this movie. The character motivations are I don't know and who gives a shit.
Character motivations are secondary to the plot twists and turns, and so they're never going to make sense because, you know, are we supposed to think that she brought... a fake blonde wig to that office building in Oakland to set up Beth? Like, really? Why? Didn't Beth actually have that fucking blonde wig, though?
She dyed her hair blonde at one point. Did she also have the wig? Did you see that driver's license photo? That is not dyed blonde hair. She's wearing a Dolly Parton fucking wig. I just thought that was bad. art and costume design i was under the impression this was bad art and it would not end up on the test i do think the thing that's less believable is that she would get her hands so dirty because she seems like a
You know, she's chill, just all that blood and stuff like that. But maybe it's really the juxtaposition. If you saw it in the movie theater, there's a good... portion of what you see now that was not in that theatrical version it was it was severely cut for an r rating like you
Don't see Johnny Boz's dick in the theatrical version. And you're saying, but Patrick, how can I get my hands on the theatrical version of this movie to see an inferior version of it? Well, do you have a VHS player and a videotape? of Basic Instinct from 1997 because that's the only way you're gonna see it. What we see now contains dick and that much blood and eye stabbing from the one, the only Rob Bottin, Gina. Yeah. That scene with Johnny Boz getting stabbed.
Yeah, I mean, it's a great opening, and then it's just like, well, all right. All downhill from here, baby. Yeah, in terms of like a gore fest, it really never rises to that occasion again. I don't really see... you know, bullet holes after the fact as being particularly fun horror-wise. In fact, I think the most horrific moment of this entire movie is the moments of Hellraiser that are just playing on the television in the background. And I think it's also...
The biggest clue as to how I'm supposed to approach this movie, that it is camp, that everyone is secretly kind of a murderer in and throughout because that's what Hellraiser is. These are all bad people. And I think Esther Haas came out as, well, only the women are back. Yeah.
He failed. You know, the men are bad because the women drive them to it. He failed. That's what narcissists do. They think it's somebody else's fault, right? And it's not theirs. So we could argue that Esther House is the narcissist unknowingly waiting. movie about a bunch of narcissists, but only admitting that the women are narcissists. You got a point. In a way, he believes he's Catherine when he's really Nick, but he's really all of them.
And he's a very confused individual. And he's just as dumb as all of them, apparently. Perhaps the dumbest person possible. I mean, I think that is... The primary reason why we end up with showgirls is Verhoeven goes, here's a guy who does not understand his own power.
They'll pay me money to make a movie that he's written, so why not do it? And he just doesn't realize that people haven't gotten the joke by the time that Showgirls comes out. Because no one on earth can have sex like that in a pool. That's science fiction. That might as well be fucking flying cars in that movie. Elizabeth and I actually saw Showgirls in the theaters together like the night that it came out. Was it opening night, Elizabeth? Yeah.
Yeah, opening night. We were so excited to see it. It was so bad. We walked out like, is it so bad that it went around the horn? What happened? What just happened? And I think, you know, again, it has that weird... revenge element to it, and I don't know. It was coasting on the fumes of this, of Basic Instinct, because Basic Instinct was 92, I believe, and Showgirls was 94. work.
And this was a point where Basic Instinct was so successful that Joe Esterhaus would say, I have this script here, and Hollywood would be, how much can we pay you for it? And then Showgirls was such a disaster. But still, he was like, this is a movie about redemption, and it's kind of almost religious, and it seems to me, and it's Joe, Joe, Joe.
You have a grown male character who is repulsed by the idea of a woman having a period. And, like, I'm not sure the audience isn't supposed to be repelled by it. What a motion picture. Is there? Anything that we haven't gotten to yet, Megan and Elizabeth, that you have to have your, this is your pulpit moment. You need to get up here and tell us about it, about 1992's Basic Instinct. I've got something. This is the movie that I want to see, which is a prequel movie, Berkeley, 1980.
So Catherine has killed her parents and goes to school. And tells the sob story, right? Like I'm the poor little rich girl who lost her parents, blah, blah, blah. And this, the whole thing about her meeting Beth, and you can, you can actually kind of.
work it around for a little bit to see who's actually more obsessed with whom and then actually pursue also at the same time, like what actually happened with the psych professor slash counselor. I would love to see that movie. Well, as soon as Joe Astor house is dead. We'll be able to do that. But until that point, he owns these characters and I doubt if anything will be able to happen because no one wants to pay him a dime. He ruined that. Is he still alive?
As far as I can tell, he's still alive. There's no end date on his Wikipedia. All I remember is reading somewhere while doing research for an article I'd written by another one of his movies. Apparently he embraced Catholicism at some point, which I am utterly unsurprised. Because his attitude towards sexuality is extremely Catholic. We only do it in the dark and we don't do it that way. Only throw a hole in the sheets. You better believe only that man is on top.
Because why would you put a woman on top? That's what whores do. Oh, God. What has this podcast become? It's a podcast for whores. Well, T-shirt idea number two. Last week was play with my love language. This podcast is for whores, white self. Ethically slutty podcast. Shout out to Dossie Easton. We love bisexuals. We do. We love you all. And you have the right to better movies than Basic Instinct, but I think we all have the right to enjoy the...
Pure comedy that basic instinct is. I want to see more movies where slutty bisexuals go on murder rampages. I think that's great. Yeah. If you support a woman's rights, you should support her wrongs too. If that means some ice pick stabbing, so be it. Amen. I would see this movie again if Catherine and Roxy got to ride off into the sunset together. Yes. That is a sequence in this movie that I found fucking outrageous. That he walks away from that.
Not in handcuffs. He is not an active duty police officer. He does not have a badge or a gun. And he just runs this motherfucker off the road. And everyone's like yelling at him like, you're above the law. Well. Put him in jail. Then he would be not above the law. When you allow him to just fucking walk away from this, you're part of the problem. He should have been in jail before the beginning of the movie. I'm sorry. If you are undercover vice.
and you are looking for drug trafficking and first of all how hard it is to determine a serious drug trafficker From a tourist to San Francisco. From a tourist in San Francisco. He's so unbelievable and stupid. It's either he's lying through his teeth. or he's incredibly stupid, or both. And he was coked out when he did it, which, again, makes everybody shock at Catherine's casual coke use even more ridiculous.
They don't pay attention to the words other people say, and they certainly don't pay attention to the words they say. It's an entire movie where people just operate in their own weird bubble, and nothing they say or do affects anyone else. unless they have an ice pick in their hands. And that's about the only time it works. It just, it is mystifying that it was as big as it was.
But there are elements that are so well done that I understand its effect. It's a contradiction, but I hate to tell everyone, we live in that constantly. It's not new. And I'm sad to say, I don't think it's going away. That brings us to choose your own death venture. And that is where we decide.
Of the deaths portrayed in this film, if you were forced to die in one of those ways, which one would it be and why? You could be stabbed multiple times in bed with an ice pick, and that happens a couple of times. You could be shot in the head with a .38. And then have a police captain say, give me your gun. And it's a fucking 44. And no one like goes, well, it's not that gun. So that's not the murder weapon.
They literally stand around and go, it's a 38 revolver. And he goes, here's my 44 automatic. I don't know shit about guns, but this is a real fucking thing. And everyone's like. You're on notice for maybe killing this guy. Are you kidding me? Why would it be that gun when you know it's a gun?
Again, the dumbest cops ever, right? I mean, we have to remember. Oh, they're all fucking idiots. It's like they just got out of the police academy yesterday. I would argue that the cops from police academy are better cops than... And these cops. There's no argument there. No, I think you're 100% right. You can die in a car crash caused by Nick. Let's put that out there. He absolutely.
runs this woman off the road. Now, granted, she starts the whole, I want to murder you with a car business. That being said, he finishes it and he finishes it. Off a five fucking story drop. You could be murdered in a park by razor. You can be stabbed multiple times in an elevator with another ice pick. Or you can be shot. By 44, when you're reaching for your keys, once again, by Nick. Oh, yeah, you're absolutely right. His body count is higher than any other. His on-screen body count.
is higher than any other characters in this. On screen, he murders the most people in this movie. You can't lay the blame at...
of Catherine's former boxer boyfriend dying in the ring. She was attracted to a guy who might die and he went out and punched people to almost death and the fact that he did die is not... that surprising so i don't think we can lay that one at her but so far as far as like murders we can actually tie to her there are three and then there are a bunch of other murders and nick has the most of them
I think his onscreen kills, I see that as the, you know, kind of you start off in this seedy situation and then. A lot of times at the end of movies, you want to have a bow, right? So normal society is now back to where it is and there isn't any more threats. And I think Beth and Roxy's sexuality. are both threatening to society in this movie. I think that there's this subtle justification that...
You know, Nick is kind of taking out the, well, the two most obviously threatening people. He would take Catherine out, but the good thing about that is that he doesn't have the opportunity to. She's too smart. I think for some people, those deaths are justified. Yes. No, it's onscreen homophobia is actually happening here. But I think that is like Verhoeven's idea that you are, you're seeing the hero, everybody doing this.
for these reasons, and that flew over a lot of people's heads. So when it comes to choosing your own death venture, Elizabeth, I choose you to go first. Okay. All right. I would choose Johnny Boz's death. As gross and disgusting as it is, even though it's got ice pick, it also has Sharon Stone and cocaine. I feel like that's worth it. The last thing that goes through his mind is orgasm ice pick in that order.
So, you know, there are rougher ways to go about it. Megan, how about you? Oh, you know, I think I'm going to choose bullet to the head. It just seems like the quickest, most painless one. No. You're absolutely right. We often choose the quickest deaths. It's a perfectly rational answer. Gina, what say you? I'm going to take Johnny Bob's death because I don't mind the idea of having an orgasm immediately before death. I mean, they do call it the little death.
death. And, you know, normally that doesn't involve, you know, an ice pick through your eye, but, but, but still, you know, I'm not going to yuck anybody's yums. And also I cannot sing or play a musical instrument. So I figure that makes me a Johnny boss about even. Now, how do you feel about being surrounded? by the dumbest fucking people in San Francisco just like...
shining blue lights on you on your corpse. I kind of like the idea of people just being shocked and appalled by every aspect of my personal life in the event of my demise. I'm also going to choose this one primarily because I want the mayor's office. office involved after I die. It's a big dream. And I don't think I'm going to achieve it in this life. Why not
You know, wish for it in another. That's my philosophy. Before we go, Elizabeth and Megan, why don't you tell our audience a little more about our... show about not our yeah tell us about our show tell the audience about your show kill by kill oh okay i like it already it's on the deaths and the characters oh sorry
That was dull if he asked me. I know. There's no way that's going to last. I'll tell you that right now. So Megan and I are both mental health professionals and cousins who also... grew up in toxic homes filled with narcissistic abuse and so we thought that we would put our brains together and our very dark sense of humor and talk about that and tell some of the ugly truths and also you know do a little bit of educating and then also talk about like some tools that work.
So, yeah, there's really nothing funnier than child abuse. Oh, absolutely. You know, it's up there at the top for sure. And Megan, will you tell them about the crazy mama? Oh, yes. OK, so I started this as a drinking game years ago. where when I would meet someone and find out that they also had a crazy mom or a crazy dad, we would go out to a bar and we'd just tell like increasingly horrible stories to each other about events that happened in our childhood. And the rule was...
that you had to drink whenever somebody said something that made you feel like you wanted a drink. So we ended up drunk pretty quickly. And so we adapted that for the show. And so at the end of every episode, Elizabeth and I tell... stories to each other of horrible things that our mothers did when we were kids and we decide who's the winner who who wins the title of worst experience I don't want to I don't want to you know come up all the bully
playground, but I think I could probably beat you guys. Really? Challenge accepted. If you ever had me on your show, I had the story immediately. popped into my mind so bring it on bring it on not me my mother's a saint but let me tell you a couple stories offline though
So yeah, it's, you know, we really wanted to make the podcast for, you know, what we needed when we were first figuring this out because it is such a mind fuck to grow up in a family like this. So we really just wanted to at least take what happened to us and make something.
good out of it. So we, yeah, we covered different topics like gas lighting and all sorts of other fun stuff like that. And we did do a movie episode because we both grew up in LA and some movies are really close to our heart. And so we just did an episode on Lost Boys. and specifically why that sort of bad boy vampire character is so attractive to people that grew up in these kind of families. Mullets? Yes.
That's exactly it. And I just realized in therapy that one of the reasons why I really love horror movies is because I know when the horror starts and I know when the horror ends. Yeah, that is explaining a lot. And Gina, where can people find you on these here internets? I write about movies and television and pop culture at my substack, ginawatchesthings.substack.com.
I'm fairly active on Blue Sky and Regina Does Things. Do it today, people. Check it out. Join us over on Patreon where we have special bonus episodes for you. We have Q&As and bonus episodes and movie commentaries galore. We're on... the various socials with the exception of Twitter. Fuck that place. And we might be fucking off.
bore if this keeps up who's to say we're definitely on blue sky for the foreseeable future and you please subscribe to us on youtube you don't have to listen to us on youtube but if you have an account just just hit subscribe for And that just about does it. But don't worry, folks. The erotic body count will continue this month for myself, for Gina, Megan, and Elizabeth. Bye-bye, everybody.