We Kill for Love
It was an epidemic of the eighties and the nineties which exploded seemingly out of nowhere though the precedents had long been established, becoming a ubiquitous and inescapable part of the public consciousness which just as swiftly declined and slipped into obscurity as markets and tastes changed, the “erotic thriller” finding its moment in the home video boom then fading as commercial pressure required more for less, destroying the fragile balance where quality and profit coexisted.
Explored thoroughly by Anthony Penta, writer, producer, cinematographer, editor, director and narrator, with Michael Reed playing the physical presence of “the Archivist,” his documentary We Kill for Love is subtitled “the lost world of the erotic thriller,” the credits listing around three hundred titles from that era which are used to illustrate the multifarious productions sheltering under that broad umbrella in the sunny neverlands and neon nights where such stories are set.
Sold on a mixture of danger, romance and seduction, the plot as one of the many interviewees comments invariably involving “a guy, a girl, a gun,” the titles were full of promise: Victim of Desire, Naked Sins, Evil Obsession, When Passions Collide, Stripped to Kill, Thief of Hearts, with more than a few mainstream, and sometimes hugely successful, Hollywood feature films qualifying for inclusion alongside the straight-to-video roster, Dressed to Kill, Body Heat, Body of Evidence.
Basic Instinct writer James Dearden discussing the influence and the impact of his most famous work and the changes which were made prior to release at the behest of a test audience who rejected any sympathy for Glenn Close’s “Bunny Boiler” character, the precedents of the genre are explored, through the American detective thrillers of the thirties and forties and film noir, investigators who became involved and entangled and sometimes entrapped, a contrast to the cerebral detachment of Conan Doyle and Christie.
The productions high end and high profile, inevitably presenting aspirational characters who lived in fashionable apartments, wore designer clothes and drove fast cars yet were bored or unfulfilled in their personal lives, leaving them open to temptation, passions which often found expression behind billowing curtains or in a bathtub ringed by lit candles, betrayal, blackmail and revenge were the inevitable outcome of the unchecked lust, tropes as conscious and necessary as those of any other cinematic category.
The talent interviewed including stars, writers, directors, producers and critics, throughout pride and enthusiasm are expressed for the achievements of a rare film genre, principally independently produced, where women were given equal billing and presence to the men and which portrayed them as protagonists in their own stories rather than housewives, sisters or nurses, presented as owning their desires and their domains, making careers for themselves and victims no more.
We Kill for Love is streaming on the Arrow platform now
