FatalAttraction Tagged Articles at Cinematical

We've all been there, that incredibly awkward, deeply painful moment when your beloved looks into your eyes and says: "We need to talk." That translates into: "It's over." / "I've found somebody else." / "I love you, but I'm not in love with you." / "I'm getting married. No, not to you." / "Actually, I'm straight."

No one likes to be spurned, and with Valentine's Day arriving this year the day after the new Friday the 13th will be released, the deadly combo of horror and romance made me think about movies in which someone goes nutty after being dropped or dismissed, or is left feeling unloved. Should we count our blessings that Jason Voorhees never got dumped by his girlfriend?

1. Fatal Attraction

"I'm not going to be ignored, Dan!" The movie that was single-handedly responsible for scaring all married men away from cheating on their wives in 1987 features my top pick for a spurned psycho. Alex Forrest (Glenn Close) looks like a perfectly responsible, attractively mature lady, but she has a naughty side that flares up when Dan (Michael Douglas) dares to treat their one-night stand as, well, a one-night stand. Rabbit, anyone?

2. Carrie

Poor Carrie (Sissy Spacek). She might have been fine if everyone had just left her alone. But, no, her mother berates her and the kids at school tease and ridicule her. Then Tommy (William Katt) insists on taking her to the prom and even kisses her! Maybe everything will be OK! Nope. When she's bathed in blood and everyone laughs, she knows she's been set up -- Tommy must be in on it too! -- and takes care of business as only a spurned telekinetic psycho can do.

When Paul Verhoeven returned to the silver screen after a six-year absence with Black Book, it felt like a homecoming. The Dutch director made a terrific thriller about the unheralded Dutch resistance during World War II, his first film in his native tongue since he'd left for Hollywood in the 1980s. Now the biographer of Jesus is "in talks" to make an erotic thriller that crosses Risky Business with Fatal Attraction, according to Variety.

The untitled project, written by Wendy Miller, follows "a college intern who finds himself trapped in a dangerous affair with the boss's wife." Will she be a college-aged trophy wife or a middle-aged lady? I'd like the danger to come from the wife herself, like Glenn Close -- wouldn't it be cool if she was a legendary black widow type, boiling rabbits if she doesn't get her way and ready to kill after the first mating? Could she secretly be an afternoon prostitute who is also attending college, like a cross between Catherine Denueve in Belle de Jour and Rebecca De Mornay?

Naturally, if we're talking Verhoeven and erotic thrillers, we must pay homage to Basic Instinct and wonder who will be his next Sharon Stone. She made her career, of course, by crossing her legs in that controversial flick, but times have changed since 1992. I mean, Basic Instinct writer Joe Eszterhas is now a churchgoing Midwesterner!

Who would you like to see in an erotic thriller directed by a "no holds barred" Paul Verhoeven?

I don't think I'm alone in feeling that the Saw franchise should probably call it a day after the release of the latest installment on October 26th. What could possibly be next? For now, Saw producer Mark Burg is still looking to branch out with a loose remake of the film that gives women's studies majors everywhere the chills; Adrian Lyne's Fatal Attraction. Burg tells Shock Til You Drop that it will not be a straight remake and instead will be the "Twisted Pictures take on Fatal Attraction." Titled Kept, the script is based on the novella by Jason Rothwell.

Burg tells Shock Til You Drop that the story focuses on a married man who sets out for a night of infidelity and ends up in life or death situation. Since this is a film from Twisted Pictures, you can only assume that this guy is going to have one heck of a bad night. Shock claims they managed to score a few extra tidbits about the twists in the plot, but they were sworn to secrecy.

The last time Burg and company were looking into remakes, they had committed to redoing some classic horror films. Beyond those, he is also producing Repo! The Genetic Opera and the thriller Silence, about a man searching for his wife's murderer. The latter is the second script from Saw creators James Wan and Leigh Whannell. These projects are not exactly groundbreaking, but definitely a step up from the other two projects he has listed on his IMDb page -- both of which sound like made-for-TV crime flicks that you catch on the USA network at three in the morning. Compared to those movies, a Fatal Attraction rip-off sounds downright delightful.

While Adrian Lyne's Fatal Attraction is certainly a very popular and influential film, I wonder how many of its fans remember a little Clint Eastwood movie called Play Misty for Me. The 1971 chiller was about a disc jockey (Eastwood) who turns a fling (Jessica Walter -- yes, the hilariously hateful matriarch from Arrested Development) into a freak-o when he passes her by for another girl. (Sound familiar?) But after the overwhelming success of 1987's Fatal Attraction, the multiplexes seemed over-loaded with all sorts of "domestic thrillers" in which "a normally generic nobody, albeit one belonging to a distinct domestic stereotype" goes ape-doody and starts stabbing people left and right. Gathered here are seven of the most memorable. Not the best, necessarily, but the seven I can remember right now. Hence "memorable."

If Fatal Attraction = Crazy Psycho Jilted Mistress, then...

Unlawful Entry = Crazy Psycho Dirty Cop -- Kurt Russell and Madeleine Stowe are thrilled to meet up with cop Ray Liotta when their home is invaded -- but when the guy keeps snooping around and using his badge as a license to ... peep, things take a turn for the worse. Fun stuff that only periodically gets campy, thanks mainly to a brisk pace and three strong leads. Plus Liotta's just so wonderfully evil in this one. (Jonathan Kaplan, 1992)

The Crush = Crazy Psycho Sexy Jailbait -- Underage temptress Alicia Silverstone doesn't take it well when dreamboat Cary Elwes rebuffs her amorous advances, and she's not afraid to kill people to show it. Low-rent cable fodder that's only worth watching if (absolutely) nothing else is on. But you might need a shower once it's over. But if you're a fan of "death by bees in a locked darkroom," here's a flick you'll love. (Alan Shapiro, 1993)

The Temp = Crazy Psycho Freckled Secretary -- It probably doesn't take much imagining to picture Lara Flynn Boyle as a raving psycho bitch, but this pulpy little horror comedy is a lot more entertaining than the "temp gone crazy" premise might sound. (OK, not "a lot," but still kinda fun.) Timothy Hutton plays the cookie company suit who finds that he's getting a whole lot of unexpected help from his new temp. And by "help" I mean she ruins and/or kills anyone who might stand in his way. (Tom Holland, 1993)

When Sherry Lansing left the movie business last year, she probably didn't expect to win an Academy Award. Or maybe she quit Paramount just to be more humanitarian in order to win an award. No, that just wouldn't make any sense. Anyway, the one-time Oscar-nominated producer of Fatal Attraction will indeed be honored by the Academy; she will receive the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award on February 25.

Some people consider the Hersholt presentation a good time to head to the bathroom during the Oscars telecast (unfortunately for those people it isn't given out every year). Unlike the honorary award presentation, which should be just as enjoyable as ever this coming year, the Hersholt honor isn't always given to someone that most viewers recognize, are familiar with, or care about. I hate to say this, because the award goes to people who have done wonderful things for the world -- Lansing, for example, does a lot for cancer research among many other charitable things -- but ask your friends if they remember Roger Mayer or Howard W. Koch. Sure, sometimes the award goes to someone more famous like Paul Newman or Charlton Heston, but I guarantee that a majority of viewers of the Oscars won't have a clue who Lansing is (or was, since she's hardly a Hollywood player these days) when she graces their screen. Not that this should matter. I actually wish that there were enough humanitarians in Hollywood for the Academy to give the award out every year.