History Film / BasicInstinct

''Basic Instinct'' is a 1992 American erotic thriller/neo-noir film, directed by Creator/PaulVerhoeven and written by Joe Eszterhas, starring Creator/SharonStone, Creator/MichaelDouglas, Jeanne Tripplehorn and Creator/GeorgeDzundza.

''Basic Instinct'' is a 1992 American erotic thriller/neo-noir film, directed by Creator/PaulVerhoeven and written by Creator/JoeEszterhas, starring Creator/SharonStone, Creator/MichaelDouglas, Creator/JeanneTripplehorn and Creator/GeorgeDzundza.

** In the latter scene, where Beth comes into Nick's apartment the opening theme song from ''Series/The Jeffersons'' could be heard on the television and when she leaves after a verbal altercation.
** When he is awaken from being heavily intoxicated the movie ''Film/{{Hellraiser}}'' is on the television.

** [[spoiler:Roxy]] first tries to kill Nick by running him over, and then again by playing chicken. [[spoiler:She loses.]]

* CasualtyInTheRing: The fate of one of Catherine's fiancées, a middleweight boxer who was killed during a prizefight.
%%* TheChessmaster: Catherine Tramell. She manipulates people around her into commiting murders for her.

* ContrivedCoincidence: A lot, considering it evolves around a murder.

* DateRape: The first scene of Nick and Beth in her apartment. Feeling sexually frustrated from dealing with Catherine's interrogation, Nick acts it out on Beth by aggressively coming on to her. She seems to enjoy it at first, but by the end he forces himself onto her and she's clearly struggling against him, and at one point flat-out tells him "no". After they're done, she calls him out on the fact that he wasn't making ''love'' to her, and angrily tells him to leave.

* DarkIsEvil: Roxy, who always wears dark clothes and has a hate towards Nick.

* DownerEnding: [[spoiler:Nick clearly doesn't have much longer to live. Gus dies. Beth is framed by Catherine, and is then killed by the man she loved. And the film's ending implies that Catherine plans to kill Nick.]]

* FakeOutFadeOut: The film "ends" [[spoiler:with Nick and Catherine kissing passionately on the bed. Fade out. Then fade back in: the camera pans down, revealing an icepick on the floor and leading the audience to believe Catherine was the killer all along.]]

** Catherine and Roxy kissing, groping each other and dancing together in the club as Nick watches.

* FemmeFatale: Catherine is one of the most iconic examples in modern filmmaking. No surprise, seeing as how the entire film is a 90's update on the FilmNoir genre. She seduces both men [[DepravedBisexual and women]] to attain her goals, tempts Nick with her emotional vulnerability after [[spoiler:Roxy]]'s death, [[spoiler:and committed all the murders]].

* GirlOnGirlIsHot: Nick watches Catherine and Roxy kiss as he leaves the beach house, and again at the club when both women are dancing and grinding seductively on one another as Nick watches.

* {{Giallo}}: The film is an erotic thriller, set with some mystery, suspense, horror and drama all mixed together, strong color schemes, and manipulative, villainous characters.

* {{Honeytrap}}: Catherine takes men to bed, ties them up and murders them.

* KarmaHoudini: [[spoiler:Catherine Tramell successfully shifts the blame for the murders to Beth, and gets away with her crimes.]]

* LightIsNotGood: The thoroughly evil Catherine consistently wears white, beige, or cream-colored clothing, along with being a blonde.

* MostWritersAreWriters: Catherine is a crime novelist. [[spoiler:And a particularly manipulative and genre-savvy one at that; by the end of the film it's revealed that she set up almost every event to emulate her own book.]]

* OnlyAFleshWound: Averted when [[spoiler: Nick shoots Beth]]. She's hit in the shoulder, but bleeds out within minutes.

* StealthParody: In his book ''The Devil's Guide to Hollywood'', screenwriter Joe Eszterhas states essentially that he conceived and wrote this film in 13 days as a cynical exercise in creating the LowestCommonDenominator screenplay possible. So he could get back his record of being the highest paid screenwriter in Hollywood. And he ''succeeded''.
* ThemeSerialKiller: A woman kills a retired rock 'n roll star during sex, in the exact same way that a rich novelist named Catherine Tramell described in one of her books. When the police suspect her, she points out how stupid she would be if she were to write it down in her book first. Eventually they find the culprit: [[spoiler:police psychologist Beth, an old flame of Nick, who was obsessed with Catherine. Then the last shot reveals Catherine as the real killer, making this an inversion.]]

** [[spoiler:Nick goes after Catherine despite all the obvious hints that she's dangerous. She even flat-out ''tells him'' that she is writing a story about an AntiHero detective who falls for the wrong woman, and that the women kills the detective. Nick's partner Gus calls him out on it in-story. Nick is either about to be killed in the last scene or survives in the end is because Catherine had a last-minute change of heart about killing him. If you count the sequel as part of the same story, she killed him.]]
** [[spoiler:Beth getting herself shot by Nick. Despite the fact that he's clearly agitated and pointing a gun at her, she puts her hand into her pocket and refuses to remove it even as he orders her to. As it turns out, she wasn't armed, but he had no way of knowing that, and given the circumstances, reacted the way any cop would. It's either idiocy, or just thinking that he loves her too much to shoot her. On top of that: going to an unknown place because of the message left by an unknown person without checking everything first doesn't really look like a smart idea (''especially'' if she was suspecting, as she'd said she was, that Catherine was somehow manipulating things against her). Bonus dumb points for her being a professional psychologist closely working with the police.]]

* TroublingUnchildlikeBehavior: In Catherine's novel "Child's Play" it tells of a young boy who causes his parent's death in a mysterious accident and he manages to get away with it. Worst part is that it may be based on Catherine's childhood and her own parent's demise and she may have had something to do with their deaths.
* TheUnfairSex: Averted. Catherine is a sociopath, Roxy is a PsychoLesbian, Hazel Dobkins killed her husband and children and Beth has a intercourse with a policeman who shot and killed two tourists [[spoiler: while he was under the effects of some drugs he had taken]] and that she is supposed to evaluate. In fact the number of evil females led to accusations of misogyny.

* FamousLastWords:
-->'''[[spoiler: Gus]]:''' ''[to Nick]'' I'll be right back.\\
'''[[spoiler: Beth]]:''' ''[to Nick]'' I love you.\\
'''[[spoiler: Nick]]:''' ''[to Catherine]'' Fuck like minks, forget the rugrats, and live happily ever after.

'''Detective:''' Hey, [[OutWithABang he got off]] before he got offed!

* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: [[spoiler: Nick, after he shoots Beth and she dies.]]

%%* TheChessmaster: Catherine Tramell.

'''[[spoiler: Beth]]:''' ''[to Nick]'' I love you.

It was followed by a sequel, ''Film/BasicInstinct2'', that was panned by critics and spectacularly bombed at the box office.

* AssholeVictim: Catherine is a monster, yes, but some of her victims are far from innocent. Nick, assuming he becomes a victim, shot two tourists while high on cocaine and got away with it because Beth covered for him while he slept with her ([[spoiler:and Beth also may have murdered her husband as well, even if there is a serious possibility that it was another (failed) attempt by Catherine to get revenge on Beth: killing Beth's husband and leaving some clues to frame Beth]]), and Roxy killed several young boys [[JailBait after seducing them.]]

* EverybodyWantsBlondes: The main thing that distinguishes Catherine's beauty from Beth's HollywoodHomely is that Catherine is blonde (and everybody wants her).

* INeverSaidItWasPoison: Nick and Gus try to trip up Roxy and Catherine with this when they try to harp on the fact that both women already know that Johnny Boz was murdered without them having been told, but it fails miserably in both cases when both women point out that it's the obvious conclusion to come to, as the men have already identified themselves as ''homicide'' detectives. As well, Roxy could have easily called Catherine after the cops left her house and warned her that they were on their way.

** In the latter scene, where Beth comes into Nick's apartment the opening theme song from "The Jefferson's" could be heard on the television and when she leaves after a verbal altercation, while it seems he is awaken from being heavily intoxicated the movie, Film/{{Hellraiser}} (1987) is on the television.

%%* AllMenArePerverts: What gets Nick into so much trouble.

%%* BeautyIsBad: Catherine Tramell.

* BlondeBrunetteRedhead: [[spoiler: The brunette Beth mentions she dyed her hair blonde back in college and she was a redhead once too during a discussion with Nick about her connection with Catherine.]]

%%* {{Giallo}}: The film is an erotic thriller, set with some mystery, suspense, horror and drama all mixed together.

%%* LoveTriangle:
%%** Beth/Nick/Catherine.
%%** Also, Nick/Catherine/Roxy.

* SexGoddess: After sleeping with Catherine, he describes her as "the fuck of the century".

''Basic Instinct'' is a 1992 American erotic thriller/neo-noir film, directed by Creator/PaulVerhoeven and written by Joe Eszterhas, starring Creator/SharonStone, Creator/MichaelDouglas, Jeanne Tripplehorn and Creator/GeorgeDzundza.

* AllMenArePerverts: What gets Nick into so much trouble.

* BabiesEverAfter: Discussed and Averted. In the end, Nick is casually lying in bed with Catherine talking about plans for the future which involves having sex, having children and living happily ever after. Catherine despises children so Nick appeases her by promising her a future of just sleeping together and living happily ever after.
-->'''Catherine:''' What do we do now?
-->'''Nick:''' Fuck like minks, raise rugrats and live happily ever after.
-->'''Catherine:''' I hate rugrats.
-->'''Nick:''' Fuck like minks, forget the rugrats, and live happily ever after.
* TheBadGuyWins: [[spoiler:Catherine succeeds in falsely leading the police and Nick, the anti-hero, into believing Beth was the killer - and Nick killed her, too. Catherine? She successfully escapes the law and proceeds to have sex with Nick. The last shot hints that she is either about to kill him or intended to kill him but calls it off because she likes having sex with him.]]

* BeautyIsBad: Catherine Tramell.
* BettyAndVeronica: Good girl Beth (whose name is coincidentally, or perhaps deliberately, similar to Betty) and Catherine.

* BlackWidow: Catherine. Every one of her love interests ends up dead, whether by her own hand or through her manipulation of the situation. [[spoiler: Possibly Beth, regarding her own husband, even if another possibility is that Catherine killed him, trying to frame Beth (and failing), as a first attempt to attain revenge over Beth]].

* BuryYourGays: [[spoiler: Roxy dies trying to kill Nick with her car and keep Catherine to herself. Beth may also be victim to this trope considering her brief experimental fling with Catherine back in college. While the bisexual villainess Catherine survives.]]

* TheChessmaster: Catherine Tramell.

** Catherine casually changes her clothes in front of the police detectives sent to escort her to the station for questioning in a show of contempt.

* DateRape: The first scene of Nick and Beth in her apartment. Feeling sexually frustrated from dealing with Catherine's interrogation, Nick acts it out on Beth by aggressively coming on to her. She seems to enjoy it at first, but by the end he forces himself onto her and she's clearly struggling against him, and at one point flat-out tells him "no". After they're done, she calls him out on that fact that he wasn't making ''love'' to her, and angrily tells him to leave.

-->'''[[spoiler: Gus]]:''' ''(to Nick)'' I'll be right back.
-->'''[[spoiler: Beth]]:''' ''(to Nick)'' I love you.

* FanService: Most of the film's scenes are steamy sex scenes featuring an unclothed Sharon Stone or Michael Douglas.

* FatalAttraction: Most of the drama.
* FemalesAreMoreInnocent: Inverted. All female characters in the film are either sociopathic, homicidal, manipulative, obsessed, or some combinations of the above.

** Downplayed as it's actually [[LampshadedTrope lampshaded]] InUniverse, but still, in the end, [[spoiler: Beth is dead on when predicting what a murderous writer would say in her defence.]]

** Before the climax of the movie, Nick drops in at Catherine's house and picks up a page of the manuscript of Catherine last book that she's currently printing. He glances at it very briefly, without reading it. If you freeze frame, you can read the page. [[spoiler: It's a perfect description of the killing that is going to happen in the next scene.]]

-->'''Nick:''' ''(to Roxy)'' Let me ask you something, ''Rocky''. Man-to-man. I think she's the fuck of the century.

-->'''Detective:''' There's cum stains all over the bed sheets.
-->'''Nick:''' ''(inspecting the bed for blood and semen stains)'' Impressive!
-->'''Detective:''' Hey, [[OutWithABang he got off]] before he got offed!

* LoveTriangle: Beth/Nick/Catherine.
** Also, Nick/Catherine/Roxy.

** The opening sex scene goes from erotic to terrifying as rock star Johnny Boz is stabbed to dead in bed with the killer's ice pick.

* MostWritersAreWriters: Catherine is a crime novelist. [[spoiler:And a particularly manipulative and genre savvy one at that; by the end of the film it's revealed that she set up almost every event to emulate her own book.]]

-->'''Beth:''' You weren't making love to me.
-->'''Nick:''' Who was I making love with?
* SelfMadeOrphan: Catherine Trammell killed her parents and wrote a book based on the incident.

* SmokingHotSex: Nick asks for a cigarette after forcing himself on Beth, angering her. He also lights up after having sex with Catherine.

* UnratedEdition: The movie that put the trope into the mainstream.

* WhamLine: Catherine delivers one to Nick after making love and she has a confession.

-->'''Nick:''' There was no Lisa Oberman when you were at Berkeley.
-->'''Catherine:''' ''(angry)'' What are you doing, checking up on me? For what? I said Hoberman.
-->'''Nick:''' ''(later, on the phone)'' Hoberman. Lisa Hoberman with an "H".
* WhamShot: [[spoiler: As Nick and Catherine resume making love, the camera slowly pans down to show what she was reaching for under the bed: an ice pick.]].

* BaitAndSwitch: In the end, [[spoiler: Catherine leans over and reaches for something under her bed as she gives Nick a look. However, she changes her mind goes back to sleeping with him. However, the camera pans down to show that she was indeed planning on killing him]].

** [[spoiler: Beth]] happens to arrive at the same building on the 4th floor after [[spoiler: Gus]] is murdered.

* EnfantTerrible: Catherine is heavily implied to have murdered her parents, as described in yet another of her books about a boy who kills his parents is the exact same manner that her parents died--their boat exploding.

* TilMurderDoUsPart: Hazel Dobkins, a friend of Catherine Trammell's, killed her husband [[OffingTheOffspring and children]] and got away with it. She even claims she never even knew why she done it.

** [[spoiler:Beth getting herself shot by Nick. Despite the fact that he's clearly agitated and pointing a gun at her, she puts her hand into her pocket and refuses to remove it even as he orders her to. As it turns out, she wasn't armed, but he had no way of knowing that, and given the circumstances, reacted the way any cop would. It's either idiocy, or just thinking that he loves her too much to shoot her. On top of that: going to an unknown place because of the message left by an unknown person without checking everything first doesn't really look like a smart idea (even more so if she was suspecting, as she'd said she was, that Catherine was somehow manipulating things against her. Bonus dumb points for her being a professional psychologist closely working with the police.]]

* TroublingUnchildlikeBehavior: In Catherine's novel "Child's Play" it tells of a young boy who causes his parent's death in a mysterious boat accident and he manages to get away with it. Worst part is that it may be based on Catherine's childhood and her own parent's demise and she may have had something to do with their deaths.

** [[spoiler:Beth getting herself shot by Nick. Despite the fact that he's clearly agitated and pointing a gun at her, she puts her hand into her pocket and refuses to remove it even as he orders her to. As it turns out, she wasn't armed, but he had no way of knowing that, and given the circumstances, reacted the way any cop would. It's either idiocy, or just thinking that he loves her too much to shoot her.]]

** Downplayed as it's actually lampshaded InUniverse, but still, in the end, [[Beth is dead on when predicting what a murderous writer would say in her defence.]]

* YourCheatingHeart: Nick had an affair with his therapist Beth during his first marriage. He continued the affair even after his wife died.
** Catherine cheats on her lesbian lover Roxy with Nick.
** Nick cheats on Beth with Catherine after she pushes him away.

* MeaningfulName / ShoutOut: [[spoiler: A "trammell" is a Scottish death shroud, but this is unintentional as the character was named for baseball player Alan Trammell.]]

* MurderInTheFamily: Hazel Dobkins, a friend of Catherine Trammell's, killed her husband and children and got away with it. She even claims she never even knew why she done it.

* NoBisexuals: A case with [[spoiler: Beth, who enjoys dating and sleeping with men but is revealed to have slept with murder suspect Catherine back in college. Nick is not pleased as this jeopardizes everything. Beth admits she experimented in college with Catherine and that it was a one time thing and that it hasn't changed her. Beth doesn't consider herself bisexual. However, at least according to Beth, Catherine became obsessed with her. Nick also believes that Beth is still into girls and taunts her with this while holding her at gunpoint]].

* DateRape: The first scene of Nick and Beth in her apartment. He aggressively comes on to her, and she enjoys it at first. By the end he forces himself onto her, and she's clearly struggling against him, and at one point flat-out tells him "no". After they're done, she calls him out on that fact that he wasn't making ''love'' to her, and angrily tells him to leave.

* DateRape: The first scene of Nick and Beth in her apartment qualifies as this. He aggressively comes on to her, and she enjoys it at first. By the end he forces himself onto her, and she's clearly struggling against him, and at one point flat-out tells him "no". After they're done, she calls him out on that fact that he wasn't making ''love'' to her, and angrily tells him to leave.

* BabiesEverAfter: Discussed and Averted. In the end, Nick is casually lying in bed with Catherine talking about plans for the future which involves having sex, having children and living happily ever after. Catherine, depressed, says she despises children so Nick appeases her by promising her a future of just sleeping together and living happily ever after.

**

** Nick and Beth's sex scene becomes this when he forces himself on her as she tells him "No!", heading into date rape territory.

-->'''Nick:''' There was no Lisa Oberman when you were at Berkeley.//
-->'''Catherine:''' ''(angry)'' What are you doing, checking up on me? For what? I said Hoberman.//

** [[spoiler: When Nick checks the computer system for Lisa Hoberman and Dr. Beth Gardner's picture pops up]].
** The blonde wig Nick finds on the floor [[spoiler: just before Beth arrives]].