An adulterous erotic thriller that failed to excite critics reveals its darkest and most dangerous streaming secrets

There was a time when Neil LaBute’s transition from playwright to filmmaker had many believing he was destined to go down in the history books as one of his generation’s finest behind-the-camera talents. While he’s made several good movies without a doubt, Out of the Blue is much more reflective of his current standing.

Torn to shreds by critics by way of a 19 percent Rotten Tomatoes score, the adulterous erotic thriller wasn’t quite as bad – or as genius, depending on how you feel – as his remake of The Wicker Man, but it still took enough of a pounding to wind up second from bottom on the aggregation site in the ranking of his 12 features to date.

Ray “Son of Jack” Nicholson and Diane Kruger play the two lead roles, with the former starring as a young man who finds himself without direction after being released from prison following a stint behind bars for assault. Stumbling upon the latter’s Marilyn, the two form an immediate connection that soon evolves into something altogether more dangerous when he begins frivolously – and repeatedly – bringing up the prospect of her wealthy husband’s murder. Hypothetically, of course.

It’s not the worst setup in the world, and there was definitely potential for an old-fashioned potboiler that could have been ripped directly from the subgenre’s late 1980s or early 1990s heyday, but Out of the Blue simply failed to deliver. Undeterred, though, streaming subscribers have opted to give it whirl nonetheless, with FlixPatrol revealing the universally-panned tale of lust gone wrong as one of ViaPlay’s biggest hits of the week so far.