Movies to court controversy that ends up stretching on for decades aren’t usually what you’d associate with the word iconic, but Paul Verhoeven’s Basic Instinct secured the accolade for itself regardless.
After all, the erotic thriller was a cultural phenomenon that rocketed to over $350 million at the box office, secured a pair of Academy Award nominations, and immediately infiltrated the public consciousness before refusing to let go, but that was only one side of its long-lasting reputation.
As well as being edited down from an NC-17 to a hard-R during its initial release, Sharon Stone has repeatedly spoken out about her experiences on set in the years since, while protests and boycotts were launched in 1992 in opposition to its depiction of violence towards women.
Basic Instinct was even directly implicated in a murder case when the 2014 trial of Luka Magnotta saw the prosecution offer that the movie inspired him to kill Jun Lin two years previously, which isn’t a reputation that any form of media wants to be associated with.
It still remains a touchstone for the height of the craze for salacious cinema that reached its apex in the late 1980s and early 1990s, though, while modern audiences continue to find themselves captivated after FlixPatrol named Basic Instinct as one of the newest additions to the iTunes worldwide watch-list.
The film’s history both during and after its debut is complex and complicated to say the least, but its standing as an enduring example of both fame and notoriety remains intact 31 years on.
Published: Oct 25, 2023 11:43 am