Erotique: It's Your Chance To Do The Hump

The Erotic Thriller: a genre extinct? The 1980s and 90s seemingly had multitudes of film execs sitting around bistro tables drinking wine spritzers and snorting lines, coming up with new ways to simultaneously skeeve-out and stimulate the Film-Going American Public. Are those grand days over? Perhaps…but fear not....much like a weathered porno mag found in the woods behind your parents’ house, that’s what cheap used videos are for: learning and reminiscing. And now, to fill your empty, cavernous need, a triple play, a ménage a trois if you will, of sex thrillers, all complete with cringe-worthy sex romps that will leave you feeling just a little bit creepy inside. Nothing illegal, not even porno, just something that is a little bit….off. Strap yourself in for a wild night of semi-deviant sex scenes featuring bizarrely matched and mostly unattractive celebs.

The Films: Dressed to Kill, Presumed Innocent, The Big Easy

Viewing order importance: It matters not.

Dressed to Kill – Brian DePalma, imagined master of the dirty sex thriller, opens with a soft-core shower scene, with Angie Dickinson giving herself a good old-fashioned, lonely-wife, nipple rub down, complete with searching camera and mournful music. She stares at the object of her affection, a disinterested husband, who shaves in the mirror, as she peers through the water-speckled shower door, rubbing a sliver of soap over all her dirty parts. Vastly gratuitous, she focuses her scrubbing bubbles solely on nips and crotch, until interrupted by a man who grabs her from behind and struggles with her. Is it a dream? Is it a fantasy?

Ah, a fantasy, as a quick cut to missionary position under the cover humping reveals, starring Angie and hubbie. The guy is seriously all business - doesn't even look up at our Ange - and he at first appears to have done a stand-up job, but the Curator suspects a fake.

Upon completion of her dissatisfactory duty, the bored house wife staggers out into the world to gaze upon some art while making a grocery list. However she ends up picking up a random fellow art lover for some afternoon adultery instead, hooking him with a sly technique involving the old "irresistible, classic beige Isotoner glove incentive,” after an elaborate interior museum flirt and chase.

From there we proceed to Taxi ride where the stranger commences with the cunnilingi, complete with driver adjusting and peering in the rear view mirror. Watching the stranger’s hand with gold bracelet remove her underthings in quite a luxurious site.

Later, back at mystery man’s pad, and “after the lovin” an urban legend horror is realized when Ange finds a Lab Result confirming mystery man’s got the VD. Of all the lousy luck….Angie splits out of there but quick, only to get murdered in the elevator of man’s building. By a transvestite. Named Michael Caine. And all this happens in the first 30 minutes.

Catch your breath and move on to:

Presumed Innocent – On the surface, the sex in this 1990 thriller isn’t so creepy. It’s got Harrison Ford, pre-most-wrinkles-and-sags, and Greta Scacchi. She’s hot. Yes, Brian Dennehy is in there, but thankfully his sex is only referenced, not shown.

But there is something about the power-hump on the Greta’s desk after she and Harry win a Child Abuse Case together that is just kind of “yicky.” Maybe it’s the graphic intensity Harrison displays as he drops his drawers, sucks a nip and powers through that stack of legal “briefs.” Maybe it is just that there is something disconcerting about Harry’s naked thrusting hip.

The creepier portions include a constantly referenced rape or not-rape crime with various suspects “fingered,” and the sleezy autopsy doctor describing how “real nice” the rape was, before the angry perp smashes her on the head. The finger of blames finally rests on Harrison, and he now must go on trial for his lover’s murder. The ewww-y-est of all moments however is not a sex scene, but is Harrison’s wife’s description of pulling her husband’s spermicided ooze out of herself and implanting it in dead Greta with a syringe. Nothing says lovin’ like something in the oven.

Panting, panting, panting and:

The Big Easy –Unease best describes the unadulterated sleeziness that permeates with Zaidigo vapors off a bed befouled by Dennis Quaid and Ellen Barkin. It is presumed that, as an actor or actress, the shooting of a “romance” scene must be (at least) somewhat uncomfortable and (likely) excruciatingly embarrassing. With that in mind, Quaid and Barkin appear to be trying to make anyone who ever sees this film as uncomfortable as they once were. Payback’s a bitch.

The first 30 minutes or so are a kind of chemistry-lacking foreplay to what seems to be one of the most awkward sex encounters of all time. After a bit of hanky-panky and various clothings are removed, Ellen claims, mid-almost coitus, she is “not very good at this,” and “can’t do this" because "I am too nervous, I can’t relax.” Well hell darlin’ how do expect a man to respond to something like that? Denny tells her “Just relax, darlin'. This is the Big Easy. Folks have a certain way o' doin' things down here.” Ummm…yeah. She is then licked and fingered in that not so secret spot by Denny as he slinks all over the sheet, licking her thigh and grunting in his over-the-top, cajon-ified, ridiculous accent. When he kisses her he looks like he is eating her face, and she appears to be probing something out of his far back wisdom tooth with her tongue. The scene is finally interrupted by a murder, but not before Denny’s ass is revealed. Ellen tells us “I’ve never had much luck with sex” to which Denny informs her that “her luck is about to change.” As is our own, as is our own.

So. Looking to seduce that special someone with your knowledge of racy, semi-grody sex scenes? Want to indulge yourself in the films your parents watched but you never got to see cause they were “too grown-up?” Do yourself up right and dirty by laying your scummy little hands on these sexy flicks. You won’t be sorry you did…..for long.