Movie Talk: Wild Things (1998)

Swinging back into the land of the mainstream, I thought I would talk about one of my all time favorite movies. Warning, I get a bit gushy here. 

John McNaughton's Wild Things is one of my all time favorite movies. I have seen it countless times, and even though I know all of the twists and turns, I still get caught up in this steamy thriller. With an all star cast (that includes fricken Bill Murray!), Wild Things is a movie where no one's motives are clear, and everyone is out for themselves. It makes for some damn fine viewing. 

If you are going to talk about dirty mainstream movies, you have to mention Wild Things. While nowhere near as explicit as I remember, the movie still knew exactly when and where to push the boundaries to give this tawdry tale a fun and slightly sleazy air. The kind of sleaze that sticks to your skin like the moisture on a humid night. It honestly shocks me that this was even made, and with the cast that it had. Matt Dillon was having a moment back in the late 90's, coming off of There's Something About Mary right before this one. Neve Campbell was coming off of the first two Scream films, and was still on the popular family friendly TV show Party of Five. You have Hollywood mainstays like Kevin Bacon and Bill Murray in the cast. You also had Denise Richards, who was just starting to really see her career take off. All of them were taking part in a movie that, without the proper care could have turned into a late night Cinemax feature.

Now, I got to see this movie in theater. My little baby gay heart was in love from frame one. The twists, the turns, the cat fights! The movie isn't really camp, but it plays right up to the edge and dips its toe in. The performances are mostly played straight, with the exception of the over the top Murray, and the story is just earnest enough to be absorbing. The story never seems to quit, which is probably one of the best features of this film. It understands that pace is everything. Don't linger too long or you will lose the audience. Tell a good story, and tell it right.  I always ask in these if this works as a movie, and obviously I think it does. Not just works, but excels at what it is trying to do. 

Now let us talk to the sexy bits. Wild Things was not chaste by any means. There is plenty of on screen sex and nudity, although never to the point of feeling gratuitous. The interesting thing for me is this movie came at a time when movies seemed to be getting more conservative. People forget how buttoned up the early 2000's were. When this movie hit, people clutched their damn pearls. A threesome? Kevin Bacon's penis? You have Neve Campbell and Denise Richards making out for crying out loud! Won't someone think of the children!?! You didn't see stuff like this in theaters at that point. Especially not male full frontal nudity. The pearl clutching may not have reached Showgirls levels of shock and horror, but it didn't go unnoticed. Especially with the presence of Neve Campbell in the cast. While she didn't do any nudity in this movie, she still participated in plenty of steamy scenes. The next year you would see even more "teen" actors pushing boundaries with the sexy, but much more buttoned up Cruel Intentions. While that one is fondly remembered by many, it really doesn't go the extra mile that Wild Things does. And go the extra mile it does, which brings us to...

Kevin Bacon's penis. The amount of notice his dong got just for showing up for five seconds on film... It was bonkers. Except, when you think about how little full frontal male nudity ever actually appeared on film, it was pretty shocking. Before this you really only had Richard Gere in American Gigolo, and... I honestly can't think of anyone else. Bruce Willis had a quick little flash in Color of Night, but sadly no one saw that movie, so if a dick shows up on film and no one sees it, does it really count? Naked depictions of the male body in mainstream films were so sparse that when it did happen, it was news. Now everyone is whipping out their prosthetic dongs on TV and no one bats an eye. Kevin Bacon did not get a prosthetic for this movie. He also could sue himself, because he was a producer on the film, and he has a no nudity clause in his contract! This isn't even the last time Kevin Bacon would do full frontal. Seeming to be almost emboldened by the response to his quick flash in this movie, he would go all naturelle a few years later in the more poorly received Hollow Man, from Basic Instinct and Showgirls director Paul Verhoeven. Not one of Verhoeven's best.

The funny thing to me is that underneath all of the erotic trappings is a truly great Southern Noir. Yes, not all the pieces hang together perfectly in the end, but the journey to get there, the twists and turns, and engaging and entertaining. Wild Things avoids the one pitfall that a lot of erotic thrillers fell in to. It is never dull. It does not lean on the sex and nudity to carry the film. It is there to enhance the story, to be enticing to the viewer, but it is not the sole purpose of the film. 

I think that is one of the reasons I love this movie so much. It is sexy and fun. It knows exactly what is setting out to do, and does it with flair. The movie looks stunning to boot. McNaughton makes Florida both look stunning and dangerous with shots of beautiful everglades and snapping alligators. The nights almost seem to buzz with vibrating mosquito wings. 

Wild Things is one of the best erotic thrillers ever made, hands down. It is up there with movies like Basic Instinct and Body Heat. This also feels like the last hurrah for a genre of film that has pretty much vanished from screens. It kind of makes me sad that the genre has gone away, but then I watch something like Body Chemistry 3, and kind of get it. Movies like Wild Things are a rarity.