4K Ultra HD Film Review

Basic Instinct (1992) • 4K Ultra HD Limited Edition [StudioCanal]

A violent police detective investigates a brutal murder that might involve a manipulative and seductive novelist.

Whatever happened to the erotic thriller? Once a staple of 1980s and 1990s cinema, the genre arguably reached its peak with Paul Verhoeven’s Basic Instinct. It was the perfect marriage between director and material, as the Dutch filmmaker’s foreign sensibilities had already transformed US sci-fi action with RoboCop (1987) and added welcome bite to Total Recall (1990). Basic Instinct may have been a major studio release with Hollywood royalty Michael Douglas given top billing, but Verhoeven’s involvement ensured it competed with its direct-to-video rivals by mixing high production values and star-power with boundary-pushing sex and nudity for a mainstream release.

Joe Eszterhas wrote Basic Instinct in only a few weeks, then Carolco Pictures bought it for an incredible $3M. Paul Verhoeven was immediately interested in directing it, but he wanted to add a lesbian sex scene described by…