Retrospective Film Review

To Die For (1995) • 25 Years Later

A beautiful but naïve aspiring television personality films a documentary on teenagers with a darker ulterior motive.

‘Don’t stick your dick in crazy’ was popular 1990s advice. And in a question of life imitating art or vice versa, Hollywood was blowing up with tales of wild women demonstrating how dangerous the ‘weaker sex’ could be.

Fatal Attraction (1987) grossed an incredible $320M and earned six Academy Award nominations. Female-led suspense films such as Basic Instinct, Single White Female, and The Hand that Rocks the Cradle dominated popular culture-and those were just from 1992! While actresses explored a whole new range of dramatic roles, characters themselves would all pay the price for their hubris.

Dick-sticking panic may have sprouted from the mainstream news chasing the new media obsession of ‘crazy’ women. 24/7 coverage began with Aileen Wournos murdering seven men at the start of the decade and her six death sentence story of rape and revenge spanned over 10 years. Lorena Bobbitt ignited water-cooler gossip…