The erotic thrillers of the ‘80s and ‘90s were a fruitful, salacious era of Hollywood neo-noir, with studios eager to pair up actors and actresses who had a healthy mix of great chemistry and bad vibes. Genre-wise, erotic thrillers share the most DNA with classic noir, where criminally-inclined men and femme fatales coax and backstab each other, often to bitter ends. But it’s a long walk from Billy Wilder’s acclaimed Double Indemnity to trashy fare like Wild Things.
Halfway between the two is Body Heat, which led the first wave of erotic thrillers in 1981 by modeling itself closely on Wilder’s film, updating it with as much sleaze and sin as writer-director Lawrence Kasdan and stars William Hurt and Kathleen Turner could muster. With Body Heat just reissued by the Criterion Collection in a new 4K edition, you should learn how deep its classic noir roots go.
