Basic Instinct
Love Hurts
For the representatives of my generation in my geographical region, Basic Instinct is basically a Bible of straight sex. Released in 1992, during the early phase of adaptation to the post-Cold War Pax Americana, this film strengthened the popular support for the pro-Western course of Eastern European elites. In Ukraine and Russia, it was understood at face value as a way of life for attractive Americans. When we read the reviews of contemporary Westerners of the time, however, we encounter all the common modern sociological terms, such as political correctness, sexism, patriarchy et cetera. To us in the East, all these terms were unheard of in 1992, and even the most pro-Western ultra-liberal critics were not using these words. The “wow” effect was so overwhelming, that this movie became a sort of folk movie, not much different from “The Irony of Fate” or other Soviet movies shown on TV annually regularly. Because of this and to make things easier for myself, I will use the Slavic versions of character names later in this text.
Although “Basic Instinct” still appears on TV fairly frequently, it is already possible to meet young people in under 20 y.o. category who never saw it, an unthinkable thing for us millennials. Unlike all the media I have analyzed before, such as the French melodrama “The Story of O”, Soviet prison culture drama “Outrage”, or the video game “Cyberpunk 2077”, this movie is a mainstream cultural phenomenon. Yet it is much deeper than seems at first.
Basic Instinct’s screenplay was purchased by the cult studio Carolco Pictures for 3 million dollars, the highest ever sum paid for a screenplay at the time. A simple man will perceive it as simple, but an experienced one will notice the intricate web of ambiguities, dependencies, and possibilities which rightfully made the movie the benchmark of the erotic thriller genre. As such, it is suitable viewing for everyone on all possible ends of IQ scores.
Written by Hungarian-American Joe Eszterhas, a practicing conservative Catholic with seven children and a fondness for Hungarian leader Viktor Orban, it might as well be understood as a partial self-reflection. Judging by the photos of him in his youth, he was an Upper Beta, just like the male protagonist of the screenplay. Still, he claims that he is based on an adrenaline-junkie police officer from Cleveland, Joe knew when he was a crime reporter with the "Cleveland Plain Dealer".
As for the female protagonist, Eszterhas based her on a go-go dancer he knew in Ohio. One night he picked up the stranger and they went back to his hotel room to have some fun. "She reached into her purse, and she pulled out a .22 and pointed it at me," he told Nerve magazine. "She said, 'Give me one reason why I shouldn't pull this trigger.' I said, 'I didn't do anything to hurt you. You wanted to come here, and as far as I know, you enjoyed what we just did.' And she said, 'But this is all guys have ever wanted to do with me, and I'm tired of it.' We had a lengthy discussion before she put that gun down."
He wrote the script in ten days while listening to The Rolling Stones. It was first called Love Hurts, but he then sold it three days later at auction as Basic Instinct. According to him, he suddenly thought of the new title as he was leaving home to mail the script to his agent. He ran back inside, opened the package, and typed a new title page. The name Love Hurts still appears in the movie as the name of one of the lead woman’s books.
While innocent Easterners did not know about any controversies, the censorship battles, public protests, and hot takes were flying in all directions in the West. As in our days, LGBT groups were dissatisfied with the non-idealized depiction of their representatives. For some reason, male gays were more active than lesbians or feminists in criticizing some of the violent and borderline non-consensual elements of depicted heterosexual intercourses. American theatrical version initially came out with noticeable cuts as a result, whereas European and post-Soviet versions were fully uncensored from the start.
Gays were so against the way the gay characters were portrayed that they repeatedly blocked the San Francisco set during production. In response, director Paul Verhoeven resorted to issuing fake call sheets to mislead the protesters into targeting unused locations. After the movie was released, activists continued their protests by distributing flyers around San Francisco theaters that read, "Catherine did it," in an attempt to spoil the plot for viewers. Despite these efforts, the movie's release was unaffected, opening at number one that weekend and eventually becoming one of the highest-grossing films of the year.
To get a better understanding of the movie’s and screenplay’s progression, we will be looking at their content in lore-friendly chronological order. Worth mentioning that although director Verhoeven has stated on numerous occasions that Catherine is indeed the real killer in the movie’s main criminal case, writer Eszterhas refrained from doing so. Not only the script contains numerous incentives to guess who killed whom, but the movie itself basically ends not once but twice, which is difficult to realize at first. That is done to further complicate all the “what if” scenarios.
In 1983, two promising female students Catherine Tramell and Elizabeth Hoberman graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, in law-adjacent specializations. Their differences in biology, intelligence, and social skills defined their further paths. With Katya being a pure Stacy and Liza a Stacylite, a feeling of jealousy slowly formed in Liza, who started copying Katya’s style, going as far as dying her hair blonde. This feeling did not prevent Liza from entering a lesbian relationship with Katya. Later, Liza will insist that this was her only lesbian experience, whereas Katya will live on as a practicing bisexual with many female lovers. Katya’s first book, “The First Time” mentions what looks like her tryst with Liza, as well as the story of a boy who kills his parents. Tramell’s own parents died in a car accident. There is little doubt in my mind that parents are Katya’s work, so this is the first goal on this story’s grim scoreboard: Katya 1.
After the tryst, both women meet definitive men of their lives. Katya gets with a celebrity boxer Bobby Vasquez, whom she says she loved deeply and was truly hurt by his death in the ring of Atlantic City in 1984. This death does look like an accident, if only because Katya was not yet in a position to profit. She was not married to him and as such could not inherit his fortunes. The scoreboard is unchanged.
Meanwhile, Liza marries a police psychiatrist Dr. Joseph Gardner, changes her surname, and stops being blonde. The couple moves to Salinas, California. Lone Katya, who just buried her beloved Bobby, finds no better place to find herself in than this city, where she meets Liza again. Soon Joseph dies while walking home from work, shot from a passing car with a .38 revolver.
Several lore and outside observer opinions were formed on who killed Joseph. In the script, there is a cop who knew about the case, who said that it was speculated that Elizabeth had a girlfriend who might had done it. Some observers have also said that it was likely Katya again, willing to reunite with Liza. To me, the probability of a superior female being that determined to reunite with an inferior female seems far-fetched. It is likely that Liza only wanted her marriage to reboot her life and to come out of Katya’s influence. Which he helped her to do and became redundant after that. They did not reunite after his death, which is yet another argument in favor of Liza’s guilt. And the last one - across the story, Katya only sleeps with murderesses. Liza must not be innocent to qualify for her bed. Scoreboard: Katya 1, Liza 1.
The next four to five years are largely skipped in both the screenplay and the movie. Chronologically, the next event is the appearance of a secondary character, police officer Marty Nilsen. In the beginning of 1991 he suddenly starts digging up the details about Joseph Gardner death and visits the authorities in Salinas. Most probable motivation is his personal dislike of both Elizabeth Gardner and her lover Nick Curran, who both work with him in the same police station. Although arrogant and generally disliked at the station, Nilsen views himself as an honorable cop, while hating Nick for the apparent unjust failure to answer for the crime of shooting some tourists. While investigating, he finds Tramell and speaks with her, probably invoking the insecurity in Katya’s heart. While I absolved her for that incident, this was not necessarily the decision Nilsen could make. Somewhere around this time, Tramell imagines a story about the death of a cop, with Nilsen obviously being the initial target. To frame Liza for his future death, she starts dating her former lover, retired rock star Johnny Boz. The affair between Gardner and Boz is missable but established part of both the screenplay and the movie. They met at the Christmas party, hosted by the psychologist who shares the same office with Elizabeth in town.
Unlike Gardner, Tramell is a rich celebrity. Her affair with Boz somewhat re-establishes his waned popularity. Together they make it into newspapers again, newspapers frame the affair as “Johnny Boz’s road to respectability”. In other words, she is not the typical escort girl to him, but rather a sugar mommy.
After they spend together some reasonable time, the opening scene of the movie starts.
BASIC INSTINCT by JOE ESZTERHAS
INT. A BEDROOM - NIGHT
It is dark; we don't see clearly. a man and woman make love
on a brass bed. There are mirrors on the walls and ceiling.
On a side table, atop a small mirror, lines of cocaine. A
tape deck PLAYS the Stones "Sympathy for the Devil."
Atop him... she straddles his chest... her breasts in his face.
He cups her breasts. She leans down, kisses him...
JOHNNY BOZ is in his late 40's, slim, good-looking. We don't
see the woman's face. She has long blonde hair.
The CAMERA STAYS BEHIND and to the side of them.
She leans close over his face, her tongue in his mouth... she
kisses him... she moves her hands up, holds both of his arms
above his head.
She moves higher atop him... she reaches to the side of the
bed... a white silk scarf is in her hand... her hips above his
face now, moving... slightly, oh-so slightly... his face strains
towards her.
The scarf in her hand... she ties his hands with it...
gently... to the brass bed... his eyes are closed... tighter...
lowering hips into his face... lower... over his chest... his
navel. The SONG plays.
He is inside her... his head arches back... his throat white.
She arches her back... her hips grind... her breasts are high...
Her back arches back... back... her head tilts back... she
extends her arms... the right arm comes down suddenly... the
steel flashes... his throat is white...
He bucks, writhes, bucks, convulses...
It flashes up... it flashes down... and up... and down... and up... and...
The song actually did not play and was replaced with a much more fitting Jerry Goldsmith soundtrack, for which he got an Academy Award nomination. For most of the other moments, the movie stayed true to the script. The director and producers wanted more changes, to include a few lesbian scenes for example. But in the end, they apologized and filmed it exactly as written.
For this scoreboard point, we have not just two, but three possible competitors. These are:
The likeliest culprit in Johnny Boz’s case is, of course, Catherine. This is the view of the film’s director. It fits into her desire to get closer to Nielsen and possibly Liza as well. In the chance if it’s Liza wearing a wig, then it means that she never overcame her teenage jealousy and wanted revenge. In the case if Liza’s husband was murdered by Katya, might be revenge for that or the desire to prove herself as equal to Katya. There is also a possibility that this was Ksyukha, in the case she is as subservient to Katya’s desires as it appears at first glance. She might be willing to do all the dirty work for her. She also has blonde hair and a somewhat similar body, although she would need to overcome her strong lesbianism for such a hit. A slight argument in favor of Ksyukha is her jealousy towards those Katya’s lovers she deems a threat to her own relationship with Katya. After all, she does try to kill the male protagonist with her car later in the movie. On another hand, Katya has confirmed numerous times that she only fucked Boz, but never loved him. Doubtful that Ksyukha would bother fighting her disgust towards male genitalia for such an obviously temporary competitor. Scoreboard: Katya 2, Liza 1.
By the time Kolya gets to question his primary suspect, bypassing Ksyukha who successfully tricked him into believing she is the one for a short while, she already has a basic understanding of his psychological traits and history of problems with the law. Passed to her by Nilsen. After learning for sure that he is appointed to work on her case, she pays Nilsen an additional 50,000 dollars to get Kolya’s complete classified psychological evaluation from Liza. The fact which is confirmed by Liza and the reason for Kolya’s future impulsive brawl with Nielsen in the presence of witnesses. The time between the first meeting and the first questioning is spent in group brainstorming, involving many police officers and police psychologists. Liza’s influence on their eventual consensus is almost decisive.
Now knowing for sure that “a detective who falls for the wrong woman” is going to be Kolya, Katya’s literary and real-life stories start manifesting in more clear outlines. On the road to police office, she starts flirting with Kolya and threatening him simultaneously. Most other men of his age and profession would be intimidated by these come-ons. But since he is a fairly dark and complex character himself, he accepts her game and views it as a test of his quality as a man.
The interrogation scene which follows is impressive to watch but provides little to write about. In our age. Perhaps in 1992, the female openness about casual sex was still an important behavioral message. But in 2024 we are too used to it. For what it’s worth, the scene serves to strengthen her aggressive innovative femininity on the backdrop of the predictable repressive patriarchal institution. Funny to read in the reviews of the era that smoking was already seen as a politically incorrect action in the West. To us in our era, it is a reminder that any offense not worth prosecuting is a precedent, which adds up. When Kolya repeats the same action later in the movie, he appeals to the precedent set by Katya.
After the interrogation, he drives her home, then lets off some steam in a drinking contest and a quarrel with his enemy Nielsen, who intentionally enrages Kolya but fails to reveal his own ongoing connections to Katya. Being saved by his caring mommy Liza, he repays her with what gay activists of 1992 called date rape. Actually, when I saw this movie for the first time at the age of 9, I thought of it as the hottest scene in the movie. Which is why I spent the few remaining years before puberty as a fan of Jeanne Tripplehorn, not Sharon Stone. For real, however, this is the only time her character ascends above her professional grayness. And while the intercourse lasts, she does seem to enjoy it. Only after both she and the viewers realize that the reason for Kolya’s strong hard-on and rare display of possessive masculinity is Katya and her behavior during interrogation. Unfortunately for Liza, she was a mere sex doll on this occasion. This realization forces Liza to stop hinting at her willingness to re-enter a serious relationship with Kolya, what she was doing the entire first half of the movie.
The next thirty minutes of the film are somewhat uneventful. They are centered around Katya’s shit tests and her sexual identity crisis. Once again we meet Ksyukha - this time she is groped and kissed by Katya in a very possessive manner, to show Kolya his replaceability. We meet yet another female murderess - Hazel Dobkins, who looks like a teacher figure to Katya. Director Paul Verhoeven made it known that he is not sure if Tramell-Dobkins’ relations are completely asexual and that he failed to get a clarification on this from the writer Eszterhas. Must confess, that for me personally this is likewise one of the most obscure terra incognitas of the female psyche. On several occasions, I heard from women that age doesn’t matter. I heard this from women only and never from men. Right now I’m at the age of Kolya, ten years older than Katya’s character, and yet I still do perceive Hazel’s character as unfuckable granny. If it is really possible that an Alpha woman like Katya would engage in sexual play with a woman like Dobkins, I would be thankful for pointing me to the literature that examines such motivations.
Kolya’s actions and attitudes force Katya to re-examine just how lesbian or how straight she is. We never get the final verdict, yet until the very end of the movie she fails to dump him despite constantly wanting to. Probably, this dynamics is precisely what she wanted - to be with a man who is okay that she is not sure that she wants him.
This part ends with the murder of the original detective who failed to become her book’s “Shooter” - Nilsen. He was shot with the same gun Liza’s husband was shot - .38 revolver. His death benefited everyone except him. But my bet in this case is on Liza again - she was overtly worried about Nilsen’s knowledge of three of them and the gun is her modus operandi. Scoreboard: Katya 2, Liza 2.
The relatively short discotheque scene, which lasts only four minutes, is the most abundant food for thought in terms of Freudian analysis in the entire movie. It is a battleground between the id (primitive desires), the ego (reality), and the superego (moral conscience). Katya’s and Ksuykha's provocative behavior symbolizes the id, acting on primal desires without concern for morality or consequences. Kolya's initial hesitation to join them and his later participation reflect the ego's struggle to balance these impulses with reality and societal expectations. The superego is faintly present, as Nick's professional and ethical duties conflict with his desire, creating internal tension.
Katya and Ksuykha can also be seen as representations of Kolya's Jungian shadow—the parts of his psyche he represses or does not acknowledge. The nightclub setting, with its dark, chaotic, and primal energy, mirrors the unconscious mind where the shadow resides. Kolya's attraction to Katya, despite knowing she is dangerous, suggests a projection of his own shadow aspects: his unacknowledged desires and fears.
Still, despite his age and profession, he appears in this setting in as adequate and suitable form as possible, wearing clubbing clothes and trying to blend with the crowd 20 years younger than him. Here he defeats the constraints of his craft. Unlike Liza, who is forever buried under them.
For many men, encountering the supremely superior woman is an eternal fantasy. Such men are very common at dating sites such as Tinder. Any woman with an account there can tell you stories about the types who offer cunnilingus straight away, often saying that they don’t expect anything beyond that. Usually, these offers are just an attempt to mask the imperfection of a real woman by equally imperfect men.
In case of serious relationships, it does matter what kind of oral sex you have first. Cunnilingus leads to female domination, which is why mentioning even a single occasion of such practice still makes you a nonce in Eastern European male prisons. Blowjob is seen as a road to neutrality and equality, whereas male-dominated blowjob (facefuck) - to male domination. Kolya starts with cunnilingus and forever closes his doors to the mafia.
From here onwards the movie retraces the steps I already mentioned in a confused, intentionally mixed way. There are just two more important things.
The first is the death of Gus and Liza exactly as was written in her latest book “Shooter”, which gets printed during the scene of Katya’s last attempt to dump Kolya.
Aleister Crowley, a well-known figure in occultism, believed in the power of words and symbols to influence reality. Another influential occultist, Austin Osman Spare, developed the concept of sigil magic, where words, symbols, or images are created to represent a desired outcome and then charged with intention to manifest that outcome. Spare’s work suggests that the unconscious mind and focused intent can be harnessed to create tangible changes in the world. Chaos Magic, a more contemporary branch of magical theory, also plays with the idea that words, beliefs, and intentions can shape reality. Practitioners believe that reality is malleable and that one’s words and rituals can be used to manipulate the world.
In all the previous cases, the real-life deaths, which were suspiciously similar to the deaths described in her books, happened long after the book was written and published. In “Shooter”, a character similar to Gus is murdered in an elevator by being stabbed repeatedly with an ice pick. Almost immediately after Kolya sees these words being printed, Gus meets the exact same fate. From a supernatural perspective, this alignment implies that Katya possesses a power akin to “word magic”, where the act of writing something down with intention causes it to manifest in the real world. This could be seen as a form of sigil magic. At least in the world of “Basic Instinct”. Final scoreboard: Katya 3, Liza 2, Kolya 1.
The last thing is of course the ending. I am not talking about the sudden change of heart, which sees the main couple reuniting after the disappearance of all possible obstacles. Nor about Kolya’s unhealthy obsession with black widow women.
This movie is one of the very few movies to have not one but two canon, non-alternate, lore endings. The first one occurs at 2:02:50. In this ending, Katya is innocent and the whole story is rather vanilla. It is about a hottie whose life is being made harder by a wide range of envious men and women. Then we stare at four seconds of black screen and instead of end titles get a picture again. This time we see that ice pick was ready and for whatever reason was not used. Either because Kolya outdid himself and made himself dear to Katya’s heart against the better judgment of Katya’s brain… Or because she decided to play with him a bit longer.
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Well, I'm a millennial but I have never seen whole "Basic Instinct". Probably more important films for my late childhood and early teenhood are the "Blue Lagoon" and the "Return to the Blue Lagoon".