Greatest Movie of All Time of the Week: Wild Things!

Spot the subliminal alligator.

1998's Wild Things is the classic case of a movie you watch with the horniest of intentions but find yourself sticking around for the plot unironically. In fact, the details of the film's noir conceit are so much fun they're still elaborating on it through the end credits.

The working title for the script was literally Sex Crimes. Always a good way to pique a Hollywood producer's interest.

Sam Lombardo (Matt Dillon) is the guidance counsellor at 25-y/o High School, Blue Bay, Florida, who, in a Rashomonesque off-screen event may or may not have raped preppy Stacy Kelly Van Ryan (the ubiquitous Denise Richards), prompting this hilarious outburst from her cougar Karen mother (Theresa Russell):

Least self-serving #metoo poster.

The plot thickens with the introduction of Kelly's trailer goth rival Suzy Toller (Neve Campbell, Scream), shyster lawyer Ken Bowden (Bill Murray, as himself), and cop duo Gloria Perez (Daphne Rubin-Vega) and Ray Duquette (Kevin Bacon), but I will leave it to you to unravel the elaborate knot of intrigue that surrounds this cast of ne'er-do-wells and rarely-do-wells, because Wild Things is the rare erotic thriller that retains your interest to the end.

Choose your fighter.

I will say this though: watch the extended (lol) version for more of the fantasy centrepiece scene, to say nothing of more intra-credits gems. The world of Wild Things is a wonderful, lurid, vibrant sort of heatstroke daydream, where porno logic, telenovela sensationalism and brooding, True Detectivey atmospherics mesh into a strange, beguiling mood. The near-total excision of eroticism from the movies in the decades since has not resulted in greater, more honest works of capital-A Art; in fact, the movies have become dumber and lamer. It's almost as though that reptile brain part of us can't be neatly lobotomised away without dulling our collective humanity; our very sovl.