Basic Instinct (1992)

In Paul Verhoeven's erotic thriller, controversial for its overt sexuality and depiction of two bisexual females as murderous psychopaths, and for its outrageous dialogue and convoluted, improbable and twisting plot by scriptwriter Joe Eszterhas:

• in the opening scene - a couple made love under a mirrored ceiling - the unidentified female with her face obscured (the film's brutal ice-pick murder suspect) was atop retired rock star Johnny Boz (Bill Cable), and elements of S&M were revealed when she tied his arms to the bedpost with a length of sheet - before reaching back and stabbing him to death with an ice-pick hidden in the sheets - later the cops noted the come stains on the bed: "He got off before he got off" - and there were 31 stab wounds on the body
• in the infamous police interrogation scene, ice-pick murder suspect/millionaire mystery novelist, icy blonde and bi-sexual 30 year-old Catherine Woolf-Tramell (Sharon Stone) first smoked in the no-smoking area: ("What are you going to do? Charge me with smoking?") and then openly crossed her legs - a full underwear-free view - to flirtatiously tease a panel of policemen facing her; she was a prime suspect because she was Boz's frequent 'f--k-partner,' and her most recent novel Love Hurts was a copy-cat alibi story about a rock star who was murdered by his girlfriend with an ice-pick: "The person who wrote this book is your murderer and acted out the killing described in ritualistic, literal detail"; she denied any guilt: "I'd have to be pretty stupid to write a book about killing and then kill somebody the way I described it in my book. I'd be announcing myself as the killer. I'm not stupid"
• during the interrogation, Catherine delivered an oversexed taunting line to Detective Nick Curran (Michael Douglas) - "Have you ever f--ked on cocaine, Nick? (long pause) It's nice" - and she also asked a question that revealed her knowledge of his past: "Didn't you ever f--k anybody else when you were married, Nick?"

Revealing Police Interrogation Sequence
"Have you ever f--ked on cocaine, Nick?"
	Leg-Crossing Show

• in her home, Catherine revealed that she had an open lesbian relationship with Roxanne "Roxy" Hardy (Leilani Sarelle), and then in the following nightclub dance scene, Det. Curran spotted Catherine snorting cocaine in a toilet stall with Roxy, then watched as she seductively danced with Roxy to taunt him, but eventually partnered with him
• the violence-prone Nick (with the nickname "Shooter") was involved in therapy sessions with his own Internal Affairs police psychiatrist Dr. Beth Garner (Jeanne Tripplehorn) for accidentally shooting some tourists while high on cocaine; Beth had been his previous girlfriend and she was still in love with him: "I still miss you, Nick"
• in the controversial, aggressively-brutal, misogynistic, near-rape love-making sequence, Detective Curran forced himself on Beth, pinned her arms up on the wall, kissed her forcefully, ripped her dress open in the front, and draped her over the sofa as she protested: "Nick, stop, no!"; he approached her from behind, and afterwards she set the record straight: "You weren't making love to me"; as they spooned together, Beth confessed that she had known Catherine as a college classmate: "I met her at Berkeley. We were in some of the same classes"

Nick's Near Rape of Beth Garner

• Nick Curran's aggressive antagonist Lt. Nilsen (Daniel von Bargen) was murdered by a gunshot-to-the-head; he had earlier convinced Beth to show him Curran's private psychiatric file (Curran also suspected that Nilsen had shared the file with Catherine: "She knows things about me that I only told you (Beth)"); Nick seemed to have a clear motive to eliminate Nilsen
• Catherine described her own bad-luck college-days (UC Berkeley grad 1983) and her lesbian affair with a miffed and obsessed female: ("There was this girl I met when I was in college. I slept with her once. She started following me around, taking my picture. She dyed her hair, copied my clothes. Lisa something, Oberman. It was awful"); during the couple's attendance at Berkeley as psychology majors, one of their psychology professors was murdered with an ice pick; later, Catherine specified that the name of the other student was not Oberman - but Hoberman!
• Dr. Garner spoke to Nick, and she similarly blamed Catherine for their obsessed relationship during college: "I slept with her once in school. I was just a kid. I was experimenting. It was just that one time. She developed a fixation on me. She styled her hair like mine, she wore the same kind of clothes I did. It scared me" - Nick became suspicious of Beth's credibility - Did Beth kill Johnny Boz to frame Catherine? - he discovered through DMV records that she was the elusive "Lisa Hoberman" who had lived in Salinas in 1987 where the drive-by, gun-shot murder of her husband Dr. Joseph Garner remained unsolved
• Curran's partner Det. Gus Moran (George Dzundza) gave advice to Nick about Catherine: "Well, she got that magnum cum laude pussy on her that done fried up your brain!"
• and later near the ending of the film, Curran's detective partner Gus was murdered by an ice-pick stabbing during a planned meeting with Catherine's 'college roommate' in an Oakland office building; coincidentally at the same time as the murder, Beth was in the hallway (claiming she had a message to meet Gus there) - overly-suspicious Curran shot her to death when she innocently reached for something in her pocket (a key chain with a Bart Simpson ornament - the key to his own apartment!)

Deaths of Gus and Beth

• in the conclusion, incriminating evidence was found in Beth's apartment: a .38 revolver (used to kill Beth's husband and Lt. Nilsen?), copies of Trammel's two books (The First Time, and Love Hurts), magazine clippings and photos of Johnny Boz with Catherine Tramell, and an icepick (used to kill Johnny Boz and Gus?) - although questions were still raised about her complicity
• the film's final scene paralleled the opening sex-murder sequence; as Catherine was making love to Nick, the question was raised whether she had picked up an ice-pick conveniently located under her side of the bed to murder him

Final Scene: The Ice-Pick Under the Bed