Adrian Lyne
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The sins of the high-school cafeteria come home to roost in “The Gift,” a coolly unsettling thriller that begins as an unironic homage to late-’80s/early-’90s yuppies-in-peril dramas like “Fatal Attraction” and “The Hand That Rocks the Cradle,” before taking a turn toward the moral and existential minefield of Michael Haneke’s “Cache.”
The television spots and trailers sell the film as a stalker thriller akin to films such as Pacific Heights and Fatal Attraction.
In staging that setup, Edgerton -- who makes his writing and directing debut behind the camera while also appearing in front of it -- harkens back to the domestic intruder thrillers of the 1980s and '90s -- such as "Pacific Heights," "Fatal Attraction" and so on -- where a seemingly good-natured and friendly enough person turns into a living nightmare for those he or she bugs, stalks and ultimately terrorizes.
"The Gift" is a tight little thriller that recalls the good old days of "Fatal Attraction" and "The Hand That Rocks the Cradle," back when suspicious packages appeared on the doorstep, no affair went unpunished, and the family dog was never safe.
The Gift recalls the stalked, terrorized or targeted yuppies of Fatal Attraction and Pacific Heights.
The astute horror fan might think they can anticipate what comes next; likely something in the vein of Fatal Attraction or One Hour Photo, where a deranged sociopath infiltrates a happy family and slowly tears it apart through manipulation and violence.
Fatale (2020)
Directed by Deon Taylor
influenced by Fatal Attraction (1987), Jacob's Ladder (1990)
Plot Themes
There’s an inescapable “Fatal Attraction” vibe to “Fatale,” though there’s another film from which it more significantly borrows a key plot element (to name it would be telling; let’s just say it’s a Hitchcock).
Taylor is so busy that Fatale throws back twice: first to erotic thrillers like Fatal Attraction , then further to the twisty noirs that inspired them.
This miscasting is just one of the problems with Fatale , a movie that pretends it's going to be more than the second-rate Fatal Attraction ripoff it really is.
Culture Audience: “Fatale” will appeal primarily to people who like watching cheap, inferior ripoffs of “Fatal Attraction.”
Fatale is a silly, twisty, mildly effective mash-up of Unlawful Entry (1992) and Fatal Attraction (1987), and while the end result can’t even remotely reach their heights it’s no less entertaining for the effort.
Two-time Academy Award-winner Hilary Swank seems to be in slum mode with this mix of “Fatal Attraction” (1987) and crazy cop drama and the dark and droll revenge thriller “The Hunt” from earlier this year.
Daniel Isn't Real (2019)
Directed by Adam Egypt Mortimer
influenced by Jacob's Ladder (1990)
Themes Plot
Daniel Isn’t Real is a psychological trip that you feel genre cinema has taken before – Mandy, Fight Club, Drop Dead Fred and Jacob’s Ladder are all easy reference points – but there are enough stylistic flurries and touches here to make it a memorable film and one that only benefits from repeated viewings.
While the film flirts with ideas of mental illness, religious possession and ancient supernatural forces – and, in doing so, wears myriad influences from The Exorcist and Jacob's Ladder to Donnie Darko and Fight Club prominently on its sleeve – none are explored in any depth beyond their ability to produce a scare.
Lifting heavily from Jacob’s Ladder (right down to casting Tim Robbins’ son in the lead), it’s true psychological horror, and a pitch black reminder of how nothing’s as dangerous to us as our own minds.
Mortimer cites, in a statement included in his movie’s press notes, a number of obvious sources of inspiration, including “Jacob’s Ladder,” “Requiem for a Dream,” and “Fight Club.”
Chloe (2010)
Directed by Atom Egoyan
influenced by Fatal Attraction (1987), Indecent Proposal (1993), Unfaithful (2002)
Plot Themes
The verdict: Begging comparisons to the work of director Adrian Lyne (“Fatal Attraction,” “Indecent Proposal,” “Unfaithful”) isn’t the best way for Egoyan to halt the perception that his career is floundering, but he brings enough atmosphere and finesse to “Chloe” to trick viewers into thinking there might be some depth to the film’s tawdry events.
Under the ironclad laws decreed by movieland, we know that cheating on a spouse leads to nothing but trouble (Fatal Attraction); snooping on a suspected philanderer will only uncover things you really didn’t want to know about (What Lies Beneath, every Lifetime movie ever); and, as shown in Atom Egoyan’s Chloe, hiring a prostitute to tempt your spouse into infidelity is not such a terrific idea.
But Erin Cressida Wilson’s script merely grazes the theme, instead taking us on a “Fatal Attraction”-like detour with Chloe in the family-destroying stalker role.
It’s like we’ve fallen through the looking glass into a Lifetime TV Fatal Attraction knockoff.
“Chloe” takes that rather improbable situation as its starting point — before veering into creepy, “Fatal Attraction” territory.
Based on the terrible 2003 French film Nathalie, Chloe unspools like a limp copy of Fatal Attraction with way more sheen than substance.
The Roommate (2011)
Directed by Christian E. Christiansen
influenced by Fatal Attraction (1987)
Plot Dialogue
1987's "Fatal Attraction." 1992's "Single White Female."
If you saw the trailers for The Roommate and all you could think is "Wow, that looks just like a rip-off of Single White Female, which itself was little more than one of the better rip-offs of Fatal Attraction," then you're a wise person.
Like “Fatal Attraction” and “Single White Female” before it, “The Roommate” shows that when pets start going missing in thrillers, that’s the time for people to realize that a psychopath is around.
The buzz: From the studio that brought you Beyoncé's "Fatal Attraction" rip-off "Obsessed" comes something even worse!
Meester knows this and could have just played everything for camp, but every so often she spouts these Fatal Attraction-like "I won't be ignored!"
Since this is a Miss Teen “Fatal Attraction” ‒ with baked kitten replacing rabbit stew on the menu ‒ everyone in Sara’s circle of friends is in jeopardy, including party animal Tracy (Alyson Michalka) and new boyfriend Stephen (Cam Gigandet).
Side Effects (2013)
Directed by Steven Soderbergh
influenced by Fatal Attraction (1987)
Visuals Themes Plot
With its steady pacing and probing, supple camera work (handled by Soderbergh, under his pseudonym Peter Andrews), the film evokes classic psychodramas, from Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo to Roman Polanski’s Repulsion, as well as kinky offshoots such as Fatal Attraction and Basic Instinct.
The premise is patently yet intriguingly ridiculous—a Manhattan-set psychological thriller that satirizes Big Pharma paranoia, while harking back to such crazy-lady favorites as Rosemary’s Baby and Fatal Attraction.
This last one, Side Effects, looks like an homage to the '80s heyday of the twisty psychological thriller—Fatal Attraction, Jagged Edge, and Dead Calm—and to a large extent, it plays out as exactly that.
A doozy of a Hitchcockian thriller with Jude Law, Rooney Mara and Catherine Zeta-Jones, “Effects” is a go-for-broke valentine to ’80s cinematic psychological potboilers such as “Jagged Edge” and “Fatal Attraction.”
It’s telling that Soderbergh watched Fatal Attraction “a lot” while preparing to shoot Side Effects (screenwriter Scott Z. Burns was probably busy studying Basic Instinct).
"Side Effects" takes a page from the "Fatal Attraction" school of late eighties/early nineties erotic thrillers, chucking it onto a contemporary hook: the pratfalls of the pharmaceutical industry.
…a horror version of Fatal Attraction…
The switch in vocal intensity and her incredible physical contortions (and those rubbery facial expressions) earn her a spot in the loopy ladies of terror “hall of fame”, right next to Glen Close as Alex of FATAL ATTRACTION and Jennifer Jason Leigh’s Hedy in SINGLE WHITE FEMALE.
There’s no moment at which she’s simply a Fatal Attraction-esque bunny boiler.
…this is more than just a Fatal Attraction story of deranged, obsessive behaviour…
Obsession can look like that Fatal Attraction-style movie where a crazy woman goes nuts for a guy, with insane over-the-top antics making her a villain, that forces us to feel sorry for the man who just wanted a full-time girlfriend.
…the sort of extreme possessiveness that would put Fatal Attraction’s Alex to shame…
A big clue: Billy persists in evoking the 1983 movie “Flashdance” when making what he thinks are inspirational speeches, a cultural reference that draws mostly blank stares from the other interns.
This comedy bumbles out of the gate with a screenplay given to frequent dumbness and obsessions with 1980s pop culture references, mostly to do with Jennifer Beals' onstage shower in "Flashdance."
And he does seem stuck in 1983, so obsessed is he with the film ‘‘Flashdance.’’
Unlike the raunchy Wedding Crashers, it's rated PG-13 instead of R, it avoids the strain of mean-spiritedness that's in vogue in modern comedy, and its leads are now more comfortable making jokes about 1953's Stalag 17 and 1983's Flashdance than anything from the brave new world of 2013.
After all, how heartless do you need to be to lay down cash for the opportunity to smugly look down upon two fading stars groveling for the last crumbs of stardom in a predatory movie that feeds off the picked-over bones of “Flashdance” and Alanis Morissette?
Fifty Shades of Grey (2015)
Directed by Sam Taylor-Johnson
influenced by Nine 1/2 Weeks (1986), Fatal Attraction (1987), Unfaithful (2002), Lolita (1997), Deep Water (2022)
Themes
Despite citing Bertolucci’s Last Tango in Paris as a tonal touchstone, and nodding cheekily to American Gigolo/Psycho, the result smacks more of Adrian Lyne’s blandly naff 9½ Weeks, the S&M frankness of Barbet Schroeder’s Maîtresse usurped by the archaic softcore of Just Jaeckin’s The Story of O.
Although the book’s soft-X explicitness has been toned down to a hard R, this is the first studio film in many years to gaze directly at the Medusa of sex — and unlike such male-leer predecessors as 9½ Weeks, it does so from a woman’s perspective.
Now the film adaptation, likely the first of four films to be milked from James’ three books, is poised to lure people to movie theaters, just as previous exploitation gone mainstream films “9½ Weeks” and “Basic Instinct” did in decades past.
Glossy, well cast, and a consistent hoot until it becomes a serious drag, this neo-“9½ Weeks” is above all a slick exercise in carefully brand-managed titillation — edgier than most grown-up studio fare, but otherwise a fairly mild provocation in this porn-saturated day and age.
“9½ Weeks” was more inflammatory, and “Blue Velvet” was more dangerous and disturbing.
Nothing comes close to Michael Douglas and Glenn Close humping on the kitchen sink in “ Fatal Attraction ” or Marlon Brando ’s inventive use of butter with Maria Schneider in “The Last Tango in Paris.”
The Boy Next Door (2015)
Directed by Rob Cohen
influenced by Fatal Attraction (1987), Indecent Proposal (1993), Unfaithful (2002)
Themes Characters Plot
A throwback to such racy but scolding Adrian Lyne movies as “Unfaithful” and “Indecent Proposal,” “The Boy Next Door” returns the mainstream erotic thriller to the multiplex, but its thin T-shirts and thinner characterizations fail to make a convincing case for the genre’s resurrection.
Lopez is suitably gung-ho with her succession of terrified reactions, but the biggest problem is that Guzman is mostly a smirking bore, too blandly handsome and one-note to give his character the attention-must-be-paid, home-wrecking spirit of a Glenn Close in "Fatal Attraction."
"The Boy Next Door" is rather obviously a gender-flipped version of "Fatal Attraction," the 1987 classic about an extramarital fling that turns into a nightmare.
The story is a gender inversion of Fatal Attraction (1987), filtered through a few recent scandals in which female high school teachers were caught fooling around with male students: the heroine (Lopez) is seduced by a charming hunk (Ryan Guzman) who's just transferred to her school, but he turns psycho on her when she rejects his subsequent advances.
1987's "Fatal Attraction," 1996's "Fear," and a whole lineage of similarly plotted "...From Hell" thrillers welcome a new descendant with "The Boy Next Door," producer Jason Blum's latest micro-budget effort from genre-centric Blumhouse Productions.
It's more a "Banal Delusion" than a "Fatal Attraction," though.
Unforgettable (2017)
Directed by Denise Di Novi
influenced by Fatal Attraction (1987), Unfaithful (2002)
Visuals Characters
The film doesn't quite know whether it wants to be a low-grade B-movie like that or a trashy Skinemax flick with Hollywood B-listers in the leads or an actual serious effort a la "Fatal Attraction" (director Denise Di Novi is SO not the visual stylist as Adrian Lyne, who directed "Fatal Attraction" along with such high-grade smut as "Indecent Proposal," and "Unfaithful").
Throughout the film, Heigl channels Joan Crawford in “Mommie Dearest” and Alex Forrest in “Fatal Attraction,” two movies that have clearly influenced “Unforgettable.”
She’s the descendant of Alex “Fatal Attraction” Forrest, Nurse Ratched, Annie Wilkes and Faye Dunaway’s Joan Crawford in “Mommie Dearest” — trapped in a script that even the Lifetime channel might reject for being too over the top.
Heigl does her damndest to try and cement a new erotic thriller icon, hovering somewhere between Rebecca De Mornay’s lethal caretaker in The Hand That Rocks the Cradle and Glenn Close’s jilted one night stand from Fatal Attraction.
A gorgeous ex-wife who regards Dawson with the same fond affection Glenn Close had for that bunny in "Fatal Attraction."
The film doesn't quite know whether it wants to be a low-grade B-movie like that or a trashy Skinemax flick with Hollywood B-listers in the leads or an actual serious effort a la "Fatal Attraction" (director Denise Di Novi is SO not the visual stylist as Adrian Lyne, who directed "Fatal Attraction" along with such high-grade smut as "Indecent Proposal," and "Unfaithful").
Gone Girl (2014)
Directed by David Fincher
influenced by Fatal Attraction (1987), Deep Water (2022)
Plot Visuals Characters Themes
The film, with a screenplay by Flynn, is as bifurcated as the half-truths it is built on, with echoes of "To Die For" and "Fatal Attraction."
Sure, it makes knowing nods to classics directed by Hitchcock, let alone lesser but hugely popular ’80s flicks as Fatal Attraction and The Jagged Edge.
Pike leaves nothing behind, delving full throttle into an iconic performance that will rank up there with the likes of Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction.
Suffice to say that its explicit sex and violence and one-damn-thing-after-another, to-hell-with-realism plotting put it in the " Basic Instinct "/" Fatal Attraction "/" Presumed Innocent " wheelhouse.
The fact that this film is getting as much play on the talk-show route as “Fatal Attraction” did only makes me think of the dirth of quality TV, and that the Super-smart, Sexy, Ivy-league, Sociopathic Wife is merely the latest flavor of the month — probably to keep us, the 99%, from looking at the real sociopaths who run things.
Shocking, subversive, and often wickedly funny, Gone Girl is not Fincher’s best film, but certainly one of his most entertaining, and Fatal Attraction-level damning to romance (great for your anti-date night!).
Derailed (2005)
Directed by Mikael Håfström
influenced by Fatal Attraction (1987)
Plot Characters Themes
Derailed is one more example of actors coming to the rescue, here Clive Owen as a married businessman whose sole straying from the path (not even consumed) spirals into Fatal Attraction grounds.
For paradigms of the latter, see Barbara Stanwyck in "Double Indemnity" and Glenn Close in "Fatal Attraction."
Based on a book by James Siegel, “Derailed” starts off a bit like Hitchcock’s “Strangers on a Train,” but then moves forward to borrow from more modern thrillers like “Fatal Attraction” and “Cape Fear.”
Written for the screen by Stuart Beattie ("Collateral") from a book by James Siegel, "Derailed" most closely resembles moralistic American films of the 1980s and 1990s, most notably "Fatal Attraction," that chastised characters for their cushy Yuppie lifestyles as much as for their sexual indiscretions.
But before you can say ”Fatal Attraction,” their tryst in a flophouse hotel goes horribly awry when a violent thief and sadist of French derivation (Vincent Cassel) - naturellement - beats Charles mercilessly and attacks Lucinda.
Vanilla Sky (2001)
Directed by Cameron Crowe
influenced by Jacob's Ladder (1990), Fatal Attraction (1987)
Themes Plot Characters
Vanilla Sky had the potential to be a mindbending thriller on par with the likes of Jacob's Ladder.
Seemingly inspired by the "what is reality" works of the likes of Philip K. Dick ("Total Recall") and the early efforts of Bruce Joel Rubin ("Jacob's Ladder"), the plot is convoluted but not distractingly so, and contains an ending that's supposed to blow viewers away.
A vinyl-collector’s version of “Jacob’s Ladder,” 2001’s “Vanilla Sky” bravely dove into surreal, head-swimming sci-fi — casting Tom Cruise as an unhinged, maimed malcontent and examining the folly of substituting entertainment for experience.
We're immersed in the psychological, the pathological, even the metaphysical, with echoes of such diverse influences as Cruise's own Eyes Wide Shut and the under-appreciated 1990 thriller Jacob's Ladder.
Those of you who have seen the trailer for “Vanilla Sky” are given the mistaken notion that this is a New Age remake of “Fatal Attraction,” with Ms. Diaz doing the Glenn Close bit and wanting revenge on her cheating lover from a one night stand.
In fact, I have to give bonus credit to the leggy, lethal Diaz--who would have thought the girl with the giant, friendly smile could go so Fatal Attraction?
What follows is a less effects-ridden blend of Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind and Jacob's Ladder, with a little Altered States thrown in for good measure.
While not as far out on the limb of paradoxes as films like Jacob's Ladder and The Butterfly Effect, The Jacket nevertheless has the capacity to provoke thought and consternation.
It aspires for a "Jacob's Ladder" tone, wants a political agenda in the mode of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" and suffers from too many gratuitous flashback sequences to a pair of shooting incidents.
There is an air of trying to cover too much ground in “The Jacket” as it combines the essence of such films as “Altered States” and “Jacob’s Ladder” and includes, at least on a cursory level, “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.”
Jacob's Ladder is evoked only in the loosest possible sense.
But it becomes increasingly clear that "The Jacket" is doing nothing but sampling elements of "Jacob's Ladder," "The Silence of the Lambs" and "Memento" without offering more than hackneyed solutions, including a rather cheesy conclusion.
For a while, Hollywood milked “the friend who becomes the crazed enemy” line: Fatal Attraction , The Hand That Rocks The Cradle, Single White Female, and so on, ad nauseum.
After all, we already know some of the ending, and the film also follows the general path of other crazed domestic figures getting into families' lives such as Glenn Close's Alex in "Fatal Attraction" and Rebecca De Mornay's Peyton in "The Hand That Rocks the Cradle."
Were his options a multiple choice, he makes the wrong decision and the film never fully recovers as it veers to light “Fatal Attraction” territory.
This is extremely clever, subtle filmmaking that resonates on several levels and provides a fresh, 21st century twist on the Fatal Attraction theme.
Queen of Hearts (2019)
Directed by May el-Toukhy
influenced by Fatal Attraction (1987)
Themes Characters
Providing echoes of Douglas Sirk melodramas and Hitchcockian thrillers, the film ultimately feels like a subtle addition to those hot button Michael Douglas morality tales that proved such commercial juggernauts in the late 1980s and early 1990sl Fatal Attraction , Disclosure etc.The box-office response to Queen of Hearts might not be in the same league as those, but it has a similar ability to make emotions churn and blood boil.
Given that her eventual actions call to mind those of Glenn Close’s ’round-the-bend vengefulness in Fatal Attraction, this may not go down well in some “woke” quarters at the moment, but there’s no denying the filmmaker’s narrative command and the ever-accruing force of her story.
The Girl on the Train (2016)
Directed by Tate Taylor
influenced by Fatal Attraction (1987), Unfaithful (2002)
Visuals Themes Plot
Who knew director Tate Taylor ( The Help , Get On Up ) aspired to be Adrian Lyne ( Fatal Attraction , Unfaithful )? Taylor’s R-rated adaptation of Paula Hawkins’ bestselling debut novel The Girl on the Train comes awash in nudity, laden with sex scenes and psychotic violence.
But here, Taylor (who also directed 2012 best picture nominee “The Help”) deftly layers time, truth and perception into a psycho-sexual thriller that would belong in the same class as “Fatal Attraction” and “Basic Instinct,” except the characters in “Girl” are deeper and less cartoony.
Think “Peyton Place” as staged by the Adrian Lyne of “Fatal Attraction.”
Who knew director Tate Taylor ( The Help , Get On Up ) aspired to be Adrian Lyne ( Fatal Attraction , Unfaithful )? Taylor’s R-rated adaptation of Paula Hawkins’ bestselling debut novel The Girl on the Train comes awash in nudity, laden with sex scenes and psychotic violence.
It hinges on the bullshittiest of bullshit plot turns, and Taylor can’t even twist (and I do mean twist) its Fatal Attraction bathtub-style climax into a crowd-pleaser.
Violent in thought and deed, The Girl on the Train is a true thriller reminiscent of Fatal Attraction , the undercurrent of darkness relentless and cruel to Fincher-esque proportions (do note the R16 rating!).
Mortensen gives Ben's authoritarian bent shadings of softness, openness, especially when he encourages his kids to think their thoughts through (forcing his daughter to go deeper in her literary analysis of Lolita is a nice little scene).
But one can also commiserate when he’s hurt by a verbal assault from one of the kids, and respect him when he apologizes to his brother for failing to abide by his house rules, or coaxes an intelligent response to Nabokov’s “Lolita” from one of his daughters who’s decided to jump ahead on her required reading list, or says a fond farewell to a son who’s chosen to leave the nest.
Ben’s daughter analyzing Lolita—“I hate him but I also feel sorry for him, he loves her so much”—seems to address Ben’s questionable parenting, as does a guardianship showdown with his in-laws.
Lawrence Kasdan’s Body Heat may have codified onscreen sex (not to mention the “erotic thriller” template) for normies in 1981, but Lyne’s Flashdance , 9 ½ Weeks , and Fatal Attraction were important cultural flash points that not only attracted audiences in droves but inspired a host of imitators of their grown-up content and muscular visual language.
It’s possible, while streaming “Deep Water,” to feel a stab of nostalgia for the big-screen heyday of the Hollywood erotic thriller, a genre to which Lyne and several others — the Lawrence Kasdan of “Body Heat” and the Paul Verhoeven of “Basic Instinct” among them — made indelibly sweaty contributions in the ’80s and ’90s.
The would-be mastermind who’s nowhere as smart as he thinks he is has long been a staple of the noir murder mystery, with Double Indemnity and Body Heat being classics of the genre.