Wild Things (1998)
Directed by John McNaughton
When teen-socialite Kelly Van Ryan and troubled bad girl Suzie Toller accuse guidance counselor Sam Lombardo of rape, he's suspended by the school, rejected by the town, and fighting to get his life back. One cop suspects conspiracy, but nothing is what it seems...
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13 films that influenced Wild Things
What critics say influenced Wild Things
Or maybe it's in every single moment that Theresa Russell, as Kelly's alcoholic mother, shows up to impersonate Kathleen Turner playing Joan Crawford in a Miami Mommie Dearest.
Kelly, the hot daughter of blue-blood trophy wife Sandra Van Ryan (Russell, apparently playing Kathleen Turner in "Body Heat"), keeps inviting herself into his jeep or his home.
Maybe when McNaughton inserts his first close-up of a just-sealed bullet wound, his thirtieth shot of Denise Richards' nipples, or his plagiaristic carbon-copying of the rope-in-the-water shot from Martin Scorsese's Cape Fear, a Southern-fried suspense film as rigorous and invigorating as this one is lifeless.
There are as many betrayals, surprises and reversals in this gaudy, libidinous romp as in "The Grifters," "Bound" and "L.A. Confidential" combined.
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Dillon plays Sam Lombardo, the ladykiller-cum-boating instructor at a tony South Florida high school who finds himself accused of rape first by one leggy blonde student (Starship Troopers' Richards) and then another, darker one (Scream's Campbell) in this noirish sleazefest that plays like Basic Instinct meets Out of the Past and feels like Party of Five as directed by the Dark Brothers.
(The Robert De Niro/Bill Murray vehicular collision Mad Dog and Glory is as misogynistic as they come, yet I find it enormously uplifting.)
McNaughton's previous films are the disturbing Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, the underrated Mad Dog and Glory, and Normal Life, a great movie that was shamefully disregarded by its own studio.
Granted, there's an eye-popping bit of business involving Neve Campbell and a topless Denise Richards in liplock, but it's most surprising because the heretofore wholesome Campbell is playing resolutely against type, not because it crosses any lines that haven't been crossed already on late night cable TV (or, for that matter, by Jennifer Tilly and Gina Gershon in 1996's Bound ).
A continuation of a theme that ran subtly through McNaughton's powerful Normal Life, the inextricable link between carnal desire and pecuniary greed, Wild Things (originally titled Sex Crimes) opens with an aerial view of the 'Glades that cleverly juxtaposes alligator-infested swampland with the grounds of a nearby high school.
McNaughton's previous films are the disturbing Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, the underrated Mad Dog and Glory, and Normal Life, a great movie that was shamefully disregarded by its own studio.
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But somehow director John McNaughton ("Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer") manages to play up the suspense while shamelessly milking the story's trashiest elements, as if he's daring the audience to take him seriously when he has his tongue firmly in-cheek the whole time.
McNaughton, whose reputation is still based on the strength of the singularly unpleasant Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, re-envisions film noir in the sunny, sexy context of upper-class suburbia (with snapping Florida gators mixed in for atmosphere), and the world he creates is good-looking and consistently engaging.
McNaughton has come a long way since his personal high-water mark with 1990's Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, though you wouldn't know it from this teasey, cheesy mess.
"Wild Things," directed by John McNaughton (who did the grisly "Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer"), may not have a single redeeming feature, but it doesn't have a dull moment, either.
McNaughton's previous films are the disturbing Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, the underrated Mad Dog and Glory, and Normal Life, a great movie that was shamefully disregarded by its own studio.
But anyone who's ever watched or even skimmed by a TV soap (daytime or nighttime) can see everything that's coming, thanks to the lack of subtlety by director John McNaughton, who proves once and for all that his sickening debut "Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer" was no fluke.
When one of these over-sexualized children Denise Richards, of "Starship Troopers" accuses Dillon of rape, he's investigated by a dour cop (Kevin Bacon), stripped of his job and put on trial.
But until then, the only (cheap) thrill comes courtesy of Denise Richards ( "Starship Troopers" ), playing high school tease Kelly Van Ryan, and the wet T-shirt she sports while coming on to her high school guidance counselor, Sam Lombardo (Matt Dillon) -- whom she later accuses of rape.
Richards, impossibly toothsome in the barbed Starship Troopers , is cast here as a cunning sexpot.
Just as the totalitarian satire of the previous year's Starship Troopers (also featuring Richards) sailed over the heads of many viewers, some people found Wild Things' intentions nebulous or downright inscrutable despite its outright ridiculing of soft-porn conventions and contemporary whodunits.
The movie solidifies Neve Campbell 's position as the queen of slick exploitation, gives Matt Dillon and Kevin Bacon lots of chances to squint ominously, and has a sex scene with Denise Richards (of " Starship Troopers ") that is either gratuitous or indispensable, depending on your point of view.
Wild Things has in its cast Neve Campbell (Scream and Scream 2), one of the flat-out cutest people walking the earth, and Denise Richards, a newcomer who was in Starship Troopers, who is the product of 90's-style nutrition and exercise, and is chiseled into a perfect creature.