FILM / On Cinema

Hello punters. Looking for a good time? Then remember to skip Color of Night, starring Jane March and Bruce Willy (ha ha ha). I am here to tell you it is time to French kiss the 'erotic thriller' goodbye. I dont just mean the less-than-artfully disguised low-budget, z-celeb soft porn that clutters up the shelves at ye olde video shoppe, though, speaking frankly, this trash addict would find it hard to live without titles like Dangerous Flesh, Mortal Sin and Bedroom Games.

Still, one expects garbage like Bedroom Games to be silly rather than tautly sensuous and never mind the theorising about how this in-your-face (and other places) variation on film noir feeds on our fear of Aids. The plain fact is that the erotic thriller as a concept is a bit of a bust. Basic Instinct was a hit, but it was also a very bad movie: everything stopped dead when it was time for Sharon Stone to hop on Michael Douglas and do the dirty. Only a glossy sense of self-parody kept audiences from bitching that the sex - simultaneously posh and viciously vulgar - didn't jell too well with the demands of the genre. This could be overlooked, however, because Basic Instinct knew not to take itself too seriously.

The lesson was lost on Body of Evidence - Madonna shows you 101 things to do with a lit candle and is completely ignored by Color of Night, which takes itself so seriously that it blithely casts archetypal blue-collar hump Bruce Willis (above) as a psychiatrist, only to strip him naked and ogle his limp penis. Am I the only person having trouble getting my head around this?

(Photograph omitted)