When Every Movie Wanted To Be Fatal Attraction ☎️

[00:00:00]Imagine this, you're living a perfectly normal life. Everything is predictable and safe. Then you meet someone new.

[00:00:08]They seem normal or even incredibly magnetic. You spend some time together, have fun, maybe ignore one or two little red flags. Then the red flags stop being little. Suddenly, this person is everywhere. Your job, your relationships. You try to walk away, but realize you can't. For a moment, it looks like they may actually win. But then a massive fight happens. This person who hounded you, ruined your life, their evil is not only ended, but they get what they deserve. Right now, everything is safe, but things will never be the same again. In the late '80s and '90s, this wasn't just a nightmare. It was a blockbuster formula sparked by Fatal Attraction. This was less of a movie and more of a phenomenon. One that changed infidelity from something immoral to genuinely terrifying. It also launched a wave of glossy thrillers packed with obsession, revenge, and dangerously unstable strangers. But why was the scary stranger so compelling? We're going to look into the Fatal Attraction phenomenon and how it launched a trend.

[00:01:13]Just as a warning, there are spoilers for the following movies and sensitive topics will be brought up. This is going to be an eerie one. So now, let's get started. In thriller cinema, people were used to certain types of villains, either a stylized obsessiveness where their story is dreamlike, the obvious criminal, or the knife-wielding psycho.

[00:01:32]They were visibly off. You could tell they were the villain just from looking at them. That's what made 1971's Play Misty for Me feel so different. The host of a popular radio show meets a flirtatious fan. What he sees as a casual fling, she sees as destiny. In her mind, he loves her as much as she loves him. With her impulsive behavior, switching emotions in a second, and fear of abandonment, it all culminates with her attacking his girlfriend with a knife, stabbing a guy until she gets pushed over a balcony landing on the rocky shores. The nightmare finally ends. But Play Misty for Me is more seductive than that plot summary suggests. It's stylish, sleek, and strangely alluring. Almost as alluring as its dangerous leading lady. It's a neo-noir set on the coastal beauty of Carmel, California. The soundtrack blends sophisticated smooth jazz with trendy bluesy rock. The film can be read in a few different ways. Maybe it's a backlash to the free love optimism of the '60s, suggesting that casual relationships aren't so consequence-free. Maybe it's some sort of power fantasy. Like, "Oh, this guy is so desirable, this woman loses her mind over him." Maybe it was the shock value of seeing a woman stalking a man. Play Misty for Me didn't launch a trend. '70s thrillers usually leaned into fear of the system, but this movie planted the seeds. The fear was something incredibly intimate. What happens if you get too friendly with the wrong person? During the '70s, with the Watergate scandal, the public started to feel less trusting. Suspicion wasn't aimed only at the government, but spread into everyday life. It was an uneasy feeling that things are not as they appear. There was also an increased awareness of stalking.

[00:03:20]The behavior wasn't yet recognized in legal terms, but the public was becoming familiar with it through high-profile cases, especially with the coverage of celebrity stalkers. This was the perfect cultural environment for Hollywood's newest obsession.

[00:03:35]A British short film, Diversion, shows a married man having a one-night stand while his wife is away. The woman becomes obsessed with him and refuses to let go. His life spirals into a nightmare. This would become adapted into a full-length movie, Fatal Attraction. Set in New York City, Dan, a normal man with a normal family, lives a comfy normal life. He even plans on leaving the chaos of the city for the safety of the suburbs. While his wife is away looking at the house they'll live in, this normal guy meets Alex Forrest.

[00:04:07]She's sophisticated, intelligent, flirtatious, and seemingly free in ways Dan no longer is. She's single, spontaneous, career-driven, and openly interested in him. They both mention that they can be discreet. He sees a moment where he gets to live outside of his predictable life and he takes it. He cheats. He not only cheats once, but goes on a few dates with this exciting woman. She has the ability to switch her emotions in a second, but let's act like that didn't happen. When he's about to leave, her mood shifts. She acts weirdly possessive of him and what was supposed to be a fun casual weekend for him ends uncomfortably. But this isn't something he's just going to walk away from. After she calls his house multiple times, she's now pregnant and she will have his child. She doesn't stop there. She goes to his house to get his new number. She won't be ignored. Up to this point, Alex can be somewhat sympathetic. She appears to be a deeply troubled person and even apologizes for her behavior, at least before it went too haywire. That changes when she takes a step to outward criminality with boiling the rabbit.

[00:05:16]Here is where the audience truly starts to hate her. She not only gets worse by kidnapping his daughter, which causes his wife to be sent to the hospital. So originally, what happens in the end was Alex decided to end her life and Dan is framed. He gets arrested, but his wife finds the tapes Alex sent and we can presume that she finds a way out for him. But audiences didn't like this ending. It made Alex Forrest appear as a tragic figure, maybe someone to sympathize with despite her many faults.

[00:05:46]Plus, with the last appearance of Dan being arrested, visually, it just looks like Alex won in the end. That was not the catharsis viewers wanted after two hours of her ruining a man's life and traumatizing his family. They had to see her punished. Though the cast and crew was unhappy with this decision, the ending was reshot. Instead, Alex breaks into their home holding a knife. She seems to have lost all touch with reality, believing she's married to Dan.

[00:06:13]She attacks Dan's wife, a huge bathtub fight happens, and in the end, the audience gets to see her suffer. And with that being a satisfying ending to the general public, Fatal Attraction was the second highest-grossing movie of 1987, just overtaken by Three Men and a Baby, which is interesting. When you rewatch this movie, you notice so much of the story is quietly set up long before it goes off the rails. They both agree they can be discreet, but it's never explicitly said on what they're being discreet about. Alex is a great cook. She loves animals. Her apartment is all white, representing either her inner emptiness or resembling a clinic.

[00:06:52]Not all viewers believed that Alex was pregnant, but I believe she was telling the truth. She eats a weird mix of snacks, gets random sickness. The pregnancy subplot was to show that Alex isn't a monster. She is human and that's what's so terrifying about the whole thing. And it is a curiosity, if she was never pregnant, would none of this have ever happened? Her humanity was shown through Glenn Close's performance, where she describes the direction she went for. "I wasn't playing a generality. I wasn't playing a cliché. I was playing a very specific, deeply disturbed, fragile human being whom I've grown to love."

[00:07:28]The writer, James Dearden, even notes of Alex, "A sad, tragic, lonely woman holding a tough job in an unforgiving city." One of the reasons Fatal Attraction became so massive is because there's so many ways you can look at it.

[00:07:41]What is this story trying to say? Is it a backlash against the rise of single career women? Alex lives in solitude, no husband, no family. She has an icy stare while peering into the window of a happy, wholesome family. Director Adrian Lyne felt a certain way about corporate women, feeling, "Sure, you've got your career and success, but you're not fulfilled as a woman." Is it trying to say, "Don't do casual hookups in general, that intimacy with strangers carry unseen danger?" Is it trying to scare men astray or anyone to never cheat? Glenn Close said that several men personally thanked her for saving their marriage. The writers themselves called it a morality tale, "A man who transgresses and pays the penalty."

[00:08:24]Fatal Attraction was less seen as a story of a man who betrays his wife and puts his family in danger. It was about a crazy woman who had to be stopped.

[00:08:33]Alex Forrest became a cultural villain of the moment. One headline called her the most hated woman in America. The term bunny boiler soon became used to describe an obsessive woman. And while Fatal Attraction didn't invent this trope, it definitely influenced the popularity of the crazy ex, especially in comedies. Its fingerprints are all over pop culture. In How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, in order to scare a guy away, Andie starts off acting super cool and spirals into a clingy, unpredictable caricature. Bridget Jones feared in the back of her mind that Alex Forrest might be her future if she never gets married.

[00:09:10]Fatal Attraction not only popularized stories about obsession, but reignited the film noir for a new generation.

[00:09:16]There's an undeniable cool factor. At the beginning, Alex is exciting and seductive, launching a new wave of femme fatales. Mean Girls warned about elevators, he should have listened. And New York City is a character in itself, fast-moving, full of temptation, and bad decisions. Director Adrian Lyne previously made Flashdance and he brought back that same glossy, aspirational visual style. This time portraying the Manhattan yuppie life.

[00:09:43]And this may be one of my overthinking bits, but in a movie environment where dream demons and possessed dolls were throwing one-liners, the adult psychological thriller felt classy, more prestigious. Fatal Attraction influenced the new for thrillers. The seemingly normal person who reveals themselves as a private nightmare. The screen adaptation of Stephen King's Misery Misery shows what appears to be a wholesome super fan who rescues her favorite author and has no intention of ever letting him leave.

[00:10:15]Unlawful entry had what looked like a normal maybe slightly too friendly cop who is really a psychopathic stalker who won't let go. Pacific Heights shows an ordinary tenant into a nightmare squatter determined to ruin his landlord's lives. And stalker thrillers more broadly like Sleeping with the Enemy and Cape Fear double down on psychological torment even when their villains weren't charming at first glance. This kind of story structure was magnetic for audiences because it taps into deeply personal fears. For one, it attacks one of our most basic survival assumptions. Every day we make quick simple judgments about people. We can look at any one of these characters in real life and maybe assume this person seems all right. But these narratives flip it. What if your judgment is completely wrong? Now we have to question our own instincts and that ties into the fear of being too friendly with the wrong person. Many of these villains begin with an ordinary social opening. A friendship, a tenant agreement, casual kindness. Then the other person becomes entitled, obsessive and won't take no for an answer. And the scariest part of them is that they're human. They're not mask flashers or supernatural monsters.

[00:11:26]They get hurt. They're insecure. They feel rejection and loneliness. They're kind of like you if you were willing to become nightmarish.

[00:11:35]And there was only one way this formula could go. More stylish, sexier and crazier. And give the obsessed villain even harsher punishments. The next box office hit was The Hand That Rocks the Cradle in 1992. Be careful who you hire as a nanny because even the warm friendly caregiver can have a personal vendetta against a mother and wife. She tries to make her children like her more and attempts to seduce her husband. But you can't get between a woman and her family. And what happens to her is the same thing that happens in the Tiesto music video. And of course aside from the dangerous woman, the style was a part of the appeal. The film was set in Seattle, a city that in 1992 had a growing cultural cachet thanks to its booming image and rising cool factor.

[00:12:21]And if The Hand That Rocks the Cradle questioned what if you hired a nightmare nanny, Single White Female questions what would you put up with for rent controlled apartment in New York even if your new roommate is trying to become you. The film follows Allie searching for a new roommate and chooses someone who seems shy but friendly. But after showing possessive behavior, she realizes this girl is constantly copying her. She dresses like her, talks like her, mirrors her mannerisms, introduces herself as Allie. They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery but not until a dangerous person is out to replace you and seduce your husband/boyfriend.

[00:13:01]They tend to do that. The film also sells an era specific coolness. Allie has a Linda Evangelista haircut and a chic sense of style. We see a weird underground club that plays the Angels Have Pink Hair, I Have No Idea song. A guy got ended with a stiletto which is so outrageously camp it circles back to art. And the audience wonders, why does she do this? How does this woman have such little identity of self that she tries to become someone else? Is this a trauma response from losing drowning her identical twin sister? Is she jealous of Allie? Does she hate her? Is she in love with her? The answer to the last three questions are yes. The Crush also leaned towards a 90s MTV vibe. But The Crush is a weird movie. How is an adult who's like 30 beefing with a ninth grader?

[00:13:49]That's not scary. That's embarrassing. I feel her parents were the real villains to be honest. And at the beginning he did the if only you were 10 years older thing. Ah!

[00:13:58]Dangerous women were popular in film at the time. But a strange micro trend was the dangerous girl. Alongside films like Poison Ivy, this launched a trope that really didn't age well. The Crush leans hard into the this adult man is a poor innocent victim to an unhinged girl even adding a false accusation angle for extra panic. Why all these weird decisions? You can take this formula into anything else. Why this? Because it was meant to be provocative and edgy.

[00:14:28]Say those two words at a pitch meeting in 1993 and you've got a movie deal.

[00:14:32]Fear is a rare media example of the crazy ex-boyfriend. But we know he's a weirdo from the start. There is an inappropriate age difference. A controlling man refuses to accept a breakup as a breakup, stalks his ex, threatens her family and it all culminates with him getting the punishment he deserves. If this sounds formulaic at this point, that was the intention. The producer Brian Grazer describes this film as Fatal Attraction for teens. But at this point it's been nine years since Fatal Attraction came out. The seductive but unhinged stalker formula was getting tired and there was something that imitators missed on which made the original work. In Fatal Attraction, the theme is seeing a sort of consequence for your actions. The protagonist starts the problem. The follow-up movies just have horrible things happening to people because they met the wrong person which can be an interesting storyline. There is something about being in the wrong place at the wrong time. But without something like the pregnancy subplot, they become obsessed with the protagonist because they just do. It's because they're crazy. That's the only explanation we get. Plus thrillers started leaning into a new formula. Instead of obsession based domestic dramas, the genre shifted towards cat and mouse mysteries. The protagonist has to put together a puzzle. Think Seven, Copycat, The Game and Kiss the Girls. And for thrillers with that specific cool factor, the high school slasher was back and more self-aware than ever. But the this person is not who you believe stories didn't completely go away. The Glass House reworked the formula around nightmare guardians and Swimfan was another hookup gone wrong story. These are PG-13 films so there's only so much edginess that could be explored. Orphan in 2009 had the potential of reviving the storyline. It's a stylized film with a unique premise that did well in the box office. An adopted girl who for some reason dresses like a Victorian doll is really a deranged adult woman. One of the most memorable and horrific twist endings. And there was some controversy for how it portrays adoption. An edgy thriller sort of needs controversy. Also the husband is one of the dumbest characters ever put on film. 2009 also had The Roommate Obsessed centering on a nightmare temp which also stars Beyoncé.

[00:16:51]Pop star casting adds gloss. The Roommate was just a straightforward normal girl turns out to be a possessive abnormal girl storyline. I can't take her seriously in that hat. All I remember is how we all screamed at the belly ring part. You know if you know.

[00:17:06]Then came The Boy Next Door. Another hookup gone wrong story. A high school teacher has a one night stand with her student. I know he's 19 but still it's strange. I will give Orphan a pass for just how bizarre and unexpected the twist is. And the story is genuinely scary. But many of these later films were repackaged decades old formulas while the thriller genre had already moved somewhere else. You follows the perspective of a stalker. Gone Girl had two unsympathetic leads. The murderous villain even wins in the end. Black Swan turns obsession inward. The mind itself is a battleground. While in comparison, films like Obsession, The Roommate and The Boy Next Door felt firmly in 1991.

[00:17:49]A major reason for the decline of the Fatal Attraction storyline is changing attitudes around mental health. Not in a this is offensive, stop making these way but having a this character is crazy explanation in the 2020s would feel lazy. A reason why the 80s and 90s villains was so feared was because they had a mystery surrounding them.

[00:18:10]Audiences were curious. How can someone flip like this? The shock factor simply faded away. The unknown became more discussable. Less mythic. There have been re-adaptations for Fatal Attraction, Misery, The Hand That Rocks the Cradle but they all arrived quietly, left quietly and inspired little enthusiasm. But thrillers today still have the same core idea. Things are not as they seem. The difference is where the suspense is coming from. Modern thrillers now revolve around hidden truths and respectable people concealing something rotten underneath. Blink Twice centers on what looks like a perfect luxury retreat that hides something sinister. The Housemaid follows a live-in maid who discovers the wealthy family employing her is not who they appear to be. It has less to do with these villains being crazy but more about something they actually did or are doing. In the end, the Fatal Attraction phenomenon captured a very specific moment in pop culture. A time when thrillers were glossy, sexy and deeply suspicious of the people closest to you.

[00:19:13]And even if the portrayals of mental health were often sensationalized or not very accurate, they had an intrinsic campiness that's hard to fully recreate today. It takes us on an emotional roller coaster one phone call at a time.

[00:19:27]Which seductive and obsessive thriller is your favorite? Thank you all for watching and hope to see you all in the next one. Bye.

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