Very recently, I’ve gotten onto a kick of watching 80’s erotic thrillers. They all seem to fit a certain sort of mold, both stylistically and narratively, the same 80’s-style excesses in drugs, sex, money, and they almost always have some twist at the end. Most recently, I’ve watched:
Body Heat
American Gigolo
Tequila Sunrise
Wall Street (more money than sex)
House of Games
Do you think that “80’s noir” is a good label for these types of movies? I’ve never seen Basic Instinct… does it fit this same mold, despite being from the 90’s?
I caught To Live and Die in LA on cable over Christmas holidays. From what I saw of it, it probably should have been titled To Live and Die in Long Beach, but that probably wouldn’t have sold as many tickets. Still holds up pretty well, but there’s an A-Team-esque car chase/gun battle that gets rather ridiculous.
Manhunter, while not exactly erotic, is another great “can’t be anything but the 80s” thriller.
Yes, I’m a heterosexual male who enjoys Will Peterson, why do you ask?
I’ve always felt that Noir as a genre was stylistically rooted in the late 1940s and 1950s, and that anything aspiring to that genre made after that time needs to be set in that period (or heavily stylistically influenced by the period), even if it’s filmed in colour, to qualify as “noir”, IMHO.
You could try something like “Neon Pulp”, though- the gaudy excesses of the '80s combined with elements of hard-boiled fiction, if that makes sense…
John Dahl’s The Last Seduction is almost perfect as an utterly over-the-top, nodding and winking entry into the category of 'Eightes neo-noir, a sort of uber-feminist revision of films like Double Indemnity or Out of the Past.
Steven Frear’s adaptation of Jim Thompson’s The Grifters is also well worth viewing (although technically a 'Nineties film). The recently late Donald Westlake updated the details slightly to move it into the late 'Eightes but left the pulpy elements intact, making it a slightly anachronistic film, seemingly in a world of its own.
Michael Mann’s underlooked first feature, Thief, while somewhat stylistically shaky compared to his later films like Heat or The Insider, contains scenes of brilliance, and a great attention to technical detail.
The three great neo-noir films (i.e., films in the noir tradition but done after 1940-1959, the classic period of noir film) are Chinatown, Body Heat, and Blood Simple.
Even though it came out in 1992, I’m going to recommend Red Rock West. Don’t think about the plot holes too much, and you’ll have a good time with it. I think it definitely qualifies as neo-noir.
**The Hot Spot **came out in 1990, but you should definitely include it because it stars Don Johnson, and no male star is more quintessentially “'80’s”.
