Dutch director, Paul Verhoeven has had a roller coaster of a career. After making waves for his frank take on sexuality in his native Netherlands, the daring director made his way to the States and created a trio of flicks that dolled out audacity, violence and sex: RoboCop, Total Recall and Basic Instinct. His star was on the rise when his notorious Showgirls hit the scene. The drama was critically panned, and only found an appreciative audience when it went to video and became a cult hit.
To Verhoeven’s credit, when Showgirls earned him the Razzie for Worst Director in 1996, he was a sport about it, and attended the ceremony to accept the award – making him the first director to do so. Next he brought audiences another cult favorite: Starship Troopers, and introduced many of us to the striking symmetry of Denise Richards’ face. Then came a movie that makes my skin crawl: The Hollow Man, where the gross visual effects that allowed an invisible Kevin Bacon to sexually assault ladies garnered an Oscar nomination for Best Visual Effects. Despite financial success, this creepy sci-fi flick was panned and Verhoeven returned to his native land where he made Black Book, a provocative portrait of a young Jewish woman’s quest for vengeance against the Nazis in WWII era Netherlands.
Black Book was critically acclaimed, even earning a BAFTA nomination. Now, with Verhoeven’s career on a new upswing, Deadline has announced the director’s next project: Eternal, “a supernatural thriller that is Fatal Attraction — with a succubus temptress.”
This twisted thriller will be penned by Obsessed screenwriter David Loughery and Thi13en Ghosts scribe, Richard D’Ovidio, and will center on, “a married recovering alcoholic [who] helps a woman threatening to jump off the Golden Gate Bridge. They end up in bed, and in a torrid sexual affair. When he gets home, he’s confronted by his wife and a private investigator, with photos spread across a table. He thinks he’s busted, but the photos that should have shown him in the clinches with his mistress instead show him alone, drinking alcohol. He initially questions his own sanity, but progressively figures out that this temptress is a ghost who is after his soul.”
There is so much about this project that making me queasy: 1) Post-suicide-attempt hook-up 2) Sexy ghost girl 3) The implication of the clichéd obsessive other woman writ large with the threat of eternal stalking, penned by the writer responsible for a Beyonce vehicle, and the director who presented invisible rape. No part of me is looking forward to this, not even the part that revels in guilty pleasure adventures like Starship Troopers.
Eternal is projected to go into production next summer.
What do you think about Verhoeven’s latest sex-laced supernatural thriller?