Fatal Seduction does one erotic thriller element better than Obsession
If the title weren't enough of a giveaway, the opening scenes of Fatal Seduction will certainly clue you in on the new Netflix show's mission statement.
The closed captions do a fairly good job of laying out the events of the initial montage – [woman gasping], [both panting], [smacks], [woman gasping] – and it goes on much in this vein.
Amid the writhing on screen, a sultry voice says in the voiceover: "Sex. Fornication. F**king. It’s a compulsion. A primary urge." That is until we get [indistinct screaming] – and it's not the good kind. Here enters the 'fatal' part of the titular 'seduction'.
A woman is led away by the police as an anonymous victim is wheeled off atop a stretcher. In this simple sexy montage, we're off to the races for the seven-part drama, immediately bouncing back four weeks before that scream.
Fatal Seduction follows university professor Nandi (Kgomotso Christopher) as she takes a cue from her cheating husband Leonard (Thapelo Mokoena) and plays away with a younger man she meets on a weekend getaway. Steamy disaster ensues.
When watching the show, it's hard not to think of Netflix's chief erotic hit of the year Obsession. The two have much in common, aside from their residence on the smutty shelves of the streaming giant.
Both are ridiculous, but in Fatal Seduction's case, it leans into the wilder side of its plot points and comes out all the better for it. In comparison, Obsession takes itself far too seriously, so much so that few initially understood what it was trying to say with its very open-ended last scene.
In the scenes where our leading lady meets our leading man, for instance, Obsession is limply melodramatic where Fatal Seduction is cheeky.
In Obsession, Anna (Charlie Murphy) and William (Richard Armitage) lock eyes across a crowded room and flatly feed each other olives. In Fatal Seduction, Nandi and her friend first spot Jacob (Prince Grootboom) topless on the beach and coo over to him with some cheesy flirting.
The tenor of two couldn't be more disparate and proves that a dash of frisky sleaze adds to the fun of things. Sex is meant to be a pleasure, but outputs like Obsession approach it with all the staunch seriousness of its protagonist's efforts as a brain surgeon.
Fatal Seduction is trashy and a tad gratuitous but it's at least seductive, while the sex in Obsession has more of an air of watching two stags doggedly rutting in the park. Then, when the show's major twist comes in its four-episode run, it is so bleakly haunting as to suck all life from the screen.
There's an argument for both forms of the genre to exist and certainly space for them in Netflix's back catalogue, but if the erotic thrillers of yore tell us anything, it's which of the two is more likely to endure.
If we look to Basic Instinct, a seminal moment for cinematic titillation, it has maintained its position at the top of the erotic thriller food chain for its nineties flavour of raunch and that now-infamous interrogation scene moment.
This was a wild time for the erotic on screen. A bunny was boiled and people still can't shut up about it (Fatal Attraction), Sarah Michelle Gellar and Selma Blair locked lips (Cruel Intentions) and Robert Redford made Demi Moore an offer she couldn't refuse (Indecent Proposal).
What most of these films boasted – aside from tight and twisty plots – was a reluctance to take themselves too seriously.
In Basic Instinct, Catherine's (Sharon Stone) reveal to Detective Nick (Michael Douglas) that her next novel would be about a detective who gets savagely murdered is fabulously melodramatic, as Jerry Goldsmith's spiky neo-noir soundtrack ratchets up the tension in the background.
In the erotic thrillers of this ilk, tongues may have been all over the shop, but one of those places was firmly in their own cheeks.
The erotic thriller has now largely moved over from cinema screens to television, likely due to the rise of internet pornography and the ability to watch the steamy scenes in the privacy of your own home as opposed to a packed theatre.
We now have campy hit sexports like You and Sex/Life, which have often successfully struck that delicate balance between wanton raunch and self-awareness. Obsession lets itself down on this count by trying too hard to be slick and clever in a genre where the audience often doesn't ask that of it.
Fatal Seduction makes a similar call in recognising that Netflix guilty-pleasure seekers are tuning in for the playful thrills and spills more than anything else.
Fatal Seduction and Obsession are available to stream on Netflix.
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