I did things backward, like I usually do, watching Body Chemistry III and Body Chemistry II before the original film.

Kristine Peterson was a member of the staff at Zoetrope Studios during the filming of Apocalypse Now before making the kind of movies that I love, like Deadly Dreams and Critters 3, as well as being an assistant director on Exterminator 2, Chopping Mall, The Supernaturals and Tremors. The script comes from Jackson Barr, who is really Jack Canson. He used that name to write the series’ second and third movies, Seedpeople, Subspecies and Trancers II. Peterson worked with Thom Babbes to push the script further, as this was a direct-to-video cash-in on Fatal Attraction. They went for the carnal content to be darker and dirtier than what played on big screens.

Tom Redding (Marc Singer) is a human sexuality researcher living a blessed life. He’s rich from his work; he has a great wife named Marlee (Mary Crosby), and might be the next director of the clinic he works for.

Then, he meets Dr. Claire Archer (Lisa Pescia).

Her theory is that sex is all about power, and she can prove that by breaking down all of Tom’s defenses and seducing him, dominating him, unlike every other woman he’s ever been with. As you’d expect, Tom wants this affair to end and for him to be able to go back to his safe family life. Dr. Claire is willing to send porn to his house as a first salvo before things eventually reach her using propane tanks to nuke his home.

For as much as Fatal Attraction and Basic Instinct — a movie similar to this one, coming out two years after — are seen as the movies from which the well of erotic thrillers springs from, Body Chemistry establishes the template from which many films would copy. Saxophone and fog-filled love scenes, evil women who introduce fallen men to a world of dirty love, and good women who want their man back in their safe vanilla beds. What they miss is the kink that this has, including a shower scene that makes it appear that Dr. Claire is taking Tom from behind, supplanting his role as the male dominant partner. That’s pretty wild for today, much less nearly thirty-five years ago.