In the pre-internet, non-binging world of cable and video stores, the erotic thriller — more than even adult videos — was the acceptable dirty secret, whether consumed via Cinemax After Dark, the Playboy Channel or by renting videos out in the open with a piece of tape and a marker written message saying, “Must be 18 to rent.”

Yet today, the erotic thriller is nearly forgotten, replaced by Lifetime movies and more chaste streaming murder mysteries. The 80s and 90s were filled with these movies, and as someone who grew up in that era, I know people would furtively whisper their titles between classes. Night Eyes. Body Chemistry. Red Show Diaries.

This is nearly three hours long, but at no point was I bored. In fact, it could have been twice that length, and I’d have loved it even more. The film moves from film noir into the American films that started the trend of these films, such as Dressed to Kill and Body Heat, as well as Basic Instinct and Fatal Attraction, all the Hollywood versions of these films that while controversial, had the gloss of being studio production. The joy of this film is it gets into the companies that made the authentic erotic thrillers and the filmmakers and actors who created them. People like Fred Olen Ray, Jim Wynorski and Andrews Stevens, as well as Monique Parent, Amy Lindsay and Nancy O’Brien.

Maybe it’s the fact that this is thirty years past when I’d watch these in between channels or on dubbed VHS tapes that were passed from friend to friend, but I felt like I was meeting old friends again. If you have the slightest interest in the genre, it’s definitely worth a watch. The scene where the multiple titles of the films and how it’s hard to keep track? I felt myself in that moment.

My only quibbles: Yes, noir is where so many of these movies get their start. Certainly Body Double. Yet so much of the erotic thriller genre owes itself to Giallo, mainly because so many of the old guard — Martino especially — returned to make erotic thrillers in the 80s and 90s. While I know this couldn’t be five hours long, if I could lobby for a sequel, the fact that Gregory Dark’s films weren’t mentioned is an oversight that demands to be corrected.

You can buy this from Yellow Veil Pictures on Vinegar Syndrome.

Check out the Letterboxd list of the movies covered in We Kill for Love.