by Billy Russell, Staff Writer

It’s a shame that Wild Things so successfully disguised and marketed itself as a sleazy, exploitative thriller, because hardly anyone knows the truth, that Wild Things is a subversive, witty satire. It’s an intellectual study draped in a sordid guise. Those who’ve seen, and love, Wild Things know that the uninitiated are in for a treat.

There are some movies you can hear–close your eyes and the sound effects will take you to the same place. Wild Things is one of those movies. The buzz of the insects. The corny guitar-riff-laden musical score. You can practically hear the sweat dripping. Everyone, at all times, is covered in a shimmering sheen of perspiration.

Allow me to attempt to take you through the plot of Wild Things, without daring to give too much away. Florida high school guidance counselor Sam Lombardo (Matt Dillon) is accused of raping two of his students, Kelly and Suzie (Denise Richards and Neve Campbell). This turns out to be a big con job, so that the girls will “crack” under pressure during the sham trial, giving Sam an opportunity to countersue Kelly’s rich parents and they can all split the big, fat payday. This twisty, turny, serpentine series of events only represents something like the first 20 minutes of the movie. It’s just the set-up. There are double-crosses galore, murder, fake murder, champagne-soaked sex scenes, sex scenes in pools.

Yet, for all this sex, the only person who actually appears nude is Kevin Bacon. At its surface, this seems like a strange oversight, but I think it’s yet another bit of clever subversion from writer Stephen Peters and director John McNaughton. I think a lot of horny men coming to this movie to see “the goods” were going to go home disappointed. This movie came out when I was 12 and I was expecting to see the girls from Starship Troopers and Scream disrobe, but the only actual, tangible nudity was from the guy from Tremors.

While it seems an odd movie for it, there is an extended cameo from Bill Murray, and he’s absolutely hysterical. For the brief time he’s in the movie, he hijacks the scenes he’s in and, instead of seeming like an invader from another movie that threatens to give the audience a tonal whiplash from which they’ll never recover, it merely serves to provide an insight into the actual tone of the film. Wild Things isn’t a sexy, idiotic thriller. It’s a comedy–a very straight-faced one at that. There are certainly jokes, and many of them do land, but what we’re laughing at his how off the rails the story gets. Twist after twist after twist, each more outlandish than the last, and each getting harder and harder to sustain your disbelief for. But Wild Things never reins it in. The pure joy in it is in seeing where it goes next. The writing is assured enough that wherever the plot does go, you know you’re in good hands.

Wild Things is the successful execution of what Showgirls wanted to be. And don’t get me wrong, I also love Showgirls, but for entirely different reasons. Showgirls is a movie with a lot of ambition and a lot of technical skill, but with an unhinged lunacy–which is, at turns, part of its charm. Wild Things has all of the self-awareness that Showgirls doesn’t have. Showgirls is a sincere piece of exploitation. Wild Things only presents itself as exploitation, as a means of observing the genre.

People love post-credit sequences in movies today, with Marvel movies hinting at the next developments or villains to come. Wild Things has its own post-credit sequences, showing unrevealed scenes that show how some of its more ridiculous twists happened. It’s a winking nod to the audience, as if to say, “We thought about how impossible these things were, and we’re hanging a lamp on it, just to show you that we’re having too much fun to care.”

I always thought it was a shame John McNaughton didn’t have a bigger career. Between this and Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, he’s helmed what I consider to be two classics. Henry is a much more serious picture, simply and eloquently filmed, with a relentlessness and blunt truth. He also made Mad Dog and Glory, a fun, cute little movie with some great performances. I think he’s a great director, whose work was never really destined to make great hits. His work is much too personal for broad success.

My wife and I bonded over Wild Things when we were still newly dating. I can’t remember exactly how the conversation came up, but either she or I said something about loving Wild Things and then either she or I in response said, “Oh, my god! Me, too!” Hell, I even bought her the Arrow Video 4K Steelbook for her birthday. It’s a fundamentally misunderstood movie, which was destined to happen. Part of its charm is that you have to be in on the joke and it never does reveal itself, not truly, anyway. You just have to see it for yourself and if you get it, you get it. If you don’t, you don’t.

For her birthday several years ago, we rented out a theater and invited her friends to see a screening of Wild Things. Some of her friends had seen it, but many hadn’t, it was their first time. When this movie came out, it seemed like an inferior entry in the prolific 1990s sexy thriller sub-genre that permeated basic cable. When the movie wrapped and we all filed out, someone told my wife, “I owe Wild Things an apology for avoiding it for all these years!”