Movies: Fatal Attraction

Fatal Attraction is, no contest, the absolute worst movie I've ever seen (n.b. I have never seen Basic Instinct or Indecent Proposal). Aside from the fact that we simply can't believe that Michael Douglas' character would cheat on his beautiful, touchable wife (Anne Archer) with the disturbingly manly, flat-chested, perma-frosted lunatic played by Glenn Close, once he has, we can't believe that she could fall so instantly for him, demanding that he leave his family and start a new one with her. We might believe that she'd call the house endlessly, hanging up when the wife answers, but we can't believe that she would kidnap their daughter, or kill their daughter's rabbit and leave it boiling on the stove top, or break into their house and try to kill Michael Douglas in the shower with a kitchen knife. I am generally the first in a room to proclaim that "girls are crazy," (my personal and contemporary take on "hell has no fury. . .") but I draw the line at boiling rabbits. That scene, which cuts from boiling pot to empty hutch, to mom opening pot lid to daughter running toward empty hutch, to mother's screaming face to daughter's screaming face, and back and forth between screams, is probably one of the top ten hokiest horror moments in the entire history of film. It's so horrible it's almost brilliant, but it's not enough to make midnight movie status. Flashdance might be so bad it's good, but this is just plain old bad.