Arc Cinema presents a series of irreverent Friday night filmic feasts, curated and hosted by drag artist and culture warrior Venus Mantrap.
Cult Classics with Venus Mantrap explores the archives to showcase cinema with bite: films that unnerve, push buttons, ask questions and just look good on the big screen! Gather your tribe of misfits and rowdy rebels and join Venus for edgy movies, fan favourites and hidden gems.
When police detective Nick Curran (Michael Douglas) investigates a brutal murder that might involve a manipulative and seductive novelist, Catherine Tramell (Sharon Stone), he knowingly engages in a dangerous, lust-fuelled game. As their passion ignites, the body count rises.
Concluding the Cult Classics program for 2025 is Basic Instinct – the sensational 1992 box-office smash. This stylish thriller from acclaimed director Paul Verhoven is set in San Francisco and has drawn direct comparisons to Hitchcock’s Vertigo.
“The fact is that nothing like Basic Instinct could come out of risk-averse Hollywood today, at least not on the scale that might propel it to the centre of American culture.” – The Guardian
“If Verhoeven really was commenting on cinemagoers' balance of prurience and puritanism, then he was proved right. For all the moral panic its release prompted, audiences were spellbound by Catherine, and Basic Instinct rose to sixth place on America's box-office chart for 1992, despite its R-rating.” – BBC
Includes pre-screening introduction and live performance by Venus Mantrap.
PLEASE NOTE: This film is rated R18+. People under 18 cannot be admitted to the screening.
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