Thrill Seeker: BAD INFLUENCE

 by Sonia Mansfield

A year after Sex, Lies, and Videotape, James Spader starred in another movie about sex, lies, and videotape.

Welcome to Thrill Seeker, in which I watch thrillers from the 80s and 90s. This month, I watched 1990’s Bad Influence, starring James Spader, Rob Lowe, Christian Clemenson, and Lisa Zane.

So much of the discussion around this movie in 1990 was about Rob Lowe and a leaked sex tape. In case you don’t remember (or maybe you weren’t even born yet *sighs*), in 1988, there was a tape of Rob Lowe having sex with two people (including a 16-year-old girl) that was filmed the night before the Democratic National Convention in Atlanta, Georgia. At the time, Rob Lowe was was campaigning for Michael Dukakis. In other words, Illegally Yours wasn’t Lowe’s only bomb in 1988.

Eventually, Lowe settled out of court with the girl’s family, and no criminal charges were filed, because at the time the age of consent in Georgia was 14. I know, right?

Bad Influence was his first movie after that scandal, and it’s almost like it was created to capitalize on it by putting Lowe’s character into threesomes and filming a sex tape without consent.

A few other things of note: This is directed by Curtis Hanson, who y’all remember wrote and directed the Oscar-winning LA Confidential. But to me, he’s the guy who directed The Hand That Rocks the Cradle. Don’t worry, Cradle, your time will come in Thrill Seeker.

Bad Influence is also one of the first screenplays by David Koepp, who has worked with some nobody named Steven Spielberg on Jurassic Park, War of the Worlds, and Disclosure Day. No big deal.

OK, let’s run through the plot, no spoilers.

The plot: James Spader plays Michael, an analyst at some corporate job. He wants the big promotion to senior analyst, but there’s this jerk in the office named Patterson, who also wants the job. Patterson is trying to sabotage Michael by hiding his work from him. (No, really.) He’s also engaged to Ruth (Marica Cross), who comes from a wealthy family and styles her hair like Cameron Diaz in There’s Something About Mary.

 

You can immediately tell Michael just isn’t that into Ruth, but he doesn’t have the guts to say anything. Just like he doesn’t have the guts to stand up for himself to his shitty coworker. Instead of going to therapy, Michael goes to a bar to get a drink.

While at the bar, a woman comes in, our boy offers to buy her a drink. Then her boyfriend comes in and pushes Michael’s face into the bar. Dang, the dude can’t even buy a woman a drink without someone making him feel like a spineless turd. But then Rob Lowe’s Alex comes in, smashes a beer bottle on the bar, and threatens to stab the bully. But before Michael can thank him, Alex disappears faster than Dukakis’s political career.

Luckily, Michael runs into Alex the next day, so they decide to get a drink and chat. No one pushes Michael’s face in the bar or smashes a beer bottle, so the hang out is a success. The conversation mainly consists of Alex spouting out manosphere talking points. If this movie were made today, Alex would definitely have thoughts about high-value men. Then they go to another bar where Alex puts on a fake French accent and lies to everyone because his idea of a good time is lying to people for no reason at all. That’s when they meet Clarie (Lisa Zane - that’s right, Billy’s sister!).

They all go back to Michael’s super '90s apartment. It’s all windows and dark with hardly any furniture, but he does have a video camera and TV set up. Michael and Claire pass out on the couch, and Alex stares at them while they sleep like a psychopath. When Claire wakes up, she and Alex make out, but he tells her to go fuck Michael instead, and she’s like, “OK, cool.” The next morning, Michael wakes up to Alex watching a sex tape of Michael and Claire knocking boots, which is just super-cool normal bro stuff, right?

And here’s where my plot summary ends, thrill seekers. Just know that filming a sex tape without consent and watching it isn’t a red flag for our buddy, Michael. Instead, he’s all-in on Alex, and Alex is all-in on infiltrating Michael’s life and controlling him, including “helping” him with that annoying coworker and that whole engagement thing. Murder, insider trading, and questionable decisions ensue.

Is it a thrill? Yep, this one is good y’all. Rob Lowe plays a good creep. He’s played a few assholes throughout his career, but usually the movie still wants us to like him like in St. Elmo’s Fire or in comedies like Wayne’s World or Tommy Boy. Lowe is an impossibly good-looking man, and I love that Bad Influence weaponizes that, showing that he can just move through life with pretty boy privilege and get what he wants with no consequences (for a while anyway).

If this movie has been made two years earlier, James Spader and Rob Lowe probably would’ve swapped roles. Spader always has a darkness about him, which is why he’s so great at playing douchebags and assholes. It’s entertaining to watch him play such a broken tool for most of the movie, but because it’s Spader when he’s finally had enough, we believe it.

I do wish they’d given Lisa Zane a little more to do. The character is just there to do whatever the man in the scene tells her to do, and she does it no questions asked. She deserves better.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 bunnies in a boiling pot