Mind Over Murder

Have you ever been in a position wherein people were trying to control you? First, they would really dig deep into knowing you no matter how creepy they would get. Stalking and spying on your every move. It’s cringe worthy finding what’s their motive behind all those sleuthing. 

There are people who decided to play the game they are dragged into and play along. One notable character is Catherine Tramell from the novel penned by Joe Eszterhas; played by Sharon Stone in the movie Basic Instinct. 

Of the two, i like the second movie primarily because of the mind game they’re into. I mean, it’s no longer about who is right or wrong. It depends on how good your alibi is. It’s about who has the strong mind. I’m not going to assume everyone watched it because Basic Instinct 2 did not do well at the box office but did generate a lot of controversy. 

Catherine was driving a Spyder and crashed and drowned with the football star. She survived, he died. Her alibi 

When it came down to it, I guess my life was more important than his”

Catherine Tramell

Indeed, survival is the most basic instinct. 

I like the sequel because it was intelligently written, perhaps because this time they sent a psychiatrist Dr. Glass to assess Catherine Tramell as opposed to Douglas’s dim witted character. Tramell really found her match in Dr. Glass. It’s the best premise to give justice to her character being a novelist ( i’m not saying a novelist is not capable of committing murder) I mean, a novelist being a murderer through and through the way she was portrayed in the first movie just doesn’t look right. Come on, a pen and a sword or an ice pick for that matter doesn’t mix well. Surely, a sword can cut a pen but still a pen is mightier than sword. Just continue reading, I’ll prove my point. 

The second movie really brings out the pacifist in me. Tramell as a novelist or novelist as a whole are pacifist by nature. They can write the darkest of dark and can bring out their inner dark and write all in morbid details without having their hand splayed on murder. 

Dr. Glass found her to have a risk addiction, and she was tired of everyone labeling her a shrink and all those mud slinging and that she thought of those as just another made up word by another psychiatrist who happen to coin a word to better describe her behavior but she is not that simple. She once said that she wanted to prove her omnipotent existence or that she’s in control.

 What other better way to engage Dr. Glass than to have him read her latest novel. Dr. Glass was so engrossed in her novel he drowned in it. She got him hooked to her bait. She let him in her mind and trapped. She’s in control.

That is to say Dr. Glass unknowingly or unwittingly carried out the crime Tramell intended or not for him to do by way of suggesting it in her novel making her the enchantress rather than a seductress she was portrayed in the first movie and that Dr. Glass has the weakest mind.  

He’s the shrink and she’s in control. It was gratifying to see him ending up in a mental institution after all his accusation he could come up against Tramell but i think she even love Dr. Glass, if love is a crime then she’s guilty as charged.

Technically, in the second movie, she didn’t commit any crime as opposed to the first one where she wields an ice pick like mad. She somehow evolved from being an idiot seductress to an intellectual enchantress.  

I’d like to draw a parallel between those people who like the first Basic Instinct to those who like Spartacus; and those who like the second Basic Instinct movie to those who like Game of Thrones. Fans of Spartacus and fans of Game of Thrones are two different breeds.