''Animal Instincts'' is a 1992 American erotic thriller drama film directed by

Gregory Dark Gregory Dark (born Gregory Hippolyte Brown) is an American film director, film producer, music video director, and screenwriter. Dark is an Pornographic film, adult filmmaker who transitioned into directing Hollywood movies. He has also been cr ...

and starring

Maxwell Caulfield Maxwell Caulfield (born Maxwell P.J. Newby; 23 November 1959) is a British actor. He has appeared in ''Grease 2'' (1982), ''Electric Dreams (film), Electric Dreams'' (1984), ''The Boys Next Door (1985 film), The Boys Next Door'' (1985), ''The S ...

Shannon Whirry Shannon Meta Whirry (born 1964/1965) is an American actress. Early life Shannon Meta Whirry was born in Green Lake, Wisconsin, United States, the daughter of Sherril Jean "Sherry" (; 1944–2016) and Russell Clyde Whirry (1943–1988). Career A ...

Jan-Michael Vincent Jan-Michael Vincent (July 15, 1944 – February 10, 2019) was an American actor. He emerged as a leading man in the 1970s, playing notable roles in films like '' Going Home'' (1971), which earned him a Golden Globe nomination for Best Sup ...

and

David Carradine David Carradine ( ; born John Arthur Carradine Jr.; December 8, 1936 – June 3, 2009) was an American actor, director, and producer, whose career included over 200 major and minor roles in film, television and on stage. He was widely known ...

. This film spawned two sequels: ''Animal Instincts 2'' (1994) (also with Whirry) and ''Animal Instincts 3'' (also known as ''Animal Instincts: The Seductress'').

Synopsis

Joanna (Whirry) is married to David Cole (Caulfield), a police officer. While they love each other, their marriage is in a precarious position, as David's

sexual impotence Erectile dysfunction (ED), also referred to as impotence, is a form of sexual dysfunction in males characterized by the persistent or recurring inability to achieve or maintain a penile erection with sufficient rigidity and duration for sat ...

prevents them from being intimate with each other. A sexually-frustrated Joanna ends up having an

extramarital affair An affair is a relationship typically between two people, one or both of whom are either married or in a long-term monogamous or emotionally-exclusive relationship with someone else. The affair can be solely sexual, solely physical or solely em ...

with a cable repairman; when they are caught in the act by David, David's response is to passionately have sex with Joanna, to Joanna's surprise. Joanna concludes that he "likes to watch", so they resort to get involved in

voyeurism Voyeurism is the sexual interest in or practice of watching other people engaged in intimate behaviors, such as undressing, sexual activity, or other actions of a private nature. The term comes from the French ''voir'' which means "to see". ...

: Joanna gets involved in multiple affairs to several other men in her and David's home, which David videotapes with a hidden camera to later watch. Problems arise, however, when the local mob learns about their sexual activities, and their leader (Carradine) blackmails them to videotape an encounter with a crooked politician (Vincent).

Cast

as Joanna *

as David *

as William *

as Fletcher Ross *

Mitch Gaylord Mitchell Jay Gaylord (born March 10, 1961) is an American gymnast, actor, and 1984 Los Angeles Olympic gold medalist in gymnastics. He was a member of the United States men's national artistic gymnastics team. Early life and education Gaylord w ...

as Rod Tennison *

John Saxon John Saxon (born Carmine Orrico; August 5, 1936 – July 25, 2020) was an American actor who worked on more than 200 film and television projects during a span of 60 years. He was known for his work in Westerns and horror films, often playing ...

as Otto Van Horne * Delia Sheppard as Ingrid * Tom Reilly as Kena *

Wendy Walsh Wendy Lee Walsh (born April 30, 1962) is a Canadian author, lecturer, radio host and television commentator. Walsh's family is from Prince Edward Island;Motion Picture Association of America, R in the United States for explicit sexual material and profanity. Similar ratings were bestowed on the film in Australia under the

Office of Film and Literature Classification The Office of Film and Literature Classification (), branded as the Classification Office (), is an independent Crown entity established under Films, Videos, and Publications Classification Act 1993 responsible for censorship and classificatio ...

Rating Board (for "high level sexual material") and the

British Board of Film Classification The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) is a non-governmental organization, non-governmental organisation founded by the British film industry in 1912 and responsible for the national classification and censorship of films exhibited ...

(BBFC) Rating System Network. ''Animal Instincts'' was given mixed to substandard reviews by audience and film critics. Under

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...

, the audience gave the film only a 14% rating. ''Radio Times'' magazine gave two out of five stars to the film, describing it as "the thriller that made Shannon Whirry a favourite of the top-shelf brigade", and writing "Director Gregory Hippolyte, who became one of the genre's leading directors, presents the many couplings with some panache, but he can't hide the fact that this is really just ''

Emmanuelle Emmanuelle is the lead character in a series of French erotic films based on the protagonist in the novel of the same name, by Emmanuelle Arsan, written in 1959 and published in 1967. Emmanuelle originated as the pen name ''Emmanuelle Arsan' ...

'' for the 1990s."

References

External links

* * {{rotten-tomatoes, animal_instincts, Animal Instincts 1990s erotic thriller films 1992 independent films 1992 films American erotic thriller films 1990s English-language films 1990s American films Films directed by Gregory Dark English-language independent films English-language erotic thriller films