Wild Things at 25 years old, and the scene that went ‘too far’ for the erotic thriller

Most audiences remember Wild Things not for the story but for its sexual scenes. But there was to be another that was ultimately deemed “too much”.

Wild Things is 25 years old this month. Picture: Columbia

In the 25 years – this month – since Wild Things came out in cinemas, the sexual thriller has lost none of its allure.

It’s sexy and weird, funny and camp. And it has more twists than a bag of chocolate-covered pretzels. It also famously featured a same-sex pair-up in an era when such things were not so common in Hollywood movies.

Wild Things was seen as quite the risk for Neve Campbell, then an “it”-girl-next-door. Campbell’s “trailer trash” character Suzie couldn’t have been more different from the two roles that made her famous, Party of Five’s Julia Salinger and Scream’s Sidney Prescott.

The image of Campbell and Denise Richards passionately kissing in a motel pool after a knockdown fight sent hearts racing. It’s like everyone in the audience was Kevin Bacon’s Ray – voyeuristically witnessing something that wasn’t for them.

Except of course, it was. It was all over the movie’s marketing – can anyone ever forget that poster – and the promise of that kiss, and a threesome, drew audiences in, tripling Wild Things’ budget at the box office.

Starring Campbell, Richards (relatively fresh on the scene, coming off the back of her break-out role in Starship Troopers), Bacon, Matt Dillon and Bill Murray, Wild Things still holds a spot in the cultural canon, as one of the last sexual thrillers that were in vogue for a time in American cinema – Basic Instinct, Body Heat and Body of Evidence among them.

Wild Things spawned three direct-to-DVD sequels which didn’t feature the original actors.

Set in the stifling heat of Florida, the complex story starts with two teenagers – one rich and one poor – accusing their school counsellor of rape. It’s soon revealed that was a plot between the three of them to get their hands on the wealthy Kelly’s mum’s money.

If only it was that simple. Because there are so many more revelations, double-crosses, faked deaths, actual murders and a series of mid-credit scenes where the penny really drops.

Somewhere in there are the details audiences really remember a quarter of a century later, including the threesome between Campbell, Richards and Dillon.

Richards was topless in the scene, and she revealed on an episode of the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills that there was contractual negotiations between the production and her team just how much she would expose.

It was originally to be the one nipple but ended up being both.

And on the matter of the kiss between Richards and Campbell, the Bond star wrote in her memoirs that she and Campbell “went into her trailer and shared a pitcher of margaritas before we did the scene, neither of us had ever kissed another girl, everyone has a first time”.

Campbell had a “no nudity” clause in her contract, which she maintained across all her projects until the 2004 erotic drama, When Will I Be Loved.

Wild Things was one of the last erotic thrillers of the 1980s and 1990s.

But a “no nudity” clause didn’t stop Bacon’s, well, bacon, from being on full show. As director John McNaughton explained, the scene was to have Bacon’s bits covered by a towel but in one take, the towel didn’t do its job.

The movie’s editor, Elena Maganini, had wanted that take and McNaughton said he told her that Bacon wasn’t going to like that but when they called the actor, he had apparently said, “Well, how do I look?” When McNaughton replied, “You look good, Kevin”, the Footloose star said, “No problem!”.

Bacon at one point recalled that his full frontal scene was the subject of every interview and press conference in the US, but that he was never asked about it in Europe.

Later in 2005, Bacon told Total Film, “I didn’t think any more about it so I was shocked, really shocked, when everyone kept on about it after the movie’s release. It really wasn’t a big deal.”

But Bacon said that the little flash in that scene wasn’t meant to be the end of it. There was another scene that ended up being cut because, at the time, it perceived as being too wild for even Wild Things.

“Actually, the movie almost came with another surprise for people to talk about, because Matt [Dillon] was going to climb in the shower with me. I thought it was great because the whole movie is about secrets coming out, right?

“As reveals go, that one was just huge. Unfortunately, the financiers didn’t like the idea of men making out. They felt it went ‘too far’. They felt it wasn’t right.”

Kevin Bacon went full-frontal nudity in the film.

While Wild Things remains a potent cultural touchstone of the late 1990s, Richards said in 2020 that there are aspects of that movie which would be “not appropriate” for today, especially the subplot where Dillon’s character is a teacher to Campbell and Richards’ on-screen avatars.

“If we did it today, I think it would be a different storyline.”

And while Richards has no regrets about being in the film, she confessed that there are challenges associated with her involvement.

“Having teenage daughters now, knowing I did this movie, it has been a little challenging explaining it to them and their friends have seen it,” she said. “My daughters have not seen it and they don’t want to see it which I’m glad, I don’t want them to.

“I don’t want to see my mum in that way either. They’re at an age now where their friends are discovering things their mum did things in her career when she was a lot younger, so that’s challenging too.”

Wild Things is streaming on Netflix and Stan

Originally published as Wild Things at 25 years old, and the scene that went ‘too far’ for the erotic thriller