As I spend any given week observing “vintage” films, 1987’s “Fatal Attraction” is the rare 1980s film, which, when the AI research tool told me it was released on Sept 18, I hadn’t already seen! I was too young!
I don’t remember having seen the teasers or trailer for “Fatal Attraction”. At age 15, the adult situation yarn it spun was leagues beyond what I could imagine a woman and man would get into. In 2026 being in middle age and seeing the original trailer, I wouldn’t want to watch the film; it’s too dark, and Alex is troubled and unhinged.
After seeing the trailer in 2026, I don’t know what movie appetite an adult would have to have in order to enjoy watching “Fatal Attraction”. It’s not fun. But unlike 2020, “nobody” was discussing mental illness or stalking seriously circa 1987. Any woman who slices her wrists before the one-night-stand leaves the apartment is far-gone for a stable relationship.
Look at retrospective conversations with Glenn Close about how in 1986 she researched and vetted the psychological reality of her character Alex. She wanted to know from psychiatrists whether someone would realistically do what the script portrays instead of that being a “cartoon” from the screenwriter.
I respect her curiosity and diligence. But nearly 40 years later, and having watched too many twisted criminals among episodes of “Criminal Minds,” I’m like, “yeah. Depending on the illness or disorder, a person might do this”. Close said that the psychiatrists told her that Alex would have had early childhood trauma. In building Alex’s character’s backstory, Close decided that it had been father incest. So Alex knows shaky boundaries, poor impulse- and self-control and probably conditional self-esteem. She’s a terrifying and tragic mess.
Gallagher has told her that it’s over. A couple of times; first subtly, then bluntly quoting her, “fuck off”. Going to her apartment in order to talk about things, after her ever-escalating acts showed her far-gone – I shook my head and talked to the screen. “Just stay away”.
On “staying away,” tragically the stalking and murder of actor Rebecca Schaeffer was the straw and compelled the first anti-stalking laws in 1990 three years after “Fatal Attraction”.
From 2020, when Covid precautions made the United States’ extant mental illness crisis scary, people began more candid conversations about the ravages of the illnesses. AI research indicates that roughly 20% of the U.S.’ population has a mental illness.
So circa 2020s it’s easier to perceive Alex’s illness and perhaps sympathize with her. – To a point. Attempting suicide after the second “date,” stalking, breaking and entering into a one-night-stand’s new home, kidnapping the couple’s school-age child are past that “point”. But circa 1980s, psychotic, psychopath or the ____-from-hell were probably more common shorthand for the unhinged Alex. Again, her acting out trod a steep escalation instead of a stable, rational one.
“Fatal Attraction,” while exciting or thrilling ain’t what most viewers would call fun. The velocity with which Alex refusing rejection, escalates is Hitchcockian terror that’s too real for a viewer to want to embrace.
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