Rent Bad Influence (1990)

Well, That Escalated Quickly - Bad Influence review by griggs

Bad Influence was an early entry in what became one of the decade’s defining genres: the glossy psychological thriller. James Spader plays the uptight everyman; Rob Lowe, the charming sociopath who wrecks his life—think Strangers on a Train in a Hugo Boss suit. The setup shows promise, but it never quite kicks into gear. The thrills are tepid, the danger cosmetic, and by the time it tries to get nasty, you've already clocked the formula.

What makes Bad Influence more intriguing is its place in the early-’90s cultural drift. This was the dawn of a new kind of anxiety—where the real threat wasn’t lurking in shadows, but smiling at you across the boardroom. It was the age of postmodern genre games—filmmakers tore up the rules and turned inward. Therapy culture was booming, the millennium was looming, and everyone seemed obsessed with the rot beneath the surface. Bad Influence picked at that idea, but others dug deeper. The Silence of the Lambs, Basic Instinct, Seven—these films didn’t just explore the psyche’s dark corners; they invited you in. They bent perception, twisted morality, and gave us narrators we couldn’t trust. By contrast, Bad Influence only flirts with menace. It gestures at danger but never commits. A dress rehearsal for a decade of sharper, smarter, and far more savage thrillers.