Paul Verhoeven has a phantasm orgasm

It’s been a while since subversive filmmaker Paul Verhoeven gave us a real gratuitous genre gem like ROBOCOP, TOTAL RECALL or STARSHIP TROOPERS.

With his latest project ETERNAL, it sounds like he’s getting back into some BASIC INSTINCT or SHOWGIRLS type of kink, but with a spooky twist. The supernatural thriller about a spicy specter is based on a pitch by David Loughery, who gave us the ghostless psycho sex of OBSESSED.

According to Deadline, in ETERNAL “a married recovering alcoholic helps a woman threatening to jump off the Golden Gate Bridge. They end up in bed, and in a torrid sexual affair. When he gets home, he’s confronted by his wife and a private investigator, with photos spread across a table. He thinks he’s busted, but the photos that should have shown him in the clinches with his mistress instead show him alone, drinking alcohol. He initially questions his own sanity, but progressively figures out that this temptress is a ghost who is after his soul.”

Verhoeven toyed with similar transparent transgression in HOLLOW MAN, but his last film was the excellent war drama BLACK BOOK. He’s been attached to numerous projects in the past few years, including a THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR sequel, the 19th century Russian thriller THE WINTER QUEEN, and something about psychic Muslims.