by Moe Zilla

Created on: February 11, 2008   Last Updated: February 27, 2009

"Sliver" promised surprises and mysteries, while trying to re-tell a familiar story. It was Sharon Stone's first film after "Basic Instinct," and both movies offered flashy explorations of the tantalizing themes. The glamorous female star is again the object of fascination - in this case, a creepy building owner who's wired her apartment with hidden cameras. "You like to watch, don't you?" the movie's tagline teased...

It's offering audiences the same thrill, but ultimately this movie proved a little too successful - since the final product was too sexy for even an "R" rating, and several key scenes had to be re-filmed! But like "Fatal Instinct," this movie re-visited the taboo issue of peeping (and personal privacy), since the building manager ultimately reveals that his entire building is wired with surveillance cameras, giving him a view into everyone's life.

Ira Levin was 62 when he created the character of the single woman who attracts the voyeur's attention in his 1991 novel. ("Short, slick, and not up to snuff," wrote one reviewer.) But Sharon Stone was the obvious choice for the voyeur's attentions, since with "Basic Instinct" she'd attained the media status of "sex symbol." But to create additional tension, the screenplay adds an additional question: is the voyeur also a murderer? This would give the film even more similarities to "Basic Instinct," and both movies were written by the same author. (Joe Eszterhas, whose next screenplay would be the infamous "Showgirls.")

Stone turns in a fantastic performance as the powerful young professional whose cool demeanor hides a smoldering curiosity. When her building manager takes her to a fancy restaurant, she's asked whether she's wearing the lingerie he bought. Stone's character reacts coolly to the invasive question, but also plays along, and eventually finds a way to prove it while still seated at the restaurant.

But since several people have been killed in the apartment building, the creepy manager could be stalking her as well as romancing her. ("From the moment she moved in," the promo announced, "someone was watching. Someone who sees her every move...") In some ways the movie seems to romanticize the stalking, lingering over the the all-knowing building manager's remarkable spying set-up. But ultimately Stone dismisses it all with three words - delivered while looking directly at the audience.

"Get a life!"

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