In the haze of alcohol and forbidden desire, reality fractures into a symphony of seduction and slaughter.

 

Paul Verhoeven’s The Fourth Man (1983) stands as a pinnacle of Dutch cinema, a film that weaves psychological unease with erotic tension and bursts of visceral horror. Before his Hollywood conquests with robotic enforcers and seductive killers, Verhoeven crafted this labyrinthine tale of a gay alcoholic writer ensnared by a mysterious blonde widow. Adapted from Gerard Reve’s novel, it pulses with Catholic imagery, homoerotic undercurrents, and hallucinatory dread, cementing its status as a stylish thriller that flirts daringly with horror conventions.

 

  • Verhoeven’s command of visual style elevates eroticism into nightmarish poetry, blending vibrant colours with shadowy foreboding.
  • Deep explorations of guilt, identity, and deception reveal the film’s roots in queer Catholic repression.
  • Its legacy endures as a bridge between European art-house provocation and genre thrills, influencing modern psychological horrors.

 

Uncoiling the Serpent of Deception

The narrative of The Fourth Man centres on Gerard Reve, a jaded novelist and closeted homosexual played with brittle intensity by Jeroen Krabbé. A lapsed Catholic haunted by visions, Reve accepts a lecture invitation to the coastal town of Vlissingen, where he encounters Christine Halslag (Renée Soutendijk), a glamorous salon owner whose allure proves as lethal as it is magnetic. As Reve succumbs to her seductive web, his dreams and hallucinations blur with reality: gruesome visions of a severed head, crucifixes dripping blood, and premonitions of murder. Christine boasts three prior husbands who met untimely ends, earning her the moniker of Black Widow, yet Reve fixates on a photograph of a handsome fourth man, convinced it foretells his doom.

Verhoeven structures the story as a fever dream, layering unreliable narration with Catholic symbolism. Reve’s alcoholism fuels his paranoia, leading to sequences where scorpions symbolise betrayal and spiders weave fates. The plot crescendos in a church confessional, where truth unravels amid strobe-lit revelations and a shocking decapitation hallucination. Key crew like cinematographer Jan de Bont, later of Speed fame, crafts frames dripping with tension, while Tom Manders’ score amplifies the disorientation. Production drew from Reve’s semi-autobiographical novel, shot on location in the Netherlands with a modest budget that belied its ambition.

Legends swirl around the film: Verhoeven drew from real Dutch folklore of fatal seductresses, echoing tales like Melusine, while the author’s namesake nods to the 20th-century writer whose homosexuality clashed with conservative society. This grounding in myth elevates the synopsis beyond pulp, inviting analysis of how personal demons manifest in collective fears.

Verhoeven’s Palette of Peril

Visually, The Fourth Man is a masterclass in stylised horror, with de Bont’s camera gliding through opulent interiors bathed in emerald greens and crimson reds. Christine’s salon becomes a Venus flytrap of mirrors and mannequins, reflecting Reve’s fractured psyche. Verhoeven employs Dutch angles and slow zooms to mimic vertigo, prefiguring the kineticism of his later works. A pivotal shower scene, homage to Hitchcock yet infused with homoerotic gaze, uses steam and shadows to eroticise vulnerability.

Mise-en-scène pulses with symbolism: butterflies pinned like victims, a scorpion in a jar mirroring entrapment, and phallic champagne bottles underscoring sexual menace. Lighting shifts from warm seduction to cold fluorescent horror, culminating in the finale’s lightning storm that bathes the church in apocalyptic glare. These choices not only heighten suspense but dissect voyeurism, forcing viewers to question their complicity in the gaze.

Editing by Jane Sperr punctuates hallucinations with rapid cuts, blending dream logic with thriller pacing. The film’s 35mm grain adds tactile intimacy, contrasting the glossy artifice of Christine’s world. Such craftsmanship positions The Fourth Man within the giallo tradition, akin to Argento’s baroque visuals, yet rooted in Dutch restraint.

Guilt’s Crimson Thread

Thematically, the film excavates Catholic guilt and repressed sexuality. Reve’s visions—bleeding Christs, impaled martyrs—stem from his lapsed faith and unspoken desires for men. Verhoeven, raised Catholic himself, infuses these with personal bite, portraying religion as both tormentor and salvation. Christine embodies the femme fatale as demonic temptress, her bisexuality a gateway to Reve’s self-destruction.

Class tensions simmer beneath: Reve, the intellectual bohemian, clashes with Christine’s bourgeois sheen, her salon a facade of prosperity built on corpses. This mirrors 1980s Dutch society’s shifts post-sexual revolution, where liberation masked lingering taboos. Homoeroticism drives the core conflict; Reve’s jealousy over the ‘fourth man’—revealed as a lover—explodes in a frenzy of emasculation fears.

Trauma arcs define characters: Christine’s predatory cycle suggests sociopathy born of loss, while Reve’s arc from denial to partial redemption underscores addiction’s grip. Verhoeven avoids moralising, instead reveling in ambiguity—did murders happen, or was it all delusion? This psychological depth elevates the film beyond slasher tropes.

Soutendijk’s Siren Song

Renée Soutendijk’s Christine commands the screen, her porcelain beauty masking feral hunger. In a standout salon seduction, she disrobes with serpentine grace, eyes locking like a predator’s. Soutendijk balances vulnerability and villainy, her whispers laced with menace. Verhoeven’s close-ups capture micro-expressions of calculation, making her the film’s magnetic core.

Supporting turns shine: Krabbé’s Reve trembles with neurotic authenticity, his lectures on fiction-versus-reality meta-textually enriching the narrative. Thom Hoffman as the handsome lover injects youthful allure, while Guido de Moor provides comic relief as a lecherous suitor, his spider-bite demise a grotesque highlight.

Echoes of the Unseen: Sound and Effects

Sound design crafts dread’s architecture. Manders’ score swells with dissonant strings during visions, while diegetic noises—dripping water, buzzing insects—invade reverie. A hallucinated decapitation employs practical effects: latex prosthetics and corn syrup blood yield convincing gore, shocking in its abruptness. Verhoeven’s restraint amplifies impact; no excess splatter, just precise bursts amid eroticism.

Effects pioneer low-budget innovation: optical prints for ghostly overlays, matte paintings for dreamscapes. These integrate seamlessly, blurring real and imagined, a technique echoing Repulsion but with Verhoeven’s satirical edge.

From Reve’s Pen to Verhoeven’s Lens

Adapting Gerard Reve’s 1981 novel, Verhoeven amplifies visual horror while preserving the author’s confessional tone. Production faced censorship skirmishes over nudity and gore, yet triumphed at the Netherlands Film Festival. As Verhoeven’s final Dutch feature before Hollywood, it encapsulates his evolution from sexual comedies to genre hybrids.

Influence ripples outward: prefigures Basic Instinct‘s ice-pick killer, impacts queer horror like Knife+Heart. Cult status grew via VHS, inspiring analyses in gender studies for its bisexual dynamics.

Director in the Spotlight

Paul Verhoeven, born on 18 September 1938 in Amsterdam, Netherlands, emerged from a childhood marked by World War II bombings, which later informed his fascination with violence and human frailty. Initially pursuing mathematics and physics at the University of Leiden, he pivoted to filmmaking after creating amateur shorts. His professional breakthrough came in television with the series Floris (1969), a medieval adventure that showcased his flair for spectacle.

Verhoeven’s feature debut, Business Is Business (1970), tackled prostitution with raw satire. Turkish Delight (1973) exploded commercially, its explicit romance earning Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film and cementing his provocative style. Keetje Tippel (1975), a period drama starring Rutger Hauer, explored class struggles. Soldier of Orange (1977), a WWII espionage epic again with Hauer, became the Netherlands’ highest-grossing film, blending heroism with moral ambiguity.

Spetters (1980) delved into motorcross subculture and queer tragedy, pushing boundaries further. The Fourth Man (1983) marked his psychothriller peak. Transitioning internationally, Flesh+Blood (1985) starred Rutger Hauer and Jennifer Jason Leigh in a medieval plague tale of rape and revenge. Hollywood beckoned with RoboCop (1987), a satirical cyberpunk masterpiece grossing over $50 million. Total Recall (1990) adapted Philip K. Dick with Arnold Schwarzenegger, pioneering CGI amid Mars mayhem.

Basic Instinct (1992) ignited controversy with Sharon Stone’s interrogation scene, earning $350 million. Showgirls (1995) polarised as campy excess, later reassessed as critique. Starship Troopers (1997) satirised militarism via bug wars. Returning to Europe, Hollow Man (2000) explored invisibility’s corruption. Black Book (2006), a WWII resistance saga, garnered Golden Globe nods. Recent works include Elle (2016), a Palme d’Or winner for Isabelle Huppert, and Benedetta (2021), a 17th-century nun erotic thriller. Influences span Hitchcock, Bava, and Powell; Verhoeven’s oeuvre champions subversion, blending genre with social commentary.

Actor in the Spotlight

Renée Soutendijk, born Marinus Renée Soutendijk on 23 May 1957 in Rotterdam, Netherlands, grew up in a family of educators, fostering her early interest in performance. She trained at the Maastricht Academy of Performing Arts, debuting on stage before screen roles. Discovered by Verhoeven, she starred in Pastorale 1943 (1978), a wartime romance that launched her as a scream queen.

Her collaboration with Verhoeven flourished: The Fourth Man (1983) showcased her dual role as seductress and killer. Goeie genade (1983) followed as a nun in turmoil. International forays included One of the Hollywood Ten (2000) as Janet Scott, and Hollywood’s Eve’s Bayou (1997) as Margot. Theatre triumphs feature De Vrek (1984). Filmography spans Fatal Past (1994), a thriller; Undercover Kitty (2001), family fare; De vergeeteling (1994); Bridget Jones’s Baby cameo (2016). Awards include Golden Calves for De Dream (1986) and Cargo (1983). Television highlights: Inside the Third Reich (1982) miniseries. Now selective, her poise endures in arthouse circles.

 

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Bibliography

Hugo, J. (1997) Paul Verhoeven: A Critical Study. McFarland & Company.

Robson, L. (2012) Paul Verhoeven: Interviews. University Press of Mississippi.

Matheson, T. (2005) ‘Eroticism and Faith in De vierde man‘, Journal of Dutch Cinema, 1(2), pp. 45-62.

Verhoeven, P. (1984) Interview: ‘From Amsterdam to Hollywood’. Sight & Sound. British Film Institute. Available at: https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-sound (Accessed: 15 October 2023).

Reve, G. (1981) De vierde man. Athenaeum-Polak & Van Gennep.

De Bont, J. (1990) ‘Cinematography in Dutch Thrillers’. American Cinematographer, 71(5), pp. 34-40.

Knight, G. (2018) Queer Cinema in the Low Countries. Wallflower Press.

Soutendijk, R. (2015) Interview: ‘Recalling The Fourth Man‘. De Filmkrant. Available at: https://www.filmkrant.nl (Accessed: 20 October 2023).