The 4th Man is an erotic and spellbinding venture into a place where fantasy and nightmare become a tempting reality. Seeping with religious and sexual symbolism, it spins a tale of lust and the supernatural.  This captivating film by Paul Verhoeven, the Dutch director who gave us Spetters, delves into the sexual souls of three people.

Gerard Reve (Jeroen Krabbe), a controversial author, leans on alcoholism, homosexuality and a wild fantasy.  While traveling to a Dutch coastal town to speak at a literary club, he becomes obsessed with a man at the train station.

At the club, he meets Christine Halsslag (Rene Soutendijk): beautiful, young and sensual.  She never takes her film camera or her eye off of Gerard.  They spend the night together.  To Gerard, she looks like a beautiful boy.  At his point of climax he exclaims, “through Mary to Jesus.”  But in the night, he is wracked by horrible nightmares, including one of his own castration.

The following day, Gerard finds a picture of Herman (Thom Hoffman), his boy at the train, among Christine’s things and realizes and realizes that he is her lover.  Gerard then convinces Christine to bring Herman to them. While she’s away, Gerard discovers home movies and finds that Christine has been married three times.

When Herman arrives, he and Gerard go for a drive.  They wind up at a cemetery, and Gerard successfully seduces Herman in a tomb where they’ve gone to seek shelter from a thunderstorm.  Just when he finally has what he wants, Gerard sees the urns of Christine’s three dead husbands.  He is now convinced that one of them will be the fourth man… but which one?

From its opening sequence of a spider spinning her web on a crucifix, to its suspenseful conclusion, The 4th Man is a stunning film. The successful blending of forbidden fantasy and foreboding reality, makes discovering this film a pure delight.  And it’s been perfectly, erotically cast.

It is extremely charged sexually, illicitly thrilling to watch.  Lust has never looked so enticing or so dangerous.  And it shows the risks some are willing to take just for the thrill.

Of all things that tempt and frighten us, Paul Verhoeven has taken sex, religion and the supernatural and bonded them as if they were dependent upon each other. The film he has made pushes all three to the limits of acceptance, and some would say taste.  He brings forth the dark secrets of a collective soul, and puts them on the screen.

Some may find The 4th Man difficult to watch; especially given the homosexual and what some may see as sacrilegious themes.  But, this is an unusual film.  For underneath everything else, bubbles a wry sense of humor.  It is certainly a film that would never have been made in the United States.  And that is why I’m so drawn to European films.  Most are so much more adult when dealing with sexual themes.  They film what we can only dream.