ABSTRACT
IN THE INTERVIEW that follows the uncut version of Basic Instinct, director Paul Verhoeven insists that Catherine Trammell (Sharon Stone) is definitively the murderer despite the complex compilation of evidence that points, all but decisively, to Dr. Beth Gardner (Jeanne Tripplehorn).2 Until the film’s final image-the ice pick under Catherine’s side of the bed, her hand dangling toward it as she makes love to the detective Nick Curran (Michael Douglas)—we are led to believe, along with all the duped detectives, that Beth did it.
