The Fourth Man
He comes right before the fifth man, wink-wink
Today’s header gif takes a few scenes from “The Fourth Man” (“De vierde man”), a Dutch thriller released in 1983. The stylish, sexually-charged movie won several prizes, including the National Board of Review award for “Top Foreign Film” in 1984 and an almost-unobtainable “100% Fresh” rating on Rotten Tomatoes. From the color schemes to wickedly campy horror, the film is darkly humorous and outrageous.
The movie is an early directorial release by Paul Verhoeven, and like much of his oeuvre, it is replete with shocking themes and provocative imagery. The movie centers on novelist Gerard Revé (played by Jeroen Krabbé), a bisexual alcoholic grappling with his Catholicism and his inability to discern drunken illusion from sober reality. He is invited to a forum to discuss his work and en route he unsuccessfully attempts to pick up a handsome young man at the train station. On the train he sits across from a mother wearing blue and drifts into a vivid dream, imagining her the Virgin Mary. He later dreams of a hotel with a gruesome door guarded by dislocated eyeball and is further shaken to meet undertakers when he disembarks from the train. At his speaking engagement, he notices that he’s being videotaped by the striking Christine Halsslag (played by Renée Soutendijk), a wealthy hairdresser with obvious sexual charisma. She invites him back to her place after he balks at staying at the hotel arranged for him, realizing it is the same one from his unsettling dream. Of course at her neon nest they end up in bed, although at one point Gerard quips that she’d make a good-looking man—we guess where his preferences likely lie. Still, the two continue their steamy affair for several days, Christine confessing that she’d lost lovers in the past to tragedy. All the while, Gerard is plagued by dreams of death or dismemberment at the hands of Christine and bloody religious iconography.
When Gerard discovers that Christine is also involved with the handsome young man from the train station, he decides to stay on, under the pretense having a quiet haven in which work on his writing but really desiring to again meet the attractive Herman (played by Thom Hoffman) in order to seduce him. Christine slyly smiles—perhaps she is happy to have a new lover stay on, or perhaps she is wise to the ruse and has her own ideas for how things might play out. She leaves for an out-of-town rendezvous with Herman and Gerard goes touring. He visits a church and imagines Herman as the crucified Jesus in tight, sexy underwear and fondles a hanging crucifix until an elderly partitioner arrives and tsk-tsks at the spectacle. Later at Christine’s place, drunk and procrastinating his writing duties, he finds three film reels labeled with men’s names; watching them he realizes that they were all of former husbands of Christine.
By the time Christine arrives back home, Herman in tow, Gerard is very drunk and disturbed by further ghastly visions of Herman missing an eyeball and signs featuring the woman in blue. The returning couple have a very steamy reunion while Gerard peeps in the keyhole, masturbating. At breakfast the next morning, Gerard reminds Herman of their previous meeting, but Herman has either forgotten or chosen to ignore the encounter, being more interested in Gerard’s celebrity as a writer. Christine, intending to depart for a business trip, suggests they spend the day getting acquainted. As the men hop in a sporty convertible to go into town, she takes a video and waves goodbye.
[Spoilery bits ahead]
As they approach town, Gerard sees the woman in blue from his visions. He demands that Herman stop the car and he chases her into a graveyard, Herman trailing behind, but he is unable to locate her. The men are caught in a downpour and take shelter in a crypt, on that had previously appeared to Gerard in his dreams. After initially resisting, Herman gives in to Gerard’s advances and begins to fellate him. But Gerard notices three urns in the crypt marked with the inscription "Loving Husbands of Christine Halsslag,” triggering a vision of each man’s horrifying death. He abruptly ends the sex and warns Herman that one of them is likely to be Christine’s fourth victim. Herman finds the idea ridiculous and scoffs at Gerard’s paranoia. The two resume their car ride, which ends abruptly when Herman swerves into a construction site where an iron rod suspended from a crane impales him through the eyeball, killing him. The traumatized Gerard is taken to a hospital and raves to the doctor that Christine is a witch that kills her lovers. The doctor tries to calm him, insisting he’s paranoid, but Gerard lashes out and attacks an arriving Christine. Finally a nurse rushes in and administers a sedative—she is the woman in blue from the dreams. Gerard, succumbing to the drug and slipping further into the insanity that perhaps was the source of his enveloping delusions, interprets the nurse’s presence as a sign that the woman of his visions was Mother Mary, warning him of the danger of Christine. For her part, Christine departs the hospital lobby with an attractive men whom she met in the hospital lobby.
Wikipedia: The Fourth Man (1983 film)
Rotten Tomatoes: The Forth Man
New York Times: "Screen: Paul Verhoeven's '4th Man'" by Janet Maslin, 6/27/84
Pop Cult: "Movie Review - the 4th Man" by Seth Harris, 8/21/23