A24 Acquires Erotic Thriller Instinct From Bodies Bodies Bodies Director, Plans Immediate Online Screening

In a reward of sorts for the solid box office performance of well-reviewed Gen Z thriller Bodies Bodies Bodies, A24 has also acquired the first feature film from Dutch actress and director Halina Reijn, the erotic psychological thriller Instinct. Originally screened in 2019 at festivals as the directorial debut of the longtime screen performer, the film never got a true U.S. release, at least in part due to the arrival of the COVID-10 pandemic. It’s a nice feather in the cap of Reijn, whose direction on Bodies Bodies Bodies received a fair bit of praise.

A24 will exhibit the film pretty much immediately via a special, one-night-only event in the company’s online screening room this week, taking place on Thursday, Sept. 22. Tickets go on sale today, Sept. 19, 2022 at 1 p.m. ET. It will be the first time that A24 has exhibited a film in its screening room that the company has acquired rather than produced itself. The film will also be available as a double feature with Bodies Bodies Bodies, a satirical whodunnit about a group of rich, entitled 20-somethings riding out a hurricane in a large mansion, before members of the party start turning up dead.

Instinct, on the other hand, harkens back to 1990s-era erotic thrillers, and stars Dutch actress Carice van Houten, best known as the ageless witch Melisandre from Game of Thrones. She plays a criminal psychologist in a prison, where she’s overseeing the upcoming parole of a supposedly reformed serial sexual offender. However, she finds herself unable to resist the lure of the prisoner Idris (Marwan Kenzari, best known in the West for playing Jafar in the remake of Aladdin), leading to some rather obvious conflicts of interest. Oh, and sex, naturally.

It’s unclear how the film will release after its initial A24 screening room premiere, but we would expect it to become available on VOD in a more permanent way in the near future.