''Sliver'' is a 1993 American

erotic thriller The erotic thriller is a film subgenre defined as a thriller with a thematic basis in illicit romance or erotic fantasy. Though exact definitions of the erotic thriller can vary, it is generally agreed "bodily danger and pleasure must remain in ...

film based on the

Ira Levin Ira Marvin Levin (August 27, 1929 – November 12, 2007) was an American novelist, playwright, and songwriter. His works include the novels '' A Kiss Before Dying'' (1953), '' Rosemary's Baby'' (1967), ''The Stepford Wives'' (1972), '' This Perfe ...

novel of the same name about the mysterious occurrences in a privately owned

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

high-rise

sliver building A sliver building is a tall slender building constructed on a lot with a narrow frontage, typically or less. Since the mid-1980s, one of the most remarkable advances in tall building design has been their construction to unprecedented slenderness ...

. Phillip Noyce directed the film, from a screenplay by Joe Eszterhas. Because of a major battle with the

MPAA The Motion Picture Association (MPA) is an American trade association representing the five major film studios of the United States, as well as the video streaming service Netflix. Founded in 1922 as the Motion Picture Producers and Distrib ...

(which originally gave the film an NC-17 rating), the filmmakers were forced to make extensive reshoots before release. These reshoots actually necessitated changing the killer's identity. The film stars

Sharon Stone Sharon Vonne Stone (born March 10, 1958) is an American actress. Known for primarily playing femme fatales and women of mystery on film and television, she became one of the most popular sex symbols of the 1990s. She is the recipient of various ...

William Baldwin William Joseph Baldwin (born February 21, 1963), Note: While birthplace is routinely listed as Massapequa, that town has no hospital, and brother Alec Baldwin was born in nearby Amityville, which does. known also as Billy Baldwin,is an American ...

, and

Tom Berenger Tom Berenger (born Thomas Michael Moore; May 31, 1949) is an American actor. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Staff Sergeant Bob Barnes in ''Platoon'' (1986). He is also known for playing Jake ...

. When he signed on to direct the film, Noyce remarked, "I liked the script a lot. Or at least, I liked the idea of jumping on the Joe Eszterhas bandwagon."

Plot

Carly Norris, a book editor and divorcee in her mid-30s, moves into the exclusive New York City

"113". She meets other tenants including Zeke, a

video game design Video game design is the process of designing the content and rules of video games in the pre-production stage and designing the gameplay, environment, storyline and characters in the production stage. Some common video game design subdiscipline ...

er; Jack, a

novelist A novelist is an author or writer of novels, though often novelists also write in other genres of both fiction and non-fiction. Some novelists are professional novelists, thus make a living writing novels and other fiction, while others aspire ...

; Vida, a fashion model who moonlights as a

call girl A call girl or female escort is a sex worker who (unlike a street walker) does not display her profession to the general public, nor does she usually work in an institution like a brothel, although she may be employed by an escort agency.< ...

; and Gus, a professor of

videography Videography is the process of capturing moving images on electronic media (e.g., videotape, direct to disk recording, or solid state storage) and even streaming media. The term includes methods of video production and post-production. It used ...

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then- Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, th ...

. They tell Carly that she bears a striking resemblance to Naomi Singer, the previous tenant of her apartment who fell to her death from her balcony. After running into Zeke numerous times, Carly invites him to her housewarming party. Soon afterwards, they begin a sexual relationship. Meanwhile, Jack starts stalking Carly and warning her about Zeke who he says is "sick". As Jack's behavior becomes more erratic, Gus dies under suspicious circumstances and Vida is murdered by Jack. Zeke reveals to Carly that he is the owner of 113, which he bought with his inheritance from his wealthy father. As owner of 113, Zeke has installed a comprehensive

video surveillance Closed-circuit television (CCTV), also known as video surveillance, is the use of video cameras to transmit a signal to a specific place, on a limited set of monitors. It differs from broadcast television in that the signal is not openly tr ...

system throughout the building, allowing him to spy on all of the tenants from his own secret surveillance room. Through deduction and eventually one of Zeke's secret recordings, Carly learns that Jack killed Naomi in a crime of passion. Jack was jealous of Zeke, who had sexual relations with both Naomi and Vida. Jack attacks Carly in her own apartment, and she accidentally shoots him dead. Angry at Zeke for withholding evidence in Naomi's murder, and jealous of his liaisons with Naomi and Vida, Carly destroys Zeke's surveillance room, tells him to "get a life", then leaves.

Cast

Production

Location

In the film, the tall and narrow sliver building is located at 113 East 38th Street in

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

, placing it at 38th Street and

Park Avenue Park Avenue is a wide New York City boulevard which carries north and southbound traffic in the boroughs of Manhattan and the Bronx. For most of the road's length in Manhattan, it runs parallel to Madison Avenue to the west and Lexington Av ...

. The actual building used in the film is known as Morgan Court, located at 211

Madison Avenue Madison Avenue is a north-south avenue in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, United States, that carries northbound one-way traffic. It runs from Madison Square (at 23rd Street) to meet the southbound Harlem River Drive at 142nd Str ...

New York, one block west and two blocks south of the fictional address. The building has since become a condominium development. It was built in 1985 and has 32 floors. While the movie made use of the building's courtyard, the lobby was a Los Angeles film set.

Original ending

In the film's original ending Zeke, instead of Jack, turns out to be the antagonist. He and Carly fly over a

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only stat ...

volcano A volcano is a rupture in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. On Earth, volcanoes are most often found where tectonic plates ...

when Zeke suddenly confesses his crimes. He then veers the aircraft into the volcano as the end credits roll and leaves the audience to decide whether they survive. The shooting of the final scene resulted in the crashing of the

helicopter A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forward, backward and laterally. These attribu ...

. After an investigation the pilot's certificate was temporarily suspended. The footage shot during the flight was destroyed. Preview audiences disliked the idea of Carly turning immoral. In the helicopter scene, she tells Zeke that the evidence against him is "somewhere safe", implying she is willing to cover up his crimes.

Release and reception

The film premiered on May 19, 1993, at Mann National Theatre in Los Angeles. It was released two days later, on May 21, and received negative reviews from critics. Review aggregate website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wan ...

reported that 11% of critics have given the film a positive review based on 27 reviews, with an average rating of 3.61/10. The site's critics consensus reads "''Sliver'' is an absurd erotic thriller with technobabble and posits prime Sharon Stone as a professional book nerd." On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

, the film has a weighted average score of 38 out of 100 based on 21 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". The main criticisms were that the film provided little in the way of compelling thriller elements, the script diluted the plot of the novel, the characters were underdeveloped, and the actors were not on form. Critics argued that compared to Sharon Stone's role as a

femme fatale A ''femme fatale'' ( or ; ), sometimes called a maneater or vamp, is a stock character of a mysterious, beautiful, and seductive woman whose charms ensnare her lovers, often leading them into compromising, deadly traps. She is an archetype o ...

in ''

Basic Instinct ''Basic Instinct'' is a 1992 neo-noir erotic thriller film directed by Paul Verhoeven and written by Joe Eszterhas. The film follows San Francisco police detective Nick Curran (Michael Douglas), who is investigating the brutal murder of a wea ...

'' the year prior, her portrayal in ''Sliver'' as a passive character who has to be "lured into sexual intrigue" is unconvincing. ''The'' ''Austin Chronicle'' stated, "There's no suspense, no drama, no tension, no logic. It makes you appreciate all the craft that went into ''Basic Instinct''". Another criticism was that the film did not have anything insightful to say on the themes of

voyeurism Voyeurism is the sexual interest in or practice of watching other people engaged in intimate behaviors, such as undressing, sexual activity, or other actions of a private nature. The term comes from the French ''voir'' which means "to see". ...

and

surveillance Surveillance is the monitoring of behavior, many activities, or information for the purpose of information gathering, influencing, managing or directing. This can include observation from a distance by means of electronic equipment, such as ...

. Peter Rainer of the ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the ...

'' wrote, "There’s no emotional pull to the

neo-Gothic Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...

world in Sliver'',' where people connect up by video monitor and computer with occasional forays in the flesh. It’s no news that we like to watch. But first you must give us something worth watching." Lastly, many critics also singled out the editing and ending, calling the latter hasty and unconvincing. Audiences polled by

CinemaScore CinemaScore is a market research firm based in Las Vegas. It surveys film audiences to rate their viewing experiences with letter grades, reports the results, and forecasts box office receipts based on the data. Background Ed Mintz founded Ci ...

gave the film a grade of "C−" on a scale from A+ to F.

MPAA ratings issues

Director Phillip Noyce claimed he had to make 110 edits to the film in order to avoid an NC-17 rating. According to a Showtime special about the film before the late-night premiere showing of the original NC-17 version, the debate over the NC-17 versus R-rating was linked solely to the display of male frontal nudity. However, when Paramount released the unrated version to video there was no male frontal nudity included, though the sex scenes were considerably more graphic.

Box office

The film debuted at No. 1 at the box office making $12.1 million in 2,093 theaters. By the second week the box office taking dropped to No. 6. ''Sliver'' eventually grossed $36.3 million domestically and $87.6 million internationally to a total of $123.9 million worldwide.

Home media

When originally released on VHS, the film was released in both an R-rated and an unrated version (the original NC-17 version). In March 2006, to coincide with the theatrical release of ''

Basic Instinct 2 ''Basic Instinct 2'' (also known as ''Basic Instinct 2: Risk Addiction'') is a 2006 erotic thriller film and the sequel to 1992's ''Basic Instinct''. The film was directed by Michael Caton-Jones and produced by Mario Kassar, Joel B. Michaels, ...

'', which starred Stone, ''Sliver'' was released on DVD. Only the unrated cut was made commercially available, but the R-rated cut was distributed for rental. There are no special features and although the film was presented theatrically in the 2.35 aspect ratio, the DVD features a matted, 2.10 aspect ratio transfer. In 2013, the film was released on Blu-ray, using the same matted 2.10 aspect ratio version of the R-rated theatrical cut.

Accolades

Soundtrack

References

External links

* * * {{Stinkers Bad Movie Award for Worst Picture 1993 films 1993 thriller films 1990s erotic thriller films 1990s mystery thriller films 1990s psychological thriller films 1990s serial killer films American erotic romance films American erotic thriller films American mystery thriller films American serial killer films Films about security and surveillance Films based on works by Ira Levin Films directed by Phillip Noyce Films produced by Robert Evans Films scored by Howard Shore Films set in apartment buildings Films set in Manhattan Films shot in Los Angeles Films shot in New York City Films with screenplays by Joe Eszterhas Paramount Pictures films 1990s English-language films 1990s American films