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The Fourth Man Movie Review

The Fourth Man is a 1983 Dutch psychological horror thriller film directed by Paul Verhoeven and starring Jeroen Krabbe. It is a very authentic, but overdone movie.

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“One of us will be the fourth, can’t you see that?“

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A writer suspects that his lover, a woman widowed three times, may be responsible for her husbands’ deaths. The writer is bisexual, or gay depending on your interpretation of the plot, and the movie is so out there in terms of sexuality, but also gore and violence that it must have been quite shocking back when it was released.

Even though the whole storyline is undeniably extremely original, the ambiguity of its conclusion was done for better and for worse. I liked it to a degree and I respected it, but the interpretation that the movie is all about how gay relationships are better than straight ones is very odd. Even stranger is the director’s evident hatred toward Christianity as this movie is way too anti-religion in my opinion.

Verhoeven himself admitted that he overdid the many religious references with the cross and Jesus. He wanted to appeal to the artsy crowd, which is exactly what happened, again pinpointing how ridiculously easy it is to make those annoying people satisfied. But I agree with him – the movie is so overdone in those references and symbolism that it becomes almost like a self-parody, which baffled me.

With that being said, the movie is phenomenal when not focusing on that symbolism, and everything before the ending itself I loved. The atmosphere is almost Hitchcockian and that was wonderful to witness while the emphasis on sexuality was terrific and the movie was quite fresh in that area.

Jeroen Krabbe was stupendous as Gerard, the movie’s troubled, utterly crazy protagonist. I personally found him so unhinged that my theory is that all of this was made up. He seemed too insane to me throughout the film’s length. Christine is utterly beguiling and very mysterious while Herman is also memorable as the protagonist’s sexy fixation.

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The Fourth Man is gorgeously shot with truly fantastic cinematography that focused on evoking a sense of dread throughout. The movie was at first a psychological thriller, but then it went into full horror territory, though I wanted even more of those chills. Some of the imagery is pretentious, but some was undoubtedly memorable. The directing from Verhoeven is excellent and this is by far his most original work.

Paul Verhoeven himself admitted that he overdid the religious references and pretentious artsy elements in The Fourth Man and I wholeheartedly agree with his assessment. The movie felt a bit too obvious in those elements, almost acting as a self-parody of sorts. The ending was too ambiguous as well. Still, this is an entirely original psychological horror thriller that benefits from a fascinating script, superbly developed protagonist, excellent exploration of his sexuality and some quite memorable dark imagery.

My Rating – 4