Most erotic thrillers follow the same structure. The sexuality and adventure of the first two acts gives way to punishment in the third. But Halina Reijn’s new film Babygirl is a different kind of erotic thriller. There’s no punishment here — just desperate attempts to understand the self, to find freedom beyond shame.

I think Reijn’s previous film Bodies Bodies Bodies is one of the smartest, most subversive thrillers (and comedies) in recent years. It’s another film that plays with genre, swapping easy conclusions for nuance. After a decades-long career as an actor, Reijn’s arrival as a director has brought a new voice to genres that desperately need it.

I was lucky enough to talk to Reijn about how queerness impacts her work, the most erotic movie moments of all time, and her unique background.

Drew: I’m really interested in the role that Romy’s queer daughter plays in the film as well as the queerness of the club that Romy and Samuel visit. Especially in the context of Bodies Bodies Bodies which is very explicitly queer, how did queerness influence Babygirl and what role does it play in your work in general?

Halina: Well, I’m Gen X, so I’m such a dinosaur.

Drew: (laughs)

Halina: And when I was making Bodies Bodies Bodies, I was incredibly inspired by that cast because they taught me so much about feminism, about becoming my authentic self, about my body, about how stuck I was in this old idea of feminism. That really moved me to my core. And, of course, we had a lot of fun with it on-screen, but truthfully in my private life it was incredibly important.

So when I was writing Babygirl, I wanted it to not only be a film about a woman who tries to liberate herself and learn to ask for what she wants and needs but to also be a movie about two generations. How one generation deals with power, sex, control, consent and how a new generation deals with sexual identity, identity in general, freedom, liberation, and what all of that means to them. I wanted my main character who is Gen X to learn from her assistant Esme, played by Sophie Wilde, who for me speaks the most truthful words when she does this speech at the end where she says we need to go into areas where we’re afraid, go into the areas where we’re ashamed, and that’s what will connect us. My main character is flawed and my main character doesn’t listen to her at all in the beginning. And it’s the lessons of Esme, of her daughter played by Esther McGregor, and of Samuel played by Harris Dickinson, that help her come closer to who she really is.

Drew: I love that. We think of age gaps on-screen as being erotic or scandalous, but I like the idea that it can also portray generations learning from one another.

Halina: Yes!

Drew: Because I do think that happens.

Halina: It does happen. And, of course, I understand that generations are always a generalization because everyone is an individual and everybody has their own path. But I think the younger generations have a very healthy and new and refreshing relationship to identity. You no longer have to be scared of it. You can just be who you want to be. This is maybe only for a group that’s privileged enough to do that kind of work and we have to be aware of people who don’t have the circumstances to even think about these things, but I am so inspired by it. I wish I could learn more from it, because I’m still stuck in certain beliefs.

Drew: Starting with your debut feature, Instinct, you’ve always been drawn to showing sexuality on-screen and exploring desire. Why is that important to you?

Halina: To me, sexuality is a great metaphor to talk about things we’re afraid of and suppressing. Anything you suppress in yourself is going to come out in a dangerous, risky way. And that’s happening in my movie, right? She doesn’t sit Antonio Banderas’ character down and say, we need to have a conversation, because I feel all these things. What she does is crawl under a sheet and whisper that she wants to watch porn and it’s very unclear and he doesn’t understand and he feels not seen by her in that moment. So to me sexuality in Instinct and in this movie — and also in Bodies because even though it’s not a sexual movie, there is sensuality and toxicity — is a way for me to go into areas of myself where I feel shame and suppression. But, of course, in the end it’s more existential: How can I transcend the patriarchy that we live in? Who would I be if I lived in a matriarchy? Who I would be if I lived on an island with just an elephant? Who would I be then? That’s the question I’m asking and sex is just a great tool. Also it seduces people to come watch the movie. (laughs)

Drew: (laughs) Yes.

Halina: Because everybody is ashamed of sexuality, I think. Everybody is carrying around a little box of hidden fantasies. It’s a way to talk about things that are scary.

Drew: Can you talk about the casting of Antonio Banderas and the shaping of that character? Because it’s not totally unheard of to cast a cultural heartthrob in the role of the husband to an unsatisfied woman. But in something like Unfaithful, Richard Gere’s sex appeal is pointedly reduced. You don’t do that here. You still let Antonio Banderas be sexy.

Halina: That was exactly what was so important to me. In the end, it’s about her. It’s about her not being able to ask for what she needs and wants. So it was very important for me to cast her husband as an incredibly sexy and incredibly masculine man. I didn’t want it to be a story where he couldn’t dominate her. No! I wanted him to be completely able to do that! It just isn’t something she’s dared to ask for.

Also if I’m in a very long relationship and we watch Netflix together and do the dishes together then when I’m in bed I feel like, well I’m not going to talk dirty to you, I do the dishes with you. Sometimes it’s easier to be reborn with somebody who you have absolutely no context with — Harris Dickinson in this case — and you suddenly allow yourself to do things you would never do with your spouse. It’s a paradox because you would think the more intimate you get the more free you get. So I just wanted to show these very human, ambiguous layers. Anything nuanced and complex is when we recognize ourselves. We can’t relate when it’s too cartoonish and obvious.

Drew: How did your experiences as an actor shape your approach to directing?

Halina: The first thing I have on my mind when I work with actors — this has become such a weird word — but it’s a feeling of safety. I find acting, myself, incredibly embarrassing. It’s the weirdest profession on the face of the earth.

Drew: (laughs)

Halina: People stand around you in North Face jackets eating pizza while you’re like OH GODDDD!! So I just want to create an atmosphere where everybody feels seen. I want that for the crew as well. I collaborate. I come from hippies and communes and I kind of bring that system where it’s not a hierarchy with me sitting in a high chair telling everybody what to do. I don’t think it’s a good thing to enjoy your power. You have to be decisive and clear as a leader, but at the same time you’re working with people who have so much experience and are so talented. I come to set with a very clear starting plan but I want to give them the freedom to bring their ideas and creativity so that they can be completely in the moment. That’s how you get the electrifying performances that feel real. That’s what I’m always looking for.

Drew: You said you come from hippies and communes. And that’s also a background you give to Romy. Can you talk more about that?

Halina: Yeah so my dad was gay, my mom was straight, they joined a spiritual movement called Subud. It still exists and in LA it’s pretty big. I was named by the guru. And it’s all based on this idea of freedom and no boundaries and meditation and spiritual-I-don’t-know-what. So we grew up in a very loving, very, very loving environment, but we didn’t have a lot of structure. The main character in my movie loves structure. She loves robots, she loves the white picket fence, that’s how she wants to live. I’m still a bit of a hippie myself, but I put a lot of my childhood and a lot of my frustration around structure into the movie.

Drew: Earlier you said that almost everyone has a complicated relationship to sex. And I think it’s very easy to say that about people who grow up in really Puritanical family structures. But I know a lot of people with backgrounds that are more similar to yours who still have baggage around their sexuality despite — or because of — that freedom.

Halina: We all have baggage, because, of course, society as a whole has baggage around it. I’m a child of the sexual revolution. I was raised with anything goes, just be yourself, but the reaction to that is fear. If there’s too much space then it’s also scary. You need a little bit of organization and structure to become yourself. I love the ideals of that generation. I love what they wanted to achieve and they did achieve a lot for all of us. They paved the way for us to become more free. But the irony of life is that the reaction of those children, of my generation, is to repress yourself sexually. Life is just a very funny game.

Drew: What are some examples of desire on-screen that resonate with you?

Halina: I have so many. My favorite is in Dangerous Liaisons. “It’s beyond my control.” Everyone should look that scene up. It’s John Malkovich and Michelle Pfieffer and it’s so hot. And then there’s a scene in The Piano where Holly Hunter is playing the piano and there’s a little hole in her stocking and Harvey Keitel puts his finger on the hole. That’s all he’s doing. There’s no sex! And it feels so sexual I’m blushing all the way through. I still love Basic Instinct when she uncrosses her legs. I know Sharon Stone has a difficult relationship to the scene and I want to honor that, but when I first saw that it gave me a lot of arousal. And then 9 ½ Weeks. The whole movie A to Z. To me, that movie is one big coming home.

Babygirl is now in theatres.

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On December 21, an unsung masterpiece of queer cinema turned 30, and I’ll be damned if I let that go unnoticed. Yes, the 90s sublime comedy-horror-romance, Tammy and the T-Rex, is now thirty, flirty, and thriving.

Tammy and the T-Rex might have the best plot synopsis of all time. High school himbo jock Michael (Paul Walker) is kidnapped by his girlfriend’s (Denise Richards) evil ex-boyfriend and fed to a pack of hungry lions in a nearby big cat sanctuary. Meanwhile, a mad scientist (Terry Kiser) is in search of a human brain to power his newest invention, a giant robotic T-Rex. Luckily, Michael’s freshly mauled corpse has just arrived in the town morgue and his brain is in remarkably usable condition. Understandably, Michael’s consciousness isn’t exactly thrilled to wake up inside the body of a mechanical dinosaur and he sets out on a bloody quest for vengeance. It’s up to Tammy and her gay best friend Byron (Theo Forsett) to find a way to get Michael back to normal before his new saurian body is destroyed or falls into the wrong hands.

If you aren’t sold after reading that synopsis, I don’t know what to tell you. Hopefully, you’re like me and are a gay Dinosaur Nerd™ with a soft spot for schlocky direct-to-VHS 90s cinema, in which case I’m delighted to tell you Tammy and the T-Rex can be watched in all its gory glory on Shudder, which proudly includes it on its list of queer horror films. And while it may earn its place on that list for featuring a gay character in a supporting role, I’d argue that Tammy and the T-Rex is an intrinsically queer film that asks, no, demands deeper analysis.

According to his own account, director Stewart Raffill (who is maybe best known for directing the infamous ET knockoff Mac and Me) wrote, directed, and produced the film in the span of two weeks to take advantage of the lifesize animatronic dinosaur used to create the titular tyrannosaurus before it was shipped out of the country. Given the film’s rushed production, it’s honestly impressive just how coherent of a film Tammy and the T-Rex is, which isn’t to say that it isn’t weird (and gay) as hell. The plot has a clear three act structure, but its breakneck twists and turns require that you question little and accept the unexpected. (Don’t ask why our villainous mad scientist wants to put Paul Walker’s brain inside a robot dinosaur, for example. You won’t get an answer.)

Tonally, Tammy and the T-Rex can’t decide if it’s a raunchy teen romcom or a hyper gory robot-dinosaur exploitation movie, but it somehow manages to do both, often at the same time. The costuming is also filled with all kinds of flashy, high camp looks. I’m particularly a fan of the floral bucket hat Tammy wears to go visit her recently deceased boyfriend in the hospital and the leopard print leotard Helga, the mad scientist’s main henchwoman, spends much of the final act in. Tammy and the T-Rex is the kind of flashy, bizarre film that practically demands a Heathers-style staged musical adaptation, and we haven’t even really talked about the queer stuff yet.

For functionally filling the role of Gay Best Friend in a low budget 90s film, Byron comes across as a surprisingly multidimensional character who is given a large amount of agency and focus in the story. Sure, the fact that he’s gay is loudly announced pretty much the second he walks onto screen, but Tammy and the T-Rex never treats Byron’s sexuality as the butt of the joke. There are plenty of moments where Byron playfully flirts with men or speaks in homoerotic innuendo, but Raffill, for all his many faults, never frames Byron himself as the joke. Our hero Michael, before and after his transformation into a mechanical prehistoric beast, treats Byron with a comfortable affection and even goes out of his way to ensure his safety. He even gets his own moments of heroism, particularly in the too long car chase that makes up the film’s climax. Maybe my bar is very low, but Byron’s characterization feels surprisingly progressive and normalized for a film of this sort.

While a surface-level queer reading of Tammy and the T-Rex may stop here, I’d argue there is a lot more bubbling beneath. For me, Tammy and the T-Rex feels inescapably like a film about gender, dysphoria, and a relationship struggling to find a path forward amid massive, unforeseen changes. Prior to his nonconsensual brain transplant, Michael is a well liked player on his high school football team, but he doesn’t really fit into the archetypical mold we typically see for these sorts of characters. He’s soft-spoken, kind, and wears so many crop tops that you’d think you were watching Sleepaway Camp. Michael is also almost immediately put into contrast against Tammy’s abusive ex, Billy, who dresses in black leather outfits, shouts every other line, and is prone to physical violence. For most of the time we know Michael in human form, he’s hounded by Billy and his gang of friends, which ultimately culminates in his murder-via-lion. If Michael is meant to represent a different kind of masculinity, it’s one very quickly threatened with violence and the fact that Tammy would choose this over Billy’s stereotypical badboy behavior unbalances high school gender norms.

And then of course, post-lion-mauling, Michael wakes up in the body of a mechanical tyrannosaurus. While Michael-Rex is suitably pissed and does take out his violent revenge on both his murderers and those responsible for his transformation, he spends just as much time forlornly looking at himself in the mirror or gazing sadly at his tiny new arms. A lesser film would’ve had Michael transform into a mindless killing machine, but Tammy and the T-Rex wants us to remember there is a good person inside this robot, frequently reminding us of the discomfort and sadness that comes with his sudden change. Raffill even has Michael’s revenge spree occur relatively early on into the film’s second act, leaving his dinos-phoria as the primary conflict as we move into the film’s climax and conclusion.

Once Michael manages to convince Tammy and Byron that it is in fact him inside the dinosaur that’s been tearing through the SoCal suburbs, our trio of protagonists rush into action to change him back. However, it becomes clear that Michael’s body is, well, not really in the position to accept new brains. There’s no way for Michael to return to his old self. So, in my personal favorite sequence in the movie, Tammy and Byron break into the local morgue and one-by-one present Michael-Rex with various new potential bodies to inhabit. While both Tammy and Byron have their own opinions on what form would be best for Michael, they agree it’s ultimately up to him to decide what his new body will be. Michael turns down every male body he’s presented with but spends the most time deliberating on the only woman he’s shown. While Tammy makes it clear this wouldn’t be her preference, Byron encourages her and Michael, noting they “could be like three sisters.” Michael does eventually turn down the woman’s body, but the question remains open, particularly because the arrival of the local police forces the trio to abandon their body-snatching quest before a solution is found.

It’s hard to read thematic intentionality into much of any of the story choices in Tammy and the T-Rex, but the fact that Michael is even open to the possibility of changing sex feels significant. I won’t spoil the absolutely bonkers conclusion to this film, but I will say that the question of Michael’s body and even identity is given a far from clear-cut answer. A trans reading of Michael and for the film is far from a reach and, if anything, feels like a missing subtext that helps tie much of the movie’s chaos together. (If we do ever get that stage adaptation, I’d argue for just making this full-on text — if not for the thematic weight of it all, then for the sheer amount of trans and testosterone related puns you could write from “T-Rex.”)

To me, the most endearing aspect of this storyline and the movie as a whole is the loyal and playful love affair Tammy and Michael maintain throughout the film. The two display an uncomplicated affection for one another that transcends form. I can’t help but be won over by the weird couple in-joke the two share that Michael has a habit of biting the heads off flowers. Tammy is just as in love with a T-Rex as she is with a boy, and while Tammy makes it clear she’d rather Michael not become a girl, she doesn’t fully discourage him from this option either. She quite clearly loves Michael for Michael, and who’s to say if that might not carry over should he decide to transition genders instead of species? Even still, if Tammy isn’t able to find a romantic or sexual future for the two of them post-transition, she loves Michael enough to support him and let him make his own decisions. Yes, I’m projecting here, but not by much!

So please, do consider giving this off-kilter, headscratcher of a film a watch this week. Celebrate its 30th in style and appreciate it for the unexpectedly affirming trans romance that it is. Or, just smoke a joint and tune in to watch Denise Richards in a red dress ride around on a robot dinosaur that bites the heads off people. That’s a good enough reason, too.

Before you go! Autostraddle runs on the reader support of our AF+ Members. If this article meant something to you today — if it informed you or made you smile or feel seen, will you consider joining AF and supporting the people who make this queer media site possible?

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