Wild about ‘Wild Things’: After 25 years, the kooky mystery still excites and surprises

SPOILER ALERT: This column discusses plot details of the 1998 film.

You’re not going to get deep into any discussion of John McNaughton’s Florida-noir mystery “Wild Things” without mentioning the champagne-soaked three-way scene with Matt Dillon’s Sam Lombardo, Denise Richards’ Kelly Van Ryan and Neve Campbell’s Suzie Toller in a seedy motel room in the Everglades — but what makes the scene even more memorably shocking is the context.

Until that moment, we’d been led to believe Sam and Kelly and Suzie loathed one another. Suddenly, halfway through the film, we learn they’ve been in cahoots, executing a swampland Hitchockian long con in order to extract some $8.5 million from Kelly’s wealthy socialite mother, Sandra Van Ryan (Theresa Russell).

Ah, but this is just the first in more than a dozen twists and turns along the way. With George S. Clinton’s jazzy, percussion-led score setting the tone from the get-go, “Wild Things” remains as entertaining and bat-bleep loony as it was upon its release some 25 years ago. Ahead of an anniversary screening Monday at the Music Box Theatre, here are some of my favorite elements:

• McNaughton and cinematographer Jeffrey L. Kimball frequently cut to glimpses of alligators lurking in the Florida swamps, echoing the predatory nature of virtually every main character. Still, my favorite animal shot comes when Sandra Van Ryan’s dimwit pool-boy lover, the fantastically named Frankie Condo (Eduardo Yáñez), is beating the daylights out of Sam, and we cut to a shot of a raccoon hanging from a tree, watching the fight as if it had paid a ticket broker for a good seat.
• To say Kelly Van Ryan and her mother Sandra have a toxic relationship is an understatement. When Kelly laments that she misses her father, Sandra remarks, “He didn’t have to kill himself, Kelly.” After Kelly accuses guidance counselor Sam of rape, Sandra rages, “That son of a bitch must be insane to think he can do this to me!” Um, to YOU?
• The opposing attorneys in the rape trial of Sam Lombardo are played by Chicago-area legends Jeff Perry (as the prosecutor) and Bill Murray as strip-mall attorney Ken Bowden. When Sam asks Ken about his neck brace, Ken replies, “This? I don’t have to wear it all the time. There was an insurance guy around here earlier.”

Columbia Pictures

• Everybody thinks Campbell’s Suzie Toller is an easily manipulated dimwit, but when Kevin Bacon’s Sgt. Ray Duquette and Daphne Rubin-Vega’s Detective Gloria Perez pay a visit to Suzie’s trailer, she’s reading “Death on the Installment Plan” by Louis-Ferdinand Céline. “It’s Céline,” Suzie says to Perez. “It’s OK. He had a pretty good line on what cheap f---s people are.”

Perhaps there’s more to Suzie than meets the eye?

• As mentioned, “Wild Things” is filled with dark humor, as when Sam and Kelly load a body into Kelly’s mother’s car, and Kelly laments, “My mom would kill me if she knew I took the Rover.”

• Poor vapid, cruel Kelly didn’t stand a chance of making it out of the movie alive. Next to go is Ray, followed by Sam, who is poisoned by Suzie aboard Sam’s sailboat, “The Helios.” As Sam starts to choke, Suzie says, “I’ve got a little pop quiz for ya. … Before sailing away on the Helios, Medea killed King Creon and the princess with, what? A rock, a spear gun, or a little poison?”
• “The End.”
• Except it’s not the end. “Wild Things” has a total of five scenes after that title card, each one revealing more about Suzie’s brilliant scheme. We end with Ken Bowden delivering a briefcase of cash and a large check to Suzie and cracking, “Boy I hope I never make you mad.”

NOW we have “The End.” Perfect.