From: careyk@uhunix.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu (Carey Kinoshita)
Subject: Re: BASIC INSTINCT (Spoilers!) Who did who?
Organization: University of Hawaii
Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1992 08:31:01 GMT

In article <1992Apr7.185639.26553@awdprime.austin.ibm.com> craigb@ot.austin.ibm.com writes:
>Can anyone fill in the question marks in the following?
>
>Victim			Killer
>------			------
>Catherine's parent
                        Answer is Catherine
                        (Motive: some deep seated emotional
                         distress which ocurred early in Catherine's
                         Childhook which resulted in her hatred for
                         me, capacity to commit murder, and her sexual     
                         orientation toward women [she was just toying
                         with Nick])
                         
>Berkeley professor	
                        Answer is Catherine
                        (Catherine's first ice-pick murder)
                        (Motive speculative, maybe somehow linked with
                         Catherine being infactuated with Elizabeth
                         and Elizabeth being in some of the professor's
                         classes)

>Beth's husband
                        Answer is Catherine
                        (After Catherine's boxer husband death, she moves
                         to Celines or however you spell that and meets
                         up with Elizabeth and has an affair which 
                         some townsfolk notice.  Something happens in their
                         lesbian relationship and the result is Catherine
                         shooting Elizabeth's husband.  She used a gun instead
                         of an ice-pick so that the murdur at U.C. Berkeley
                         would not be linked)

>The ex-rock star
                        Answer is Catherine
                        (At this point in time, the IAD man is blackmailing
                         Catherine since he discovered that Catherine killed
                         Elizabeth's busband when doing a routine background
                         check on Elizabeth Gardener.  Catherine thinks up
                         a scheme to frame Elizabeth and kill the AID man
                         using some poor pawn inside the police department.
                         She lands up writing a book to give her an alibi.
                         She then meets Nick and Gus for the first time in
                         the back of the beach house and decides to use
                         Nick to accomplish her dirty work.  She checks into
                         his Nick's past and decides to write another book
                         as a pschycological ploy to entice Nick toward 
                         forming a relationship with her.  To frame Elizabeth,
                         she picks the ex-rock star who Elizabeth had met at
                         a christmas party.  The christmas party was held by
                         a pschycologist who shares the same office with
                         Elizabeth in town)

                          
>The IAD man
                        Answer is Catherine
                        (Catherine is informed of Nick's incident with
                         the AID man and decides the time is right and
                         blows him away with a 38 caliber handgun
                         which she intends to plant in Elizabeth's
                         apartment.  She also uses this incident to
                         sway Nick closer to her)

>Shooter's partner
                        Answer is Catherine
                        (She finds out that Gus is looking for information
                         about her at U.C. Berkeley, calls up Gus, and
                         hires someone to leave a message on Elizabeth's  
                         answering machine to meet him on the 4th floor
                         of that apartment.  She kills Gus and leaves a 
                         wig, ice-pick, and SFPD jacket which she bought   
                         from the same person who supplied her Nick's file
                         [probably another AID officer] to frame Elizabeth.
                         Catherine next breaks into Elizabeth's apartment
                         again, replaces the tape out of the answering
                         machine, plants the gun, and plants the newspaper
                         clipping, etc.)  

                         That's It.  Paul Verhoven says in one of the 
                         March issues of "Entertainment This Week"
                         that Nick will eventually get killed by Catherine.

                         Oh, concerning Roxy (Catherine's Lesbian Girlfriend)
                         she just get very jeolous every so often, but 
                         not with the ex-rockstar.  She is just put in to
                         complicate the plot and put some action in the
                         middle of the movie.
                         
>
>Odd thing about this movie is that of the 3 people I've talked
>to who've seen it, none of us can agree on who killed who. It
>seems like everytime someone comes up with a reasonable answer,
>someone else finds something to shoot it down.

The killer is Catherine and Elizabeth   Gardener is totally innocent.
The director Paul Verhoven has stated that Catherine is the murdurer
in one of the March issues of Entertainment This Week.