The Fourth Man

Paul Verhoeven directed The Fourth Man (original Dutch title: De Vierde Man) in 1983, near the end of his Dutch filmmaking period. He subsequently moved to Hollywood, where he directed major films including RoboCop, Total Recall, and Basic Instinct.

Yes, the screenplay by Gerard Soeteman was adapted from the novel by Gerard Reve, one of the Netherlands' most prominent postwar writers. Reve's semi-autobiographical fiction provided the film's foundation of Catholic guilt, erotic obsession, and surreal religious imagery.

The story follows Gerard Reve, a bisexual alcoholic novelist who becomes entangled with a mysterious woman named Christine and develops a growing fixation on her lover Herman, whom he believes may be in mortal danger. Verhoeven layers the narrative with hallucinatory religious symbolism suggesting Christine may be a supernatural figure.

Both films center on a blonde femme fatale who may be a murderer, a male protagonist consumed by sexual obsession, and deliberate ambiguity about what is real versus imagined. Verhoeven himself has acknowledged thematic similarities, and many critics consider The Fourth Man a spiritual predecessor to his 1992 Hollywood hit.