Temple Cinema Season Five: Tainted Love

Temple Cinema returns to the hidden Masonic Temple at Andaz London for another season of chilling cinematic classics. Taking place in London's most eerie, atmospheric and secret venue, Temple Cinema Season 5: Tainted Love presents four films that promise to make you sweat. Don't miss the chance to see these lascivious films in the spectacular confines of a marble lined, Greek-style Masonic Temple. Tickets priced at £15 including free drink + popcorn, with £35 two-course dining tickets also available.

Dangerous Liaisons, dir. Stephen Frears (1988) - Tuesday 13th February

To kick off the season, in Stephen Frears classic erotic period piece Glenn Close's Marquise de Merteuil and John Malkovich's Vicomte de Valmont, unable to confess their love for each other, embrace lust as a way of life and make a game of seducing and corrupting young lovers. The cycle of sex and cynicism is shaken however when Valmont seems to be falling in love with the beautiful and virtuous Madame de Tourvel (Michelle Pfeiffer). As they desperately cling to their hardened exteriors, love threatens to destroy them both.

The Skin I Live In, dir. Pedro Almodovar (2011) - Tuesday 27th February

Antonio Banderas and Pedro Almodovar reconnect after a 20-year hiatus to tell the story of twisted plastic surgeon Robert Ledgard, who is experimenting in cultivating resistant artificial skin, using a young woman named Vera (a sensational Elena Anaya) as a guinea pig, captive in his private estate. Disclosing anything more would ruin what is an utterly disturbing yet genius film, with a staggering plot twist. Almodovar is a master in creating the sort of tension you can cut with a knife (pun intended), and he does so skillfully in The Skin I Live In, a morbid yet tantalizing film that makes you feel like you too are trapped within an artificial, synthetic body.

In The Cut, dir. Jane Campion (2003) - Tuesday 13th March

Subverting and resisting the genre at every turn, Jane Campion’s 2003 adaptation of Susanna Moore’s novel takes the erotic thriller and uses it instead as an intimate study of female desire and sexual psychology. Meg Ryan (in arguably the best performance of her career) plays Frannie, a literature professor who gets involved with a police detective (Mark Ruffalo) who is investigating the murder of a young woman whose body is found in Frannie’s garden. As her attraction to him grows, so does her suspicion that he may be in some way connected to the murder. Bold and uncompromising in the way that it privileged a female perspective within a generic framework that was traditionally so masculine, Ιn The Cut exists within a hazy reverie; lazy, languid and a little drunk with desire, speaking a language rarely heard in the genre.

9 1/2 Weeks, dir. Adrian Lyne (1986) - Tuesday 27th March

'Desire. Infatuation. Obsession.' With these three words 9 1/2 Weeks was released to an unsuspecting public in 1986. A sensation at the time it has now become a rarely seen, controversial but iconic piece of 1980's big screen erotica. With a story that takes in bondage, striptease and plenty of passion, Mickey Rourke and Kim Basinger pushed the boundaries of what was acceptable in a Hollywood production. Long before 50 Shades of Grey, 9 1/2 Weeks is a thrilling story of a woman in denial of her desires meeting a man empowered by his.