One reason Wild Things works so well is that director John McNaughton sustains a darkly comic tone throughout the film without letting it degenerate into farce.

It's like a three-way collision between a softcore sex film, a soap opera and a B-grade noir. I liked it.

The fun of Wild Things -- and there's a lot of it -- is in its never-ending game of cross and double cross.

Predicated on two ideas -- that human nature is rife with perfidy and that it's important to get the cast into hot cars or bathing suits whenever possible -- Mr. McNaughton and the cinematographer Jeffrey L. Kimball (''Top Gun,'' ''True Romance'') give a decadent gloss to this far-fetched, quintuple-crossing tale.

Contains extremely graphic sex and many twists that are unpredictable but not very compelling.