| Spetters | |
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Dutch film poster for Spetters |
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| Directed by | Paul Verhoeven |
| Produced by | Joop van den Ende |
| Written by | Gerard Soeteman Jan Wolkers (uncredited) |
| Starring | Hans van Tongeren Renée Soutendijk Toon Agterberg Maarten Spanjer Marianne Boyer Jeroen Krabbé Rutger Hauer |
| Music by | Ton Scherpenzeel Kayak |
| Cinematography | Jost Vacano |
| Editing by | Ine Schenkkan |
| Distributed by | The Samuel Goldwyn Company |
| Release date(s) | 25 February 1980[1] |
| Running time | 120 min. |
| Country | Netherlands |
| Language | Dutch |
Spetters is a Dutch film released in 1980 directed by Paul Verhoeven.
Spetters led to many protests about the caricatured manner in which Verhoeven portrayed gays, Christians, the police, and the press. Although Verhoeven made one more film in the Netherlands, the response to Spetters led him to leave for Hollywood. Despite the large amount of controversy surrounding it, the film proved to be a box office hit with 1,124,162 admissions in the Netherlands alone.
The careers of Maarten Spanjer and Renee Soutendijk were launched by this film, but it did not do much for the other young lead actors. Hans van Tongeren committed suicide in 1982.
The film was a small success in the United States but it did help the launching of the careers of Verhoeven and the actors Jeroen Krabbé, Rutger Hauer and Soutendijk in Hollywood.[2]
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The film, which is violent and sexually graphic, is a high-speed coming of age story which centers on three young men dreaming of an escape from their provincial surroundings by means of a motocross career: young motocross racing champion Rien (Hans van Tongeren (nl)), another racer who thinks he has the goods, Hans (Maarten Spanjer (nl)), and the son of a Bible thumping Calvinist, the mechanic Eef (Toon Agterberg (nl)). Their only escapes are alcohol, drugs, and weekend visits to a local disco nightclub.
When they run into a young seductress (Renee Soutendijk (nl)), her homosexual brother, national motocross champion Witkamp (Rutger Hauer (nl)) and the national press that follows in his wake, their futures change drastically.
The word "spetter" (plural: "spetters") is a (now outdated) word with the same meaning as the English word "hunk". It also means "splatters" and thereby refers to the chips stall where Soutendijk's character works, when she lowers the chips into the frying pan.
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