Long before Winnie-The-Pooh: Blood and Honey reimagined a beloved talking bear as a rampaging murderer, another — arguably much stranger — movie already somewhat beat it to the chase. Years ahead of his appointment as the voice of Paddington Bear in a duo (soon to be trio) of family favorite films, Ben Whishaw starred in 2007’s Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, which — in case that pretty prosaic title doesn’t tell you — is most definitely not all-ages entertainment.
“Sensual” is a word that gets thrown around a lot when it comes to movies that show a lot of skin, but that descriptor has never been more apt than with Perfume, given that Whishaw’s anti-hero has a super-sense. Specifically, super-smell. This psychological thriller follows peasant outcast Jean-Baptiste Grenouille as he stalks his way through in 18th century France, killing countless women in a twisted bid to distill and bottle their scents.
Any directorial offering from the man behind Cloud Atlas, Tom Twyker, is bound to be divisive, which probably explains Perfume‘s 59 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes. To be clear, if you have a distaste for movies that attempt to get us to sympathesize and glamorize serial killers, this isn’t for you. However, if the absolutely stacked cast — including Dustin Hoffman, Alan Rickman, and John Hurt as the narrator — is enough to sway you, it’s currently on Netflix in the Unites States.
In fact, there must be something about the smell of Perfume that’s attracting interest as, according to Flix Patrol, it’s just jumped up an incredible 146 places up the streaming charts to stand as the sixth most popular title on Netflix worldwide. Just make sure you don’t stick it on after a Paddington double-feature.