10 Movies That Barely Escaped a Life on Skinemax

by Max Evry

Ever since the advent of cable TV, the idea of leaving the comfort of one's own home for a crowded movie theater with the intention of getting turned on has gotten less and less appealing. Why go out when Shannon Tweed, Shannon Whirry, or some other strategically nude woman named Shannon can set the mood with an improbably-hunky cable guy / pizza delivery dude?

Although not limited to Cinemax's infamous After Dark lineup, the "Skinemax" flick has been a safe haven for couples (and, let's face it, horny single dudes) to get sensual without the icky aftertaste of the hardcore stuff. Despite this comfortable niche, big studios still try to lure mainstream audiences to their big-budget, star-studded versions of these softcore sensations with mixed results.

In dubious honor of "Under the Skin" (Scarlett Johansson is an alien using sex to lure men to their death) and "Nymphomaniac" (Charlotte Gainsbourg tells tales of her many, many exploits in the sack) attempting to forge art-house fare out of ludicrous sexiness, we're counting down 10 mainstream movies that could have easily been Skinemax fare.

'Cat People' (1983)

While the original 1942 version of "Cat People" followed old Hollywood master Jacques Tourneur's inclination towards suggested horror, there's nothing left to the imagination in Paul Schrader's slick '80s remake. Star Nastassja Kinski spends a solid portion of the running time slinking around in her birthday suit, living life as a supernatural creature that turns into a leopard when she has sex with a human, and can only turn back if she kills. This leads to an entanglement with both regular Joe-zoologist John Heard and her incestuous brother, played by Malcom McDowell. Although not initially a hit, it has a devoted cult following that devoured the recent Scream Factory re-issue, while the title song by David Bowie found new life thanks to its use in "Inglourious Basterds."

'Sliver' (1993)

She became the biggest sex symbol since Marilyn Monroe thanks to that infamous "Basic Instinct" leg crossing scene (perhaps the most famous crossing since Washington and the Delaware), but Sharon Stone wasn't going to stop there. She had to outdo herself in another outing that showcased sensuous surrender over femme fatalities, and "Sliver" was just the ticket. Unluckily for her, the film was a dud stateside, although it made crazy dough overseas, where audiences craved seeing William Baldwin enact some kind of voyeuristic surveillance fantasy. This one deserves to be on the list not so much for its quality but its banality, something most softcore outings have in spades. A sexy romp against a big white column doesn't hurt, either.

'Color of Night' (1994)

Bruce Willis is the kind of movie star that can survive a seemingly endless barrage of career low-points ("Bonfire of the Vanities," "Hudson Hawk," "Cop Out") and still emerge victorious. There's no silver lining to "Color of Night," a lame whodunit about a therapist who becomes psychosomatically color blind after one of his patients commits suicide. When his best friend gets killed, he becomes entangled in a convoluted search for his killer while romancing a mysterious woman played by Jane March. While the movie around it is silly, the sex scene between them in a pool is almost MORE explicit than your average cable offering, with even little Willy getting his moment in the sun.

'Species' (1995)

Ahh, the old "alien that needs to mate with a man" gag. While lazy writers have certainly come up with worse excuses to feature copious nudity, they never had a cast of this caliber: Ben Kingsley (Oscar-winner), Forest Whitaker (Oscar-winner),  Alfred Molina (Dr. Octopus!) and Michael Madsen (Mr. Blonde!) all chasing after the elusive seductress Sil, played to revealing perfection by Natasha Henstridge. This sci-fi oddity found unlikely success at the box office, partly due to its much-publicized creature design by H.R. Giger. In true Skinemax tradition, "Species" was given another theatrical sequel starring Henstridge (which bombed), followed by two direct-to-video cheesefests starring disposable blonde bombshells.

'Showgirls' (1995)

After reinvigorating the erotic thriller genre with box office smash "Basic Instinct," Dutch wildman Paul Verhoeven decided to up the ante with a Las Vegas stripper epic that would make Bob Guccione jealous at its decadence. The excess and power struggles between a reigning queen (Gina Gershon) and her upstart protégé (Elizabeth Berkley) might remind you of "All About Eve," and that's no coincidence. This was a valiant attempt to have an NC-17 movie reach the mainstream, and its initial box office failure has since been eclipsed by a cult that revels in its camp outrage, rampant misogyny be damned!

'Barb Wire' (1996)

"Baywatch" babe Pamela Anderson was the biggest thing in the world in the mid-'90s, especially if you were a 12-year-old boy. The pin-up goddess took her shot at screen stardom, but lacked the, well, assets of a true thespian. Anderson did take her main assets for a spin, giving the audience exactly what it wanted in the opening credits: 2-mins of her prancing on a stage showered with water in the most unzipped dress of all-time. The rest of the film is a standard futuristic sci-fi comic book adaptation lacking in any semblance of coherence or fun… not that it matters, as long as those opening credits are preserved in the Library of Congress so future generations can understand our culture.

'Eyes Wide Shut' (1999)

Director icon Stanley Kubrick's filmography is nearly wall-to-wall masterpieces, but his final outing proves highly divisive to this day. Audiences expecting this to be "the great sex-a-rama of all-time" were no doubt let down by what is a fairly slow, somber affair about how dreams, desire, and jealousy can intertwine to destroy a marriage. Tom Cruise plays a well-to-do doctor whose wife, Nicole Kidman, douses his mojo by confessing a fantasy involving getting it on with a sailor she saw. This leads Cruise's character on a string of sexual escapades, but what sets this movie apart from standard softcore –here's where that dream stuff comes in- is all his attempts at infidelity, be it with a best friend's wife, a prostitute, or a full-on orgy are all cut short. Americans could feel his pain when much of the explicit action was censored in the U.S. Apparently the stresses of production and not-so-subtle subtext had an effect on the real-life couple as well, since the Cruise-Kidman union crumbled a scant year-and-change after the film's release.

'Chloe' (2009)

Atom Egoyan is one of Canadian cinema's most thoughtful provocateurs, and no stranger to the erotic thriller having made "Exotica" earlier in his career. In "Chloe," he took on one of late-night cable's oldest chestnuts: The beautiful woman with a fatal attraction to a married man. The twist here is that the prostitute (Amanda Seyfried) a jealous wife (Julianne Moore) uses to test the faithfulness of her husband (Liam Neeson) is actually in love with the WIFE, and before you can say "ai chihuahua" the two women are going at it like they invented it. Thus, the wife becomes the unfaithful party, and when she refuses the pro's affection further it leads to the inevitable dangerous showdown. While all this sounds cliché (it is), this movie earns points for the commitment of all three stars and the genuine sizzle they ignite.

'Magic Mike' (2012)

Did Steven Soderbergh and Channing Tatum find a way to make male strippers classy? Not really, but audiences stuck a buttload of twenties in their thongs, making this one of the biggest sleeper hits in recent memory. Loosely based on Tatum's first-hand experiences grinding it on the Florida stripping circuit early in his career, it tells the tale of Tatum's titular Mike, a veteran showing a new kid (Alex Pettyfer) the ropes and getting into a bit of trouble along the way. While some women complained that there was more female nudity than male, that was just Soderbergh making sure there was "something for daddy" in a film aimed largely at the ladies. All their boyfriends were thankful.

'Passion' (2012)

Filmmaker Brian De Palma has a long history in this genre… heck, his Hitchcockian homages ("Dressed to Kill," "Body Double") have been the cornerstone of modern sexploitation. That's what makes his lazy, half-hearted thriller "Passion" a sad reminder that not all auteurs can play the same tune with the same verve they used to. The thrust of this lesbian-heavy murder mystery involves an evil corporate executive (Rachel McAdams) who drives her docile employee (Noomi Rapace) to ruin, with revenge following swiftly. Split diopter shots and stylish bloodletting are par for the course, but De Palma has done it better and far more subversive before.