Barbarian Queen (1985) (aka Queens of the Naked Steel)

After Deathstalker (1983), the demand for other entertaining sword and sorcery, fantasy sexploitation tales increased. Director Hector Olivera helmed this newest entry, with B-movie actress Lana Clarkson reprising her title role as a statuesque barbarian warrior woman.

[Note: Clarkson also starred in the follow-up film, the direct-to-video release Barbarian Queen II: The Empress Strikes Back (1989), as Princess Athalia.]

In Barbarian Queen (1985), Queen Amethea (Clarkson) set off on a journey for liberation and revenge. After she was captured, she was tortured while stripped topless on a stand-up rack (the most common scene that occurred in both films).

Queen Amethea (Lana Clarkson) On A Torture Rack in Barbarian Queen (1985)

She was able to cleverly turn the tables on her captor. She forced comically-accented Zohar (Tony Middleton) to release her by squeezing his manhood during forced rape/intercourse:

Zohar (in agony): "I'm not quite there yet. Wait, wait! Stop squeezing! You're too Tight!"
Amethea: "Free my hands!"
Zohar: "I-I- will. I, I will! You can let me go now."

[Note: Tragically, legendary record producer Phil Spector was later charged with her murder in 2003 and ultimately convicted in 2009.]

Cocoon (1985)

Ron Howard's science fiction parable told about friendly aliens who rejuvenated a group of retired elderly folks with an energized swimming pool infused with a life-force. The tale was based loosely on writer David Saperstein's novel. Its tagline was fanciful:

It is everything you've dreamed of. It is nothing you expect.

In one of its sexy scenes, Kitty (Tahnee Welch, Raquel Welch's daughter) was spied upon by local charter boat operator Jack Bonner (Steve Guttenberg) as she undressed.

To his amazement, she removed her human skin mask - revealing that she was an alien from the planet Antarean.

Also in another scene in the life-giving swimming pool, Kitty demonstrated how Antareans expressed their affection ("We show ourselves...it's very fulfilling") - without touching. She sent her energized orgasmic light toward someone else.

Desert Hearts (1985)

This ground-breaking low-budget romantic drama was a seminal gay film from first-time director Donna Deitch. It was the first full-length lesbian-themed feature film written and directed by a woman. Reportedly, it was the first mainstream lesbian movie to have a positive outcome in its plot. This film won a Grand Jury Prize at Sundance in 1986. The poster's tagline described the plot:

In 1959, Vivian Bell came to Reno, Nevada for a quickie divorce. Of all the people she met there, the one who surprised her the most was herself.

It told about a growing relationship between two females in the late 1950s:

• Vivian Bell (Helen Shaver), a thirty-ish prim, light-haired, cerebral and meek literature professor from Columbia University in NYC
• Cay Rivvers (Patricia Charbonneau in her first film role), a lusty, dark-haired, free-spirited, tomboyish casino cashier, also a sculptor

Vivian had traveled by train to Nevada where, after a 12-year marriage, she was seeking residency for a quickie divorce outside of Reno at a dude ranch run by gruff alcoholic Frances Parker (Audra Lindley). Although appearing out of place, she slowly explored a very unlikely yet romantic and intimate lesbian relationship with the ranch owner's beautiful 'adopted' step-daughter, Cay Rivvers.

A repressed Vivian surrendered to Cay's first kiss in a rainstorm, when Vivian rolled down the passenger's window and briefly succumbed to Cay's advances. Cay asked: "Where'd you learn to kiss like that?" but Vivian was reluctant: "I don't know where that came from" and didn't want to talk about it. Later, the two tried to have a "mature conversation" in Vivian's room in the town's Riverside Hotel and Casino about the repercussions of the kiss:

Vivian: "What happened between us was innocent more than anything else."
Cay: "And friendly, don't forget that one."

Vivian claimed that she was a "respected scholar" and called the kiss "a moment's indiscretion" and a "fleeting lapse of judgment."

Cay (Patricia Charbonneau) and Vivian (Helen Shaver) Exploring Lesbian Love

After pouring herself a drink in the kitchen, Vivian turned back toward the bedroom, where Kay was topless and sitting in her bed - she asked: "What do you think you're doing?" Kay replied: "Waiting for you" and she insisted on staying. After putting the "Do Not Disturb" sign on the door, Vivian admitted: "I wouldn't know what to do." Cay began with a series of long and passionate kisses, with Vivian confessing: "I don't know if I've ever felt this way before."

During a non-exploitatively-filmed love scene (shot in real-time), their bare breasts came together in a symbolic mirror image of their mutual love for each other. The scene ended by slowly fading to black. The film ended with Vivian at the train station planning to return to NY, where she convinced Cay to join her - at least until the next station stop 40 minutes later, so they could be together a bit longer.

The Emerald Forest (1985, UK)

Director John Boorman's naturalistic R-rated tale was a coming of age tale (based on an uncredited true story), set among the Invisible People tribe in the rainforests of the Amazon Basin of Brazil. The film contained considerable nudity, for authenticity's sake, of the indigenous tribes.

The main character was white engineer's 7 year-old son Tommy (played by William Rodriguez as a child, and by Charley Boorman, the director's son, as a teen), who became separated from his family during a picnic near the construction site for a hydro-electric dam, when he was abducted by the natives. His father Bill Markham (Powers Boothe) spent many years searching for his lost son, and meanwhile, civilization increasingly encroached upon the tribe.

Love at First Sight - In the Brazilian Rainforest
Kachiri (Dira Paes)	Kachiri with friends

After he grew up and ten years later, Tommy became acculterated with the native way of life. His local love interest was Kachiri (Dira Paes). The story came to a head when the native girls were kidnapped by the tribe of Fierce People and white slave traders to be used for prostitution - but then rescued with the help of Tommy and his relocated "Daddy".

Friday the 13th, Part V: A New Beginning (1985)

Although hockey-masked mass murderer Jason Voorhees did not appear in Friday the 13th, Part V: A New Beginning (1985), the fifth installment of the franchise (except as part of the prologue's nightmare or as Tommy Jarvis's haunting hallucination), it was evident that the bloodletting was mounting.

There was a record number of killings of peripheral characters in this film - almost two dozen, and there were longer glimpses of female topless nudity of soon-to-be female victims.

First Victim: in the first instance, long-haired, blonde waitress girlfriend Lana (Rebecca Wood) was anticipating a night of partying and cocaine-snorting with her mental health worker boyfriend Billy (Bob DeSimone). When she changed in the restroom before joining him outside, she unzipped the front of her waitress outfit in front of the mirror, revealed both breasts gratuitously as she preened at herself, and shouted out: "It's showtime!" (She then told herself: "Girl, you are so hot!"). When she went to Billy's car (he had been snorting coke while waiting for her), she noticed that he was missing (he had been murdered with an axe swung into the top of his head), but sighted the feet of an axe-murderer with his weapon dripping blood onto the pavement. As she lept from the passenger side door, the same axe bludgeoned her in the torso.

Friday the 13th, Part V: A New Beginning (1985)

Second Victim(s): the next victims were two troubled (sex-hungry) young people, Eddie (John Robert Dixon) and busty Tina (Debi Sue Voorhees -- NO relation to Jason) - residents of Pinehurst halfway house. The horny couple raced off into the woods to make love after a memorable exchange of dialogue:

Eddie: "You loved it. You want more?"
Tina: "Eddie, we can't. Matt will kill us."
Eddie: "F--k him!"
Tina: "F--k you."
Eddie: "Exactly. F--k me. Come on."

After placing a blanket on the ground, they smoked a joint, and then undressed, as they were spied upon from nearby bushes by a homeless drifter (the voyeuristic Peeping Tom was stabbed in the stomach with a hunting knife as Tina ecstatically moaned in the background). When the lovers were finished having sex and Eddie went to "wash up," Tina urged him to "hurry back."

As she laid back naked on the blanket, providing an unobstructed view of her full breasts as she looked up at the trees, she screamed as long-handled, opened hedge shears were thrust into her face and then closed shut - mutilating her eyes. When Eddie returned and found her lying on her side, he turned her over and was horrified by the sight. As he backed up to a tree, his own head was crushed against the trunk with a tightened leather strap bound across his eyes.

Friday the 13th, Part V: A New Beginning (1985)

Third Victim: another Pinehurst teen, red-headed Robin (Juliette Cummins), had just rejected the romantic advances of a fellow resident, a nervous stutterer named Jake Patterson (Jerry Pavlon). After he had implied that he wanted to have sex with her: "I-I-I want to be with you...I-I-I wanna make love with you," she demonstrated her disinterest by insensitively smiling and laughing at him. Hurt and dejected, he headed upstairs, where he was murdered with an upraised meat cleaver.

When Robin also went upstairs, and stood topless before the bathroom mirror (revealing her small breasts), she blamed herself for hurting Jake's feelings: "Jake, I'm sorry. You know, sometimes Robin, you are just so stupid" - but it was too late for her. She climbed into her top bunk where she turned and saw Jake's bloody corpse and face next to her in bed. Then, a large fist grabbed her neck and held her down as she was stabbed with a machete from underneath her mattress.

Later, the stacked, bloodied, and murdered bodies of Jake, Robin, and Violet (a third resident) were revealed in bright flashes of lightning in one of the bedrooms.

Hail, Mary (1985, Fr.) (aka Je vous salue, Marie)

French New Wave director Jean-Luc Godard's controversial and upsetting film retold the story, now demythologized for modern times (present-day Switzerland), of the virgin birth and Mary. Outrage came over the reinterpretation of the Immaculate Conception and the fact that the Mary figure was often in various states of objectively-viewed, non-prurient undress, exhibiting her corporeal flesh throughout the provocative film. The film was condemned and denounced by Pope John Paul II at one time (he said that the offensive film "deeply wounds the religious sentiments of believers"), and picketed at theatres.

The film starred Moroccan-born Myriem Roussel as a tall, freckle-faced teenaged basketball player named Marie, representing the Virgin Mary. A plane flying overhead brought archangel Uncle Gabriel (Phillippe Lacoste) and a young cherubic girl functioning as his secretary; both were taken by taxi, driven by Marie's platonic, school dropout boyfriend Joseph (Thierry Rode), to Marie's father's gas station where she worked as a pump attendant. At the petrol station, the Annunciation occurred - she was told that she was mysteriously and unexplainably pregnant: "You're going to have a child...You'll have a baby." She asked quizzically: "By whom?...I sleep with no one." Gabriel insisted it wouldn't be by Joseph ("It won't be his. Never!").

Maintaining a chaste relationship with the petulant, short-tempered Joseph was difficult, since he pressured her: "What is this? Miracles don't exist. Kiss me. What is all this?" She continually vowed to not be touched or kissed by him. Irritated and unconvinced, he couldn't believe she was pregnant without sex, suspicious that she had other lovers: "Be simpler if you said you've seen other men." She responded: "I sleep with no one." He was very upset: "So where's the child from?...Child must come from somewhere. For two years now, I can't touch you. Why?...You must be sleeping around. It's the only answer. Guys with big cocks!"

During a visit to the gynecologist, It was confirmed that she was indeed mysteriously pregnant (and still virginal) without having had sex with Joseph: "It wasn't with anybody....I haven't slept with anyone. I touch no one. No one caresses me...I'm going to have a baby and I've slept with no man. Joseph won't believe it."

Marie (Myriem Roussel) - Mysteriously Pregnant and Virginal

As she bathed in a tub and examined her own full breasts, she began to accept the miraculous fact that she would bear the Son of God. Marie allowed Joseph to touch her through her clothing, to prove her innocence: "You see, I'm sleeping with no one. But I'll still have a child. You must believe it." Soon, she admitted she could see Joseph's love for her, and he slowly began to stop pressuring Marie to sleep with him and to be sexual with him, but he still wanted to see her naked: "We're getting married: can I see you naked just once? I'll only look." She also struggled with her sexual nature and wrestled in bed with her sheets ("They'll wrest from me that which I dare not give"), and touched her own bare skin.

In a scene publicized on the DVD cover and in posters, Marie stood (bottomless) before Joseph as he reached toward her swelling stomach and said: "Je t'aime." Marie replied, "No," and repeatedly slapped his hand away every single time until he said the words respectfully. She then continued to struggle with her own discomforting and painful pregnancy, tossled more in bed, and arched her back, and resisted the human temptation to masturbate - making an angry fist gesture with her hand over her hairy genitals, although she slowly and clearly accepted her plight.

After the child was born in the spring, and grew to be a few years old, he announced: "I am who he is...I must tend to my Father's affairs" - and he disobediently ran off into the woods, neglecting his father. Marie was confident: "He'll be back - at Easter or Trinity Sunday." The film ended after Gabriel hailed Marie -- "Hail, Marie." Marie sat in her car, smoked a cigarette and applied lipstick (voice-over "I am of the Virgin, and I didn't want this being. I only left my imprint on the soul that helped me. That's all").

Howling II: Stirba - Werewolf Bitch (1985, UK) (aka Howling II: Your Sister Is a Werewolf)

This inferior sequel to the original werewolf-themed horror film, Joe Dante's The Howling (1981) was directed by Philippe Mora - both films were loosely adapted from Gary Brandner's 1977 novel. Mora also directed a third film, Howling III: The Marsupials (1987).

The poster's tagline proclaimed "It's Not Over Yet" and:

The Rocking, Shocking, New Wave of Horror!

It featured vampy Sybil Danning as bisexual, immortal, femme fatale werewolf queen Stirba in Transylvania, Marsha Hunt as lusty werewolf siren Mariana, and various unusual hairy werewolf sex scenes set in a Balkan castle.

In one memorable pre-orgy scene, Stirba growled and in two stages, dramatically ripped off her black dress to reveal her curvaceous breasts. This unveiling was memorably and humorously repeated on a loop no less than 17 times during the musical end credits!

James Joyce's Women (1985)

Director Michael Pearce's R-rated film was advertised as an intimate, passionately-told "erotic masterpiece" - it was the film version of the acclaimed 1977 play which classical Irish actress Fionnula Flanagan herself wrote and produced.

In the lead role, Flanagan portrayed all six female roles of the 'women' in James Joyce's (Chris O'Neill) real and imaginary worlds - including his wife Nora, his publisher and Parisian bookstore owner Sylvia Beach, his benefactress and three fictional characters from Ulysses and Finnegan's Wake.

The most memorable character was Molly Bloom (with her lengthy masturbatory monologue-reverie or soliloquy filmed in real-time).

"... it's so much smoother the skin, much an hour he was at them I'm sure by the clock, like some kind of a big infant I had at me. They want everything in their mouth. All the pleasure those men get out of a woman. Oh, I can feel his mouth. I gave my eyes that look with my hair a bit loose from the tumblin' and my tongue between my lips up to him - the savage brute. Thursday, Friday one, Saturday two, Sunday three, O Lord, I can't wait till Monday. I wished he was here or somebody to let myself go with and come again like that. I feel all fire inside me. He made me spend the second time tickling me behind with his finger...

And then I asked him with my eyes to ask again, yes, and then he asked me would I, yes, to say yes, my mountain flower. And first I put my arms around him, yes, and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts, all perfume, yes. And his heart was goin' like mad. Yes I said, yes I will, Yes!"

The scene was notable for female frontal nudity and masturbation in full view of the camera, as Molly fondled her own breasts and intimately touched herself.

Just One of the Guys (1985)

Female director Lisa Gottlieb's intelligent, PG-13 rated film was a teen sex 'comedy of errors' (about gender switching and cross-dressing). It told about a frustrated aspiring high school journalism senior who switched high schools and went undercover in order to write a serious article on gender discrimination:

• Theresa Griffith (busty Joyce Hyser)
• Terry (also Hyser), masquerading as a freshman boy

Before she took the challenge, she was with her horny, wise-cracking younger brother Buddy (Billy Jayne) in his room decorated with Playboy centerfolds, and she told him about her problems with gender discrimination - she was cute and no one took her seriously: "Sometimes I just wish I were a guy" - he tried to dissuade her: "The male body needs sex at all times. It's a living hell." Shortly later, she fooled him when she dressed up as a guy (she thought to herself: "I think I can pull this off"), and he helpfully instructed her on how to act and walk like a swaggering boy to look tougher, with specific instruction on crotch-shifting adjustment and scratching:

"Something every guy does...lemme see you scratch your balls. Come on, try it!...Watch the master. Now first, here's your basic shift. But that's not always enough. Sometimes you gotta get inside, dig a little. Let some air in. Move things around."

When she retorted, "Yeah, well, maybe my balls don't itch," he shouted back: "All balls itch! It's a fact!"

She went through with her plan and infiltrated into Sturgis-Wilder High School, where complications immediately ensued when she had to enter a male locker room and change into her gym clothes. In the humorous scene, she was forced to set off the fire alarm to clear out the place for privacy, but then the gym coach yelled: "Shirts...Skins" when determining sides for teams, and she fell down and feigned stomach pains to avoid taking off her shirt.

Further problems arose when she attracted the attention of a sultry and popular Sandy (Sherilyn Fenn). Her greatest issue came because she developed an awkward interest in Rick (Clayton Rohner) -- leading to the climactic 'realization' scene outside the prom when Terry - to prove that she wasn't gay to Rick, confessed: "I'm a girl, I'm a woman...I'm a female, I swear," and had to conclusively rip open her tuxedo shirt to reveal her full breasts, with Rick's stunned reaction:

"Wait a minute. Are those what I think they are?...Where do you get off having tits?...S--t. I can't believe this."

Kiss of the Spider Woman (1985, Braz./US)

In director Hector Babenco's Brazilian/American co-produced dramatic film, William Hurt starred as flamboyant homosexual sex offender Luis Molina. He was incarcerated in the 1970s in a South American prison cell, with his cellmate - cynical political prisoner and revolutionary Valentin Arregui (Raul Julia). The production was framed with a "film-within-a-film"

William Hurt won the Best Actor Academy Award for his performance. He became the first actor in a gay role to win the honor (later this happened again for Tom Hanks for his role as AIDS sufferer in Philadelphia (1993)).

Lifeforce (1985)

Director Tobe Hooper's science-fiction horror/adventure/disaster tale (and 'guilty-pleasure' film) had the working title Space Intruders or Vampires from Outer Space - similar to the name of the original 1976 novel The Space Vampires upon which the film was based. [Actress Mathilda May as the alien vampire was spectacularly nude for most of her screen time.]

It told about a British-American H.M.S. Churchill space shuttle mission to intercept and study Halley's Comet that discovered a 150-mile long derelict alien spaceship within the comet's coma (tail or atmospheric cloud). Inside were thousands of giant dead bats (prehistoric-looking and dessicated) - and three humanoid creatures ("two nude males and one female") "perfectly preserved" within clear, coffin-like suspended-animation crystalline sleep cases. The astronauts regarded the female specimen as "perfect." Upon its return 30 days later, the interior of the ship had been gutted by fire and the crew were dead, presumably drained of their 'lifeforce.'

At London's European Space Research Centre (as Halley's comet filled the sky), the aliens in the cases were to be dissected, when the one female space creature named "Space Girl" (Mathilda May) suddenly opened her eyes and awakened, sat straight up, slipped off the examining table, and smiled/glared at a guard. The beautiful naked, human-looking creature removed the guard's helmet, and kissed him - sucking the energy 'lifeforce' out of him, and turning him into a dessicated, shriveled-up mummy corpse with leathery withered skin.

A "Perfect" Alien Specimen: Space Girl (Mathilda May)

The vampirish creature seductively walked up to Dr. Leonard Bukovsky (Michael Gothard), overpowered him with her feminine presence and suggested: "Use my body," but he was saved from the guard's fate by the intervention of Professor Hans Fallada (Frank Finlay). The naked "Space-Girl" calmly walked out of the facility to further terrorize London by subduing other guards in the main lobby and blowing out the large window panels with her supernatural powers. Fallada described her: "That girl was no girl. She is totally alien to this planet and our life-form and totally dangerous."

All infected or zombified victims could then regenerate or transform themselves after two hours and continue the exponential, chain-reaction cycle of draining others (with a two-hour time limit until they needed a new energy transfusion), before becoming dessicated (a pile of dust) a final time.

One of the Churchill astronauts Col. Tom Carlsen (Steve Railsback) was later found to have jettisoned in an escape pod that entered Earth's atmosphere and landed in Texas. He described how he had set fire to the shuttle to prevent the disastrous cargo from exposing the entire Earth, since crew members were dying one by one on the return trip - although he admitted: "She killed all my friends, and I still didn't want to leave. Leaving her was the hardest thing I ever did."

During a nightmarish, red-tinged hallucination, Carlsen dreamed that the "Space-Girl" visited him while he was sleeping to make love, and drained him of most of his energy ("You're taking too much of me!"). Through hypnosis, it was determined that Carlsen was psychically linked to the alien female. The alien creature revealed that they had taken on human form, after entering the minds of the astronauts - the "Space-Girl" had taken her "perfect" shape from Carlsen's mind. Carlsen was connected to the "Space-Girl" - when on board the Churchill, he had been spiritually called to her ("She wanted me"). Carlsen opened her container and shared his spiritual 'life-force' with her: "She wanted me to survive. She chose me!"

Meanwhile, to lure the investigators away from London, the alien girl was transforming herself by possessing various host bodies (a Yorkshire insane asylum doctor and masochistic nurse, and the asylum's manager (Patrick Stewart)), moving "from body to body, mind to mind" and taking only a small amount of energy from each new victim - so that there was no trail of bodies. Like "vampires of legend," the three alien creatures were spreading infection like a plague in London (even infecting the Prime Minister), causing the streets to be overrun with zombies. With martial law ineffective, a thermonuclear device delivered by NATO might need to be detonated to sterilize the area.

All of the drained human life-force energy (blue lights symbolizing human souls) was seen being directed first toward the "Space-Girl" and then collected by the awaiting, immense 150 mile-long, umbrella-shaped mothership parked above. With the elimination of the two original male creatures through lead sword impalement, it was up to the chosen one, Carlsen, to confront and be reunited or "mated" with the "Space-Girl." On a cathedral altar in the finale, he gave her back the energy she had originally given him by accepting her entreaty: "Be with me. Come with me, Carlsen."

During an ecstatic nude embrace and kiss, she admitted: "You're one of us. You always have been. You're like me. Be with me. Just a little more." Self-sacrificially, he then skewered both of them with a leaden stake mid-coitus, as electric red and blue rays and swirls emanated from their bodies. Their souls merged together into a gigantic blue column of light that ascended and funneled into the alien mothership, before the vessel departed.

Mischief (1985)

Typical of many mid-80s films was this coming-of-age film and teen romantic sex comedy by director Mel Damski - a tale about a nerdy, virginal, and introverted high school senior male who dreamt of attracting females. Its tagline described:

The first time seems like the worst time, but it's the one time you'll never forget!

It was set in the mid-50s in Ohio, and mostly known for its disrobing scene of a young Kelly Preston, starring as:

• Marilyn McCauley (Kelly Preston), a beautiful dream girl yet ultimately revealed to be shallow and superficial

Clumsy and clueless classmate Jonathan Bellah (Doug McKeon) was in love with Marilyn from afar and dreamt of being with her, and then finally had his wish come true. In a bedroom scene, they both slowly stripped. She unhooked her bra, and he lowered the straps to reveal her nakedness. She then slipped off her panties, and turned to slip into bed. As they kissed, she asked: "Aren't you going to put something on?" When he dumbly asked: "You just told me to take them off," thinking she was referring to his removed shorts, she added: "I'm talking about protection, Jonathan. Don't you have any?" After they had sex, she was upset with him for climaxing inside of her: "You went all the way, didn't you? You didn't take it out....You left it in the whole time?"

Taking Dream Girl Marilyn (Kelly Preston) to Bed for "The First Time"

In the same year in which she had her first prominent film roles, Preston would also star in the romantic comedy Secret Admirer (1985), a comedy of errors tale.

My Beautiful Laundrette (1985, UK)

Director Stephen Frears' subversive comedy-drama, his fifth feature film, was originally filmed for TV, using author Hanif Kureishi's first screenplay. The film covered the themes of bold sexuality, race, prejudice, immigration, class and generational difference.

It told of the development of a cross-racial, forbidden homosexual relationship between two men in Thatcher's England:

• Omar (Gordon Warnecke), a South London laundry businessman from a Pakistani-immigrant family
• Johnny (Daniel Day-Lewis), an ex-National Front member and blonde street punk, Omar's old Anglo-Saxon school friend

In the meantime, Omar was encouraged to marry his hedonistic Uncle Nasser's (Saeed Jeffrey) feisty and flirtatious daughter Tania (Rita Wolf), and he agreed in order to keep the peace. However, Omar and Johnny were more attached to each other in a forbidden love.

In the film's most matter-of-fact erotic love scene, the two men embraced each other in the back manager's room of the laundromat. Johnny slipped his hand beneath Omar's neck-tied shirt and dribbled champagne from his mouth into Omar's mouth, while Nasser and his white British mistress Rachel (Shirley Anne Field) danced out front just before a celebration marking the Powders Laundrette's grand opening.

A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge (1985)

Extensive evidence existed regarding the homosexual subtext, contained in the horror slasher film A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge (1985):

• the sexually-repressed, effeminate homosexual character of Jesse (Mark Patton)
• Jesse's smooth bare-chested body and frequent awakening accompanied by high-pitched screaming and soaking perspiration (symbolic of AIDS-related night sweats?)
• the depants-ing wrestling scene with jock Ron Grady (Robert Rusler) on a softball field
• the many S&M references
• the phallic snake wrapped around Jesse's neck in Biology class
• the prominent sign on Jesse's bedroom door that at first glance read: "NO CHICKS"
• the pelvic thrusting dance scene with a phallic popgun thrust into Jesse's crotch as he cleaned his room wearing Elton John-style gold-glittering sunglasses
• the board-game PROBE and a diary both hidden in his closet
• the scene at the gay leather bar
• the unusual murder of the sadistic and macho gym coach Schneider (Marshall Bell) - after being assaulted by sports balls and whipped by towels on his naked butt
• the fact of Freddy's 'bad' nature coming out of Jesse's body
• Jesse's lack of libido and performance anxiety with his red-headed girlfriend Lisa Webber (Kim Myers)
• the exploding hot dogs at the pool party, and more

Jesse also asked if he could sleep at Grady's house after becoming briefly heterosexually passionate with Lisa in a pool house cabana (although he quickly retracted his protruding tongue from between Lisa's breasts while kissing her). Grady made an obvious assertion that Jesse was heterosexually dysfunctional, and fancied him instead:

"Yeah, and she's female, and she's waiting for you in the cabana, and you wanna sleep with me."

Out of Africa (1985)

Director Sydney Pollack's Best Picture-winning love story was told against the gorgeous cinematographic backdrop of Kenya.

There was one sexy, but sex-less romantic scene between:

• Denys Finch Hatton (Robert Redford), an English adventurer
• Karen Blixen-Finecke (Meryl Streep), Danish writer

Denys lovingly shampooed and rinsed - from behind, the hair of Karen while on safari, followed by the recitation of the end of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's famous poem, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.

Re-Animator (1985)

Director Stuart Gordon's directorial debut film was a grisly horror tale with unbelievable zombie sex that was based on a tale by H. P. Lovecraft. There were considerable differences, amounting to over 9 minutes of additional footage, between the R-rated version and the unrated version. There were two sequels to follow by director Brian Yuzna: Bride of Re-Animator (1990) and Beyond Re-Animator (2003).

The popular cult film included a series of outrageously humorous - perverted - and horrifying scenes all at once. The film's most famous over-the-top sequence were about the experiments of university scientist Dr. Herbert West (Jeffrey Combs) with a reagent serum that glowed an obnoxious flourescent green.

Dr. Carl Hill (David Gale), West's recently-deceased and decapitated egotistical competitor, was secretly obsessed with:

• Megan Halsey (Barbara Crampton, who was almost continuously nude in this film), the naive daughter of the zombified and telepathically-connected Dean Alan Halsey (Robert Sampson), and the girlfriend of handsome medical student Dan Cain (Bruce Abbott), West's assistant and room-mate

Lecherous Dr. Hill's reanimated, disembodied 'head', after being decapitated by a shovel by Dr. West, was aroused by the sight of Megan while she was restrained and naked on a laboratory table. After massaging both of her breasts, he leaned over her with his head (held by his own body) and managed to speak in a gravely voice, while trying to kiss her breasts:

"I've always admired your beauty, my dear. I think I've always loved you. (She screamed and attempted to push him away.) And you will love me. You will!"

The Attempted Seduction of Megan (Barbara Crampton) By a Disembodied 'Head'

As she protested: "Please stop, let me go," he attempted to provide oral sex ('head') to Megan, but was interrupted by West, who chided the head for molesting Megan: "I'm very disappointed in you. You steal the secret of life and death, and here you are trysting with a bubble-headed coed. You're not even a second-rate scientist."

Red Heat (1985)

This R-rated exploitation thriller from writer/director Robert Collector came after The Exorcist star's topless debut in Chained Heat (1983), with another nude performance in a WIP (Women in Prison) film as:

• American college student/tourist Christine Carlson (Linda Blair), innocent and wrongly-accused

Christine was on a trip to West Germany to visit her Army-soldiering fiancee Mike (William Ostrander), when one fateful evening after an argument with her boyfriend over marriage at a mountain resort, she was kidnapped by the Stasi secret police. She had accidentally witnessed another kidnapping of a defecting East German scientist with important stolen files. Authorities transported her to the East Zone, brutally questioned and interrogated her , and forced her to admit being involved in espionage as a CIA agent.

She was incarcerated, with a three-year prison sentence in an East German women's prison, headed by stern and sadistic lesbian prison warden Einbeck (Elisabeth Volkmann). The warden's favorite in the prison was tyrannical, orange-wigged "top bitch" inmate Sofia (35 year-old Sylvia Kristel of Emmanuelle fame), who was sentenced to life.

Red Heat (1985) - an East German Women's Prison
Christine Carlson (Linda Blair) and Evelyn (Sonja Martin) in background		Sofia (Sylvia Kristel)

There was the required topless group shower sequence, and Christine was continually tormented by Sofia, including her participation in a rape (often in missing footage found in the unedited version of the film). Christine was ultimately freed from the sadistic guards and inmates by the efforts of her fiancee to stage a daring sneak attack to allow her to escape.

Rendez-vous (1985, Fr.)

Director André Téchiné's (Best Director winner at the Cannes Film Festival) erotic, unrated French romantic drama was a Best Director winner at the Cannes Film Festival.

It portrayed sexual-artistic passion and desire in a love triangle between three individuals (the two very different males were roommates):

• Nina/Anne Larrieux (Juliette Binoche in her first major feature film starring role), an aspiring and sexually free-spirited actress
• Paulot (Wadeck Stanckzac), a timid and infatuated real estate agent
• Quentin (Lambert Wilson), Paulot's roommate - a tormented, self-centered, virile, and aggressive sex theatre actor

Nina was newly arrived in Paris to live her life more fully. She quickly became involved in intense relationships with the two men.

Rendez-vous with Nina/Anne (Juliette Binoche)

In one striking scene, she boldly stripped off the top of her red dress and offered herself, and she also begged piteously as she laid on the floor: "F--k me. F--k me." (subtitles)

Return of the Living Dead (1985)

Writer/director Dan O'Bannon's directorial debut film was about the unleashing of 2-4-5 Trioxin gas. It came down in torrents like acid rain on a cemetery and caused the dead to rise as zombies. The undead then sought human brains to stop the pain of death. The horror film had direct allusions to its original predecessor Night of the Living Dead (1968).

It included a star-making role for so-called, quintessential "Scream Queen" B-movie star Linnea Quigley as a red-haired, sex- and death-obsessed punk character named Trash, who appeared almost fully nude in this film (and in many others) as she approached from a fog.

[Note: Quigley was required to wear a skin-colored bikini-shaped body covering (or "prosthetic crotch") by the producers, thereby making her appear like a hairless Barbie doll.]

Trash's (Linnea Quigley) Strip Tease on a Tombstone

In a lengthy scene, she rose up from the mud, was washed nude by the rain, and performed a memorable full-frontal striptease (ending up wearing only thigh-high leg-warmers) atop a graveyard's tombstone to the tune of SSQ's Tonight (We'll Make Love Until We Die) on a boom box, while illuminated by red flares.

Secret Admirer (1985)

Director David Greenwalt's R-rated romantic comedy was his directorial debut, and also the second prominent film for upcoming star Kelly Preston (pre-John Travolta). The comedy of errors featured the taglines:

"He never knew what hit him," and "Sometimes what you're looking for... is right beside you," and "She's hot for you and you haven't got a clue..."

In her second bare appearance of the year as a shallow, status-obsessed school beauty and prom queen, Kelly Preston portrayed Deborah Anne Fimple (Kelly Preston), who had vowed to only date frat college guys such as Steve (Scott McGinnis). She was admired secretly from afar by HS junior Michael Ryan (C. Thomas Howell). When he received an unsigned love letter in his locker, he guessed it was from Deborah, not knowing it was actually from his friend Toni (Lori Loughlin).

The contrived film was entirely an excuse for romantic complications and infidelity mix-ups, involving Michael's parents (Connie (Dee Wallace-Stone) and George (Cliff De Young)) and their neighbors, Deborah's parents (Elizabeth Fimple (Leigh Taylor-Young) and cop Lieut. Lou Fimple (Fred Ward)). While pining for Michael, Toni helped him to get closer to Deborah by rewriting his letters to her - without his knowledge. The predictable film ended with Michael finally realizing his true 'secret admirer - Toni, and her love for him. He reciprocated by swimming after her about-to-depart semester-at-sea boat at the harbor, where they both kissed in the water.

SmoothTalk (1985)

Writer/director Joyce Chopra's brilliant coming-of-age drama won the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival (then called the U.S. Film Festival) in 1986. It was based on Joyce Carol Oates' 1966 short story "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?"

It told about a rebellious and confused 15 year-old blonde girl named Connie (18 year-old Laura Dern in her first lead role) on the verge of womanhood, whose mother Katherine (Mary Kay Place) feared that her daughter had only "trashy daydreams."

In one of the film's earliest scenes, she joined her girlfriends Laura (Margaret Welsh) and Jill (Sara Inglis) at the mall, where they immediately went into the ladies' room to put on makeup and change into more revealing clothing, in order to attract attention (often unwanted).

In the film's most effective scenes at her empty home on a Sunday afternoon while her family was away, she was intrigued and mesmerized by mysterious, seductive 30-ish Arnold Friend (Treat Williams) who pulled up in a yellow convertible and provocatively flirted with her outside her screen door.

The encounter was a metaphoric, smooth-talking representation of sexual experience, corruption, and sin -- she was intimidated by him when he forcefully and antagonistically told her: "You're my date. I'm your lover, Connie...Yes, I'm your lover," and insisted on taking her for a ride.

The Sure Thing (1985)

Director Rob Reiner's traditional comedy romance (and road film), his second feature film following after This Is Spinal Tap (1984), was about the temptations of an ideal "sure thing." It also involved a cross-country journey of two mismatched individuals (similar to It Happened One Night (1934)) who ultimately found love together.

A photograph of a 'sure thing' dream date - a sexy "blonde in a string bikini" (Nicollette Sheridan), shown by UCLA buddy Lance (Anthony Edwards), lured New England college freshman Walter "Gib" Gibson (John Cusack in his first lead role) to California during Christmas break. He experienced dream fantasies of "traveling 3,000 miles to get laid," meeting her in a Malibu beachhouse and being seductively whispered to: "You want it, I want it. You know I want it. You don't have to bulls--t to get it, and even if you do bulls--t me, you still get it."

A Sexy "Sure Thing" (Nicollette Sheridan)

Later, the "Sure Thing" begged for more: "Come on, Giblet, one more time, one more time...It was so good. It was so masterful, relentless, but with a delicate touch. Confident, creative. I was overwhelmed. You're a true artist."

Gib ultimately realized that his smart, seemingly-incompatible, cross-country coed traveling companion Alison Bradbury (Daphne Zuniga) to the West Coast was more suited for him - even though the sexy blonde had promised him: "Tonight is the first night of the rest of your sex life."

In his writing class after Gib and Alison had both returned to the East Coast school after vacation, an English essay he had written titled The Sure Thing was read outloud by his teacher Professor Taub (Viveca Lindfors). Alison realized that he hadn't slept with his "sure thing" - he explained to her: "She wasn't my type" - and they shared a curtain-closing, feel-good ending kiss under the stars.

Weird Science (1985)

Writer/director John Hughes' teen comedy classic told about two teenaged nerds or geeks, continually frustrated by not being popular with the girls:

• Gary Wallace (Anthony Michael Hall)
• Wyatt Donnelly (Ilan Mitchell-Smith)

Out of pure hormonal/sexual frustration, the boys decided to use Wyatt's computer to create a "perfect" woman after watching a colorized print of The Bride of Frankenstein (1935). At one point, Wyatt initially gave their creation mammoth breasts, to which Gary remarked: "Anything bigger than a handful, you're risking a sprained tongue." Connected by a phone modem, they started feeding the computer cut-out magazine images of supermodels, Albert Einstein, and art/music skills while wearing brassieres on their heads ("It's ceremonial," explained Gary) while they connected electrodes to a plastic Barbie-doll figure.

The computer started to act on its own while connecting into a government mainframe as it assembled the data - and an electrical storm activated the doll. Suddenly after lots of explosions and wind, everything stopped and the door to Wyatt's room began to bulge inward, before finally exploding.

The "Perfect" Woman - Lisa (Kelly LeBrock)

Out of the red-lit, foggy hallway entered a sexy, leggy red-headed female later named Lisa (supermodel Kelly LeBrock), wearing nothing but micro-panties and a small white muscle-shirt top. She stood in the doorway, as Dr. Frankenstein shouted from their television: "She's alive! Alive!" Their creation cooed with a mischievious twinkle in her eyes: "So... what would you little maniacs like to do first?"

In the subsequent scene, the two wide-eyed boys ogled her as they shared a shower with her, as the camera panned up and down her naked body and she commented: "You guys created me. I didn't come from anywhere. Before you started messing around with your computer, I didn't even exist. By the way, you did an excellent job. Thank you. Showering is real fun, isn't it? If we're gonna have any kind of fun together, you guys had better loosen up."

Witness (1985)

Peter Weir's suspenseful and dramatic thriller began with the murder of an undercover cop in the rest-room of a Philadelphia train station. The sole witness was young 8 year-old Amish boy Samuel Lapp (Luke Haas), who was traveling with his widowed Amish mother Rachel Lapp (Kelly McGillis).

While investigating the murder and also seeking refuge (after being wounded by a gunshot) in the isolated, peace-loving, idyllic Amish community (Lancaster County), city detective John Book (Harrison Ford) began to establish a beautifully-realized, illicit yet romantic relationship with Rachel.

When Book was repairing his non-functioning car, they playfully serenaded together in a barn to the car radio playing Sam Cooke's "(What A) Wonderful World," illuminated by the car's headlights - a behavior that was frowned upon by the Amish. They almost kissed, but were interrupted by Rachel's scolding father-in-law Eli (Jan Rubes). She argued back: "I committed no sin" although she faced the possibility of being shunned by the community.

Their budding romance was signaled by one other erotically-charged incident. When she was bathing from a bucket with a sponge - she realized that she was being watched by Book from a doorway and turned to boldly face him, lingering for a few moments bare-breasted. He averted his eyes momentarily, but then they both looked at each other with longing.