I’m going to go with Showgirls. The film is so bad that it borders on being hilarious.
Elizabeth Berkley was a household name as Saved by the Bell was one of the most popular shows in the country in the 1990s. Every kid I went to school with watched it in the morning. It was super wholesome.
Showgirls was so scandalous that it got the rare NC-17 rating which meant that, unlike a rated-R movie, kids could never go in even if their parents were with them.
It was loaded with hyper-sexual and gratuitous nude scenes.
It is about a naive young girl who hitchhikes to vegas to get work as a nude dancer. It highlights the darker side of Vegas.
When she came out with the movie, it made all the newspapers and she was going on Good Morning America and all these shows to promote, but mostly defend, her choice to participate in the movie.
The plot was shaky at best. The acting was terrible. Everything felt flat.
It was a certified stinker on Rotten Tomatoes.
The sad thing is that it had a great team behind it, with the director of Basic Instinct, another saucy movie.
I was only 11 when it came out so all the boys at school were dying to go see it but knew we couldn’t.
In hindsight, it’s just a low-rent skinemax style film. Even the sex scenes are so insanely awkward. Berkley tries to act hot in the love scenes but she’s gyrating around in this super artificial way like she’s having a seizure.
She is a gorgeous woman and I’m a warm-blooded straight male, but I shriveled up during these scenes.
Her role was a massive reversal from her goodie two-shoes character who always got good grades on Saved by the Bell.
The show propelled a number of the actors on to much bigger success. But a number of their careers imploded, unfortunately.
An actor is always a flop or two away from having their career go kablooey. One must choose wisely.