The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
This is not a topic that is concerned with love scenes or gratuitous nudity in numerous films or discussions on how sexuality is portrayed – for which see Sex in Fantastic Cinema. Rather this list is focused on genre films made with the primary purpose of providing sexually explicit scenes. Content can be either hardcore (sexually explicit acts and penetration shots) or softcore (rarely more than bare breasts and occasional pubic glimpses)
The pornographic film emerged in the 1970s and graduated to video in the 1980s. Before this was the nudie. By the 1990s, softcore erotica became a niche on the cable market and theatrically released erotica had almost completely died away.
There have been numerous genre derivations on classic stories including the erotic adventures of Dracula, Frankenstein, Dr Jekyll/Mr Hyde and The Invisible Man, even zombie erotica. There has also been a steady stream of porn films that parody the titles of familiar mainstream releases but with an X-rated spin.
Extraordinary Found Footage film from Shane Ryan shot from the viewpoint of a killer as he seduces and kills a girl. A quasi-pornographic film that makes us question our own complicity in what we are watching
An exquisitely dreamlike erotic fairytale from cult director Walerian Borowczyk, a variant on Beauty and the Beast involving the liaison between a girl and a beast.
Splendidly nasty French film that feels like Thelma and Louise by way of Natural Born Killers where two women pick up guns and go on a shooting spree against men who are abusive jerks. Directed by two women and cast with porn actresses, this holds little back
Charmingly capricious and silly adaptation of the comic-strip with a wide-eyed Jane Fonda as the spacegoing heroine. Filled with some wonderfully naughty gags and a production and costume design scheme that goes to a gorgeously deranged excess
Charming and delightful Hong Kong erotic comedy about a scholar who sets out on a journey of sexual freedom
One of the key films from cult director Walerian Borowczyk, a quartet of exquisitely photographed and art directed erotic tales, including one about Countess Bathory
Sequel to Shane Ryan’s disturbing snuff Found Footage film. This works with the same effectiveness as the original, where the videography is transformed via a dreamily beautiful series of experiments with editing and colour
Retelling of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde from cult Euro erotica director Walerian Borowczyk. Not quite the erotic retelling one expects, this nevertheless conducts some radical revisions
A surprisingly good work of vampire erotica made with some sensuality and apparent care by those involved, along with some quite imaginative touches of fantastique
Rather funny film that parodies the Hong Kong fad for lush erotic films that popped up in the 1990s. It even manages to wind in a parody of A Chinese Ghost Story
The second and best in the series of Hong Kong films filled with wonderfully tongue-in-cheek erotica and a series of entertainingly over-the-top fantastical set-pieces
One of the films from cult French director Jean Rollin whose works always contained an arty mix of horror and erotica. This concerns mysterious blood-drinking rituals among a group of women at a chateau
An imprisonment thriller with a difference, a work of Japanese BDSM erotica where a young teacher is imprisoned and erotically tortured. Quite out there and different to anything Western erotica turns out
An offbeat science-fiction film sold as a work of erotica but one that actually subverts the genre in interesting ways concerning a futuristic apartment block performers where strippers are being fed a drug
Classic 1970s porn film about a spinster condemned to Hell who is sent back to the world to experience the lusts of the flesh. Made back at a time when the people involved seemed to care about making a good film as well
This slick eroticised thriller was a huge success and made the career of Sharon Stone. The absurd plot bears no resemblance to human motivation but Paul Verhoeven makes an undeniably provocative and entertaining package
A much better than usual film from Charles Band, an erotic fairytale in which Sherilyn Fenn becomes involved with a circusmaster and his twin brother who turns into a werewolf
The fourth of the works of arty vampire erotica from cult director Jean Rollin. Rollin has discovered more in the way of plot by this point, while the film has a beautifully dreamy fairytale-like quality
Another of the films from cult exploitation director Jess Franco. This is a vampire film made with a mix of arty erotica with Lina Romay as Countess Irina Karlstein who drains men and women’s lifeforce during sex
An erotic thriller that stars Angie Everhart as a probation officer who is drawn into the web of her client Richard Grieco who may or may not be a serial killer
Very difficult to find, this is film that has existed in legend – an erotic film with Vanity as a model on a desert island who becomes involved with an ape. Beautifully filmed and Vanity (who spends much of the show nude) is jaw-dropping
Cult Italian director Lucio Fulci makes an erotic thriller but fails to leave his horror background behind with deranged results quite unlike any other erotic film
Hong Kong film that blends gauzy erotica and supernatural (although no ghosts despite the title). Not as a good as the first sequel (one of several that followed) due to crude direction
Softcore all-girl take on the Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde story concerning a formula that brings out repressed sexuality. The expected tumblings are handled with an arty flair that makes for an undeniably interesting watch
One of the films from cult director Jesus Franco, one effort among Franco’s mostly cheap output where his mix of softcore erotica and pretensions towards artiness were at their most inspired. On the other hand, the film is written with a randomness that makes it impossible to understand anything that is happening
One of the early films of French director Jean Rollin who gained a cult following for his vampire films that offer a near-plotless blend of artily surreal imagery and erotica
Osama Tezuka is a cult figure in anime and manga – what is less well known is that he also made adult animation. This, about a woman’s temptation by The Devil in mediaeval France, is a mind-boggling array of psychedelia and eroticism
Described as a cyberporn fantasy, a quasi-pornographic film set in a Cyberpunk future where androids are designed to consume sexual experience
This offers the amusing idea of a softcore parody of the old Flash Gordon serials. A surprisingly well-made film in terms of effects but the jokes often seems belaboured amid the witless mugging
This sequel to Flesh Gordon, the R-rated parody of the Flash Gordon serials, feels like a joke that is belaboured in the retelling. The film does have a crass level of nonsensical absurdity that proves amusing
One of the notorious 1970s Nazisploitation films, this Italian-made entry is one work that crosses way over taboo lines and makes for extreme watching
A revival of the 1990s Sex and Zen series of erotic comedies, this comes with the novelty of being presented in 3D
A X-rated, West German-made film that blends together several fairytales in a very adult adaptation. The result should be seen for its sheer bizarreness
From the director of Emmanuelle, this is an adaptation of an adult comic-book that replays the lost city adventure with the addition of a mind-boggling softcore fetishism
Sequel to the Hong Kong erotic film, an entirely unrelated work that inflates the original into a madcap Wu Xia film filled with crude, rude humour
An erotic thriller where detective Shannon Tweed must go undercover as a call girl to find a killer eliminating girls at the agency. A blatant copy of Basic Instinct
A film about Elizabeth Bathory living in the present day, this comes with the suggestion of erotic allure but disappointingly proves to be a pose without much substance
A Roger Corman produced erotic horror in which Cliff De Young inherits a castle in Spain where he is tempted by a witch who appears in his dreams
Whether we asked for it or not, director Bruce LaBruce gives us the world’s first gay pornographic zombie film in which a zombie finds it can revive the dead by having sex with them
Conceptually odd mix of an erotic film and a standard copy of Alien. This come with the peculiarity of steamy encounters sitting alongside chestburster scenes
Jess Franco rips off Ken Russell’s The Devils, although surely only Franco could take a story about nuns being tortured and witches burned at the stake and turn it into a work of softcore erotica
From cult director Joe D’Amato, this throws together hardcore erotica and gory zombie film in a conceptually bizarre mix that leaves you scratching your head
Really odd, even at times touching, Japanese film about a man’s thwarted attempts to have sex with his android maid
Softcore erotic film set aboard a space mission where a crew have to deliver an assignment of empathic alien women
You feel that a film about lesbian Japanese schoolgirls vs zombies should have been more interesting. The zombies barely mount to a dozen and the director seems more preoccupied by his softcore predilections
Work of softcore erotica about an alien woman who comes to Earth to catalogue human sexual experience. Consists of lots of tasteful glossily photographed tumblings with only the slimmest of plots connecting
Another example of Tobe Hooper’s slight into mediocrity in the 1990s, an erotic thriller that features a madly overacting Robert Englund as the Marquis de Sade and an innocent being corrupted by his descendant in the modern day
Embrace the Darkness was a surprisingly good work of vampire erotica. This, the first of two sequels, seems more interested in being a horror film than erotica
Prolific exploitation director Jess Franco makes an entry in the early 1970s fad for lesbian vampire films. This has more softcore erotic content than other entries, although the Dracula part of the title is a misnomer
This makes an interesting attempt to rewrite the basics of The Omen as an erotic film. The usual occult happenings but with an emphasis on bodies coupling
Donald F. Glut is famous as a genre historian and novelist. Here he directs an erotic vampire film. Despite the title, Count Dracula doesn’t feature much but we get Paul Naschy in one of his few English language films
The first two of these films did ingenious things but now the inspiration is showing through and these films are starting to seem more like a personal fantasy on the director’s part
The inevitable adult version of Count Dracula. Beyond the obvious, this is halfway watchable, having a sense of humour and even a story, which plays out as a straight version of Love at First Bite
This was one of the earliest films from Charles Band who has since gone on to become a prolific producer/director of low-budget films. Here Band offers a very adult take on the Cinderella fairytale
A bizarre cross between the softcore Emmanuelle films and the Italian cannibal film. It seems perverse to be watching beautiful bodies one minute and next showing their insides being spilled
Welcome to the bizarre and decidedly politically incorrect world of the Japanese pinku film. Words fail me on this one, which concerns a demonic rapist that attacks a porn film shoot
An adult film that gained a critical respectability when it came out, an avant garde work set in a future where the populace has become impotent and the handful unaffected perform sex in clubs for paying audiences
Rather of an oddity – a French adult film about women from the future that in the aftermath of Star Wars was re-edited to become a film about alien women visitors come to kill off the human species via sex. Often directed with an artiness that proves far more than you expect
The third and least interesting of the Hong Kong series that blends erotica and the supernatural. Unlike the other films, this takes itself mostly seriously
Low-budget director Fred Olen Ray makes a softcore variation on Fatal Attraction with a vengeful Shauna O’Brien obtaining a job as the babysitter with the married man who jilted her
Sequel to the British sex comedy Percy about the world’s first penis transplant in which the central character is now the last fertile man on Earth
Tarzan turned into a tedious softcore work designed to highlight the talent-free Bo Derek in a state of undress. This directly remakes the 1932 Johnny Weissmuller film – the original was an adventure classic, this is just an expensive nudie film
Work of softcore erotica that gives the old 1950s B movie plot of astronauts encountering a planet inhabited only by women an Adults Only workover. Aside from the obvious reasons to watch this, the SF content is entirely negligible
Popular entry among the early 1970s spate of British sex comedies featuring Hywell Bennett as the recipient of the world’s first penis transplant. Mostly this serves as an excuse to string a series of sexual encounters together.
Bizarre attempt to mix the 1970s SF film with the British sex comedy as a group of people are abducted by three alien women who are ignorant about sex
B-budget dircetor Fred Olen Ray has taken the plot of Gremlins and thrown it together with one of his sofctore erotic films in which a mind-controlling goblin creature forces people to have sex
One of the numerous Virtual Reality films to come out in the mid-90s, this seems undecided whether it wants to be an SF or an erotic film
Erotic horror film made by Playboy where Kim Delaney is possessed by an incarnation of Kali
While this Canadian obscurity gives the appearance of being a 70s sex vampire film, it is in fact an X-rated Frankenstein spoof. While the film is not without its moment of complete dementia (mostly involving sex scenes with a gorilla), it eventually fragments into narrative incomprehensibility
Kari Wuhrer stars in a tawdry erotic thriller as an art student who gains clairvoyant abilities and gets caught up in solving a murder
Charles Band film directed by David DeCoteau, a lame softcore comedy where two guys travel back from a future where sex is outlawed and end up in a girl’s boarding school
Jim Wynorski is a B-budget director whose films feature women with massively oversized breasts. Beyond epic-sized mammaries, this softcore tale about housewives engaged in witchcraft that makes no sense on a plot level
A softcore erotic version of the popular fairytale. Largely the film gets the fairytale over and done with in the first eight minutes and thereafter focuses on the erotic tumblings of Beauty awakened in the present-day
The second of Hammer’s Karenstein films based on the lesbian vampire story Carmilla. This is killed by its laughable unsubtlety and an air of adolescent masturbatory fantasy
Most classic monsters have undergone an adult movie interpretation at some point – here it is the turn of The Invisible Man
Film posing as a sequel in the Hong Kong-made Erotic Ghost Story series, this consists of random sexual encounters and comic interludes without much connecting plot
Vampire erotica that is largely premised around seeing Alyssa Milano take her clothes off and little else
A blatant copy of Basic instinct with psychologist Bruce Willis getting involved with Jane March as his patients start being murdered. Much bare flesh but the film is killed by ludicrous plot twists
Very strange softcore vampire film that conducts an all-girl retelling of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. One or two okay erotic scenes but this befalls a quick shooting schedule
An erotic film in which Shauna O’Brien is possessed by the spirit of an actress from the 1940s who sets out to win the big role she missed out on in her previous life
The original Emmanuelle was a supposedly autobiographical memoir about the sexual dalliances of a bored wife in Thailand. Here Emmanuelle is now abducted by aliens for further encounters
One of the series of softcore Emmanuelle films based on an erotic memoir, which had led to some seventy films so far. Here the originally true-life character of Emmanuelle encounters Count Dracula
A David DeCoteau film about a giant alien eyeball that causes people to become erotically aroused. The chessiness of the premise is hijacked by DeCoteau’s typical homo-erotic predilections
Bill Zebub is possibly the most offensive filmmaker at work today. This largely plotless film features topless Nazi women fighting cannibal tribes, giant bugs and a Bigfoot
Thought to be a long-lost Edward D. Wood, Jr film for many years. Although only written by Wood, this has all the bad acting and hilarious purple prose of a Wood film. The film consists of strippers doing routines in a graveyard
Excruciating West German-made vampire sex comedy (that doesn’t feature Count Dracula despite the title). Painful and agonisingly unfunny comedy routines directed by someone who has no idea how to set them up
The Bare Wench Project was an inane softcore parody of The Blair Witch Project. This is the first of four sequels in which another troupe of girls go wandering in the woods while finding almost any opportunity to take their clothes off
Softcore version of Thir13en Ghosts with ghosts hunters wandering through a house and seeing various girls making out. The various encounters seem to lack even the basic conviction from those involved
This blatantly copies the plot of Basic Instinct with detective David Bradley being seduced by bisexual blonde Anna Thomson who is also the suspect in a murder investigation
Tawdry copy of Basic Instinct, an erotic thriller about a woman detective going undercover to investigate a series of murders that are linked to a health club
Following the release of Nacho Libre, we had this parody – a porn film about lucha libre (Mexican masked wrestlers), an idea that in practice ends up about as random and lame as it sounds
This may possibly be the worst Dracula film ever made. A nudie film that has been dubbed over with excruciatingly unfunny one-liners that makes it sound more like a rifftrack film
An erotic film starring Donald Trump – I kid you not! A legendarily awful Bo Derek film where she is a widow who searches the world for the perfect body for her late husband’s ghost to reincarnate in
A Basic Instinct-inspired erotic thriller where Shannen Doherty gets into light bondage and attracts the attentions of a killer. A hypocritical film that is predicated on erotic tease then condemns it as disturbed behaviour
From prolific B-budget director Fred Olen Ray, this is a softcore parody of the Indiana Jones films
A lost Edward D. Wood Jr film. Clearly made as a parody on the hit Raquel Welch-starring One Million Years B.C., this is adult work depicting the sex lives of cave people
Another in the interminable softcore Blair Witch parodies with a group of minimally talented and clothed bimbos wandering around the woods and failing to take proceedings seriously
Following the success of The Blair Witch Project, this was an excruciatingly lame softcore parody with a group of girls tramping in the woods finding almost any excuse to undress and conduct sex-related takes on Blair Witch
Fascinatingly bizarre psychotronic film about an innocent drawn into the secrets of sexual witchcraft. Bad filmmaking on almost every level
Prolific low-budget hack David DeCoteau directs what feels like a very softcore version of a Gidget film crossbred with Earth Girls Are Easy (albeit with the sexes reversed). A film that quickly sinks into awfulness