Each example is scored from one to five Roger Cormans based on the extent, duration, and gratuitousness of the nudity. (Roger also serves double duty in the pictures themselves to keep everything relatively work-safe.)

Gratuitous nudity is a staple of movies, but it's more important in some genres than in others. Most sci-fi and horror, for instance, couldn't exist without all the tits and asses that filmmakers use to distract audiences from the gaping plot holes and leaps of illogic that make those genres what they are. Hell, enough gratuitous nudity could have saved even Battlefield Earth, although it would have taken something on the order of a human pyramid of naked Scarlett Johanssons slathered in rich creamery butter to unflush that turd. Far luckier were the following sci-fi and horror movies, each of which was rescued (or at least greatly improved) by gratuitous nudity.

Lifeforce (1985)

Featuring Mathilda May as 'Space Girl'

A landmark of full frontal nudity. Hell, you just know it's going to be good when the female lead is known only as 'Space Girl.'

Summary

A team of astronauts led by Steve Railsback (yes, THE Steve Railsback) exploring Halley's Comet discovers an alien spaceship. Inside, they find THOUSANDS UPON THOUSANDS OF GIANT SPACE BATS, all long dead, plus three naked people preserved in plexiglass cocoons. Seeing no possible danger, they bring the naked people back to Earth. Once there, the naked people, led by a very naked Mathilda May, wake up and start attacking people, sucking out their 'lifeforce' and tuing them into energy vampires like themselves. London is soon overrun with wildly gesticulating ghouls, and the race is on to stop the plague before NATO nukes the city.

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Defining Moment

Male Vampire to potential victim: "It will be much less terrifying if you just come to me."

Analysis

This is one messed up movie. It starts out sci-fi adventure, then suddenly veers into supeatural murder mystery, then just as suddenly veers into all-out end-of-the-world horror. But whatever it is, May's glorious body carries it from start to finish, tuing what should have been just another ham-fisted B movie into an instant classic. May really is something to behold, parading around as naked as the day she was bo, and not even the sight of Railsback in a hard lip-lock with Patrick Stewart can ruin it. Without all that gratuitous nudity, there's no way audiences could have sat through this genre-defying experiment in weirdness without going permanently cross-eyed.

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Score: Five Cormans.