Our Staff Picks column takes you back to a time when video stores reigned supreme and the "Staff Picks" section was the place to find out what films were worthy of one's time. Of course, our version of Staff Picks has a decidedly skintillating angle, as we suss out which films from a particular subgenre are the best to find great nudity. This week let's cover one of the best years for American movies: 1984.
Some years were undeniably great for films: 1939. 1968 (others contend it is 1967, but Rosemary's Baby and Barbarella came out in '68, so it's my personal preference). 1999. I would like to add 1984 to that list of incredible movie years.
That year saw popular films like The Karate Kid, Gremlins, and Indiana Jones all get released that year. Sally Field famously gave her "you like me speech" for her Places in the Heart win (which came out in 84) and Amadeus was a critical success that wound up sweeping awards season. That was a tough year for any film to come out considering how many classics were released that year - and that includes a ton of movies with spicy hot nudity did. Here are our Staff Picks for the finest films that 1984 had to offer.
Purple Rain
I will go ahead and say that I am weirdly obsessed with Purple Rain. Not only does it feature killer performances from Prince with music from one of the best albums from the entire decade, but the storyline and execution of the movie are so entertaining. Morris Day being hilarious and Prince inexplicably playing around with a puppet during an emotional scene are forever cemented in my brain. As is the one and only Apollonia.
The scene where she gets "baptized in the waters of Lake Minnetonka" is one of the hottest nude scenes from the 80s. Couple that with her performance in black lingerie later in the movie when she is the front lady of the girl group Apollonia 6. She certainly is a "Sex Shooter".
A Nightmare on Elm Street
Did you forget that the ORIGINAL Nightmare on Elm Street was released in 1984? Watch Freddy Krueger invade the nightmares of barely legal babes like Heather Langenkamp in her bathtub scene. We see her breasts as well as a very suggestive shot between her legs.
Sixteen Candles
The Molly Ringwald classic Sixteen Candles featured the teenaged redhead sulking after her family forgets her 16th birthday. This is definitely one of the best Molly Ringwald movies (Pretty in Pink and The Breakfast Club being the other two classics), but was too young to go nude. Instead, a heavenly body double for Haviland Morris takes care of the film's nudity by taking a sexy shower. Haviland plays the cool girl Caroline who seems to have it all, including a perfect body. Molly admires this mystery person's very mature body from afar. So are we!
Revenge of the Nerds
It's the film that spoke to a generation of horny nerds: Jeff Kanew's classic comedy Revenge of the Nerds! Not only is this film an absolute classic, but it gave us classic 80s nudity - and a lot of it. These nerds were actually quite naughty as they saw breasts from Julia Montgomery and bush from Lisa Welch
Body Double
Brian De Palma's Body Double is a Skin Hall of Fame classic. Craig Wasson plays an aspiring actor who has fallen on hard times. He stays with a friend and becomes obsessed with spying on a woman who lives nearby played by Deborah Shelton. The movie is filled with Hitchcockian twists and turns and clearly pays homage to Rear Window and Vertigo with an interesting switcheroo plot. Melanie Griffith plays a porn star who starts acting as the woman that our leading man was obsessed with which makes watching her through a giant telescope even hotter.
Night of the Comet
For a lesser-known film, check out Night of the Comet. This is a film that I only saw on the recommendation of a video store clerk years back when I moaned that I was pretty sure I had seen every sci-fi/horror movie the store had to offer. Then she handed me this film. I'm SO happy that I took her recommendation. This sci-fi classic follows two sisters who manage to survive Halley's Comet crashing to Earth and turning everyone into zombies. They have to dodge the flesh-eaters and make it to an L.A. radio station that is transmitting a signal making everyone want to eat flesh.
Kelli Maroney stars as the hot sister and while she doesn't go nude in the movie, this is a good time to mention that Kelli has skintastic nude scenes in 1991's Scream Queen Hot Tub Party. That being said, she does look outstanding in her white lace lingerie in the film. I highly recommend watching this for a fun time if you've never seen it before.
Hardbodies
The comedy Hardbodies stood out among the 80s sex comedies for its, well, cast of hardbodies. Hot blonde women on bikinis on the beach? What's not to love about that? Kristi Somers, Leslee Bremmer, Jackie Easton, Juli Lawrence, Teal Roberts, and MORE star in this sexy film. With 12 nude scenes, it is easy to see why this would be a staff recommendation.
Three middle-aged men decide to spend some time ogling the hard-bodied babes at the beaches of Southern California. There they get exactly what they hoped for: a bounty of babes.
Watch one of the many HOT scenes from Hardbodies here:
