I don't understand how this became a cult classic.

I'm not saying Showgirls was a very good movie, but it was more interesting piece of work than Total Recall or Hollow Man from the same director.

So if you were a healthy adult male who watched Saved By the Bell then this came out, you sacrificed many man babies to the altar of Elizabeth Berkley. If you don't understand that then you aren't the target audience.

I just rewatched it for the first time since it was in cinemas, and I can understand how it became a cult classic. It's excessive. It's camp. It's gleefully vulgar. It has some risible but possibly quite quotable dialogue. It's relentlessly... itself. It feels almost designed for cult classic status.

That said, I still didn't like it this time around any more than I did the first time around. To me, it's just a very blunt satire that doesn't work -- largely because it's hamstrung by a terrible screenplay. Things I did like about it -- the intentionally glossy and vacuous tone -- were put to better use in Starship Troopers, an in several ways similar, but much sharper satire on American values. I think Starship Troopers works. I don't think Showgirls does...

... but it's easy to see why some folk like it.