The Five Sexiest Dance Scenes in Horror

“Sexy” and “horror” aren’t usually two words associated with each other. But there’s definitely an allure of eroticism always hanging around the fringe of horror culture. Horror TV hostesses like Elvira and Vampira set the standard for sexually-charged horror mascots, a tradition carried down in today’s sexed-up versions of Halloween costumes. Here’s our picks for the top five times horror movies defined themselves as being for mature audiences for more than one reason.

#5. The Return Of The Living Dead (1985) Not exactly the most canon entry in the Living Dead franchise, but it does give us this memorable scene. Punk-goth riot-grrl Trash (Linnea Quigley) gets so carried away imagining what her worst death scenario could be that she doffs her duds for a midnight graveyard burlesque. It’s like a lost scene from The Rocky Horror Picture Show, or perhaps Tank Girl.

#4. The Wicker Man (1973) We’d go with Willow’s private apartment dance of decadence, but every clip from this movie appears to be too steamy for the Internet. So for second-best we’ll go with the outdoor fire dance. It’s the first time Sergeant Howie (Edward Woodward) is confronted by how, um, different the island’s approach to religion is, and leads to a hilarious scene where he confronts Lord Summerisle (Christopher Lee) aghast at the public nudity, only to have Summerisle chortle that of course they’re naked, you wouldn’t want to jump over fire with clothes on! It’s also this simple, Eden-like scene with the haunting song, giving us a perfect mix of Pagan savagery and childish innocence.

#3. Death Proof (2007) You knew Quentin Tarantino would be on this list somewhere, right? We already covered this scene here in discussing the music, but the dance scene all by itself is a show-stopper. Butterfly (Vanessa Ferlito) is compelled to give a lap dance to Stuntman Mike (Kurt Russell) as nothing more than a payoff on a bet, arranged by her friend - because what the heck are friends for anyway?

#2. From Dusk Til Dawn (1996) Yes, you knew Tarantino would be on here twice! Hollywood’s most outspoken pervert gets to exercise his foot fetish here yet again when Santanico Pandemonium (Salma Hayek) comes slitherin’ down the stage with a snake (we think it’s a python? snake experts?) to stick her tootsies right in Tarantino’s mouth. According to Hayek in subsequent interviews, she asked how come Quentin and not George Clooney, and Quentin shot back “because I’m the writer.”

#1. Lost Highway (1997) Not to be outdone on the fetish exhibition front. David Lynch also has a penchant for including sexy scenes in his films, and yet they’re typically an extreme version of some kind of fetish (or WHATEVER the heck Frank Booth’s thing is called in Blue Velvet). But for startling erotic scenes out of nowhere, nothing quite beats “sudden strip tease at gunpoint” for shock value alone. Patricia Arquette gets a lot of sex scenes in this movie, even down to being a porn co-star with Marilyn Manson (who provides the soundtrack here in a brilliant cover of "I Put A Spell On You"), so it’s just as well we get this introduction to her.

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