The reception to Paul Verhoeven’s lurid 1995 melodrama starring Elizabeth Berkley, Kyle Mac Lachlan and Gina Gershon was humiliating, but it’s since become a thought-provoking camp favorite.

What’s a “good-bad” movie? It’s the kind of flick that might have you cackling, hollering or groaning, one that is not necessarily great cinema but is great fun. It’s highly watchable even though — or maybe because — it’s memorably ridiculous.

In this NC-17 film, Berkley stars as Nomi Malone, a young woman who yearns to dance under the glittering Las Vegas lights. But Nomi is not your typical starry-eyed dreamer. She flings and flails her limbs in every direction. She thrashes like a fish out of water while giving a nude lap dance to Kyle Mac Lachlan’s character, an opportunistic bigwig.

Over the last 30 years, though, “Showgirls” has done the almost impossible by becoming one of MGM’s best sellers, undergoing a critical re-evaluation and maintaining a legion of devotees. The film passes the Bechdel test in spades and is not sexy in the slightest, a main criticism initially but perhaps the entire point.