Meaning & use
skin flick
Last updated
Meanings
nouncountableinformaldisapproving
A film that shows a lot of naked people and sexual activity, usually of low quality.
Grammar: Countable: you can say 'a skin flick' or 'two skin flicks'.
Patterns
- a skin flick
- watch a skin flick
- star in a skin flick
The late-night channel was showing some old skin flick from the seventies.
He joked that the movie was basically a skin flick with a plot added at the last minute.
Critics dismissed the film as a cheap skin flick, but it made a lot of money.
nouncountableinformaldisapproving
Any movie or video whose main appeal is explicit sexual content rather than story or acting.
Grammar: Often used with words like 'cheap', 'low-budget' or 'soft-core' before it.
Patterns
- a cheap skin flick
- a soft-core skin flick
The website streams nothing but low-budget skin flicks.
She refused to take the role because it sounded like a skin flick.
Word forms
| plural | skin flicks |
|---|
Common combinations
- a cheap skin flick
- They rented a cheap skin flick and laughed at the acting.
- a soft-core skin flick
- The cable channel fills its late-night slots with soft-core skin flicks.
- watch a skin flick
- My roommate was watching a skin flick when I got home.
- star in a skin flick
- Before she became famous, she starred in a skin flick.
- dismiss something as a skin flick
- Reviewers dismissed the drama as a skin flick with better lighting.
Synonyms and how they differ
- porn movie
- Much more direct and often more offensive; 'skin flick' is a softer, older slang term that hints rather than states.
- blue movie
- An old-fashioned, informal term for the same thing, now rare and dated.
- erotic film
- More neutral and less disapproving; it can describe serious films with sexual themes.
Commonly confused: skin flick or skin-deep? skin flick or flick?
skin flick vs skin-deep
A different phrase meaning 'not deep or lasting', as in 'beauty is only skin-deep'; it has nothing to do with films.
skin flick vs flick
On its own, 'flick' means a quick light movement or, informally, a movie ('a good flick'); the sexual meaning comes only from 'skin'.
Practice
Which sentence uses 'skin flick' correctly?
Choose one answer.
'Skin flick' is an informal, disapproving term for a movie with explicit sexual content, so the cinema example fits. The other options use 'flick' in its literal sense of a quick movement, which cannot combine with 'skin' that way.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “skin flick”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.