Showgirls Sequel Try Two of Them

Last summer, when word started circulating that a German director had secured financing for a sequel to Showgirls based around that film's small-town stripper turned headliner, Hope (Rena Riffel), movie blogs went nuts. A reported $25 million budget for one of the most critically reviled movies of all time -- albeit one that gay fans have kept alive through DVD sales and midnight screenings?

Well, it happened ... the trailer to director Marc Vorlander's film debuted earlier this year. Only the title (Showgirls 2: The Story of Hope) has been changed to Showgirls: The Return (pictured at right), and the movie, according to blogs, now has nothing to do with Hope.

Why? Because Riffel went out and made her own film.

"I worked together with Rena several month on the pre-production of the film, then after some artistic differences we split," Vorlander told blog The Slog in January. "I dreamed about doing a follow-up already in 1996 when I first saw it, but a sequel is not exactly my intention -- my film is rather a reload of the Showgirls theme."

While the trailer for Vorlander's movie looks like an extended music video -- and Vorlander has said in interviews that the trailer available online is just a compiled string of outtakes from a test shoot in Frankfurt -- complete with pounding club music, a hint of blood, and slick shots of naked women getting it on, Riffel's Showgirl: The Movie (pictured below) has the look of a B-movie spoof.

The actress, who last year made the film festival rounds with her well received B horror movie Trasharella, has stocked her film with low-budget backdrops, drag queens posing as dancers, and the obligatory girl-on-girl shot that fades to black just before the actress drops her top.

Neither of the Showgirls films has a release date -- the websites for both films have nothing on them beyond the trailers. But both have the potential to become camp classics among gay fans.

Check out the trailers for Showgirls: The Return here and Showgirl: The Movie below.