I've seen a lot of these 1960's biker movies. They are one of my favorite movie genres. Only a few left that I haven't checked out. If you check my other reviews, you'll see this to be the case.
This one is a complete mess, but if you're looking some primo ATMOSPHERE, this clunker has it in spades. Plenty of filthy bikers, hot biker chicks (including Cyclops, the bad-ass chick with an eye patch!), drinking Miller high Life, selling dope, and like most biker films, implied rape.
But if you want a good plot, 'fraid you're too square for the room, fella. What plot there is involves Ross Hagen (late of The Sidehackers, The Devil's 8, and Speedway, plus an infinite number of TV guest shots...and still acting, bless him! UPDATE 2012: Ross was still acting when I wrote this review, but he is no longer with us, R.I.P.) as a gormless straight who "goes undercover" and infiltrates a sleazy biker gang to get his own personal brand of revenge. (A tired plot device shared with several other 60's biker flicks, including the Mini Skirt Mob, Hells Angels '69, and my personal favorite, The Tormentors.) See, his brother got offed by these unshaven scumbags and he's gonna take them down! Payback is a bitch, man. He's joined by his brother's foxy, but not too foxy, fiancé. They're just waiting for the right moment to get their revenge! Meanwhile, they ride around on bikes, fist fight, and drink Miller High Life.
There's some other nonsense regarding dealing large quantities of narcotics and the police attempting to keep an eye on the gang's nefarious activities. Of course, these plot threads, threadbare as they are, join up at the end. Or do they? The plot is so weak it was kind of hard to tell exactly what was going on. In fact, the cruddy VHS dub I had featured muffled sound, making most of the dialog hard to fathom.
I have to say I gave this movie a 4 because I thought the music was pretty cool; some actual '67 garage band cuts, plus some really lovably overdone canned production background music that was probably left over from 77 Sunset Strip. Plenty of bongos in evidence. There was even a soundtrack LP released, which I believe somebody recently reissued in the past couple years. "Groovy, man."
So there you have The Hellcats. No plot at all, but plenty of Sixties biker gang atmosphere and neat music. If that's enough to intrigue you, give it a try. If you haven't seen any of these Drive-In motorcycle movies before, start off with a better one like THE WILD ANGELS, or better yet, THE TORMENTORS, which is utterly preposterous, but hilariously so.
