The Hellcats

The folks behind "MST3K" must love the fact that there are so many bad movies, as it gives them material for their show. "The Hellcats" is one such movie. This muddled story about a biker gang getting revenge for someone's murder is about as coherent as lava is cold. The movie's whole purpose seems to be showing off buxom women wearing tight clothes. The dance numbers are meaningless, the motorcycle-riding scenes drag on for too long, and the dialog is incomprehensible. Oh, and there's also some blonde women whose reason for existence is to wear bikinis. So, it only makes sense that Joel, Servo and Crow had a great time mocking this movie, as they did with another Ross Hagen movie ("The Sidehackers"). Dreadful.

Before watching the MST3K version, I prepared myself to watch the original trailer and uncut version on the same DVD. The movie proper is meandering concerning plot, dialogue, and especially action scenes especially when a bike race is only heard while we're seeing close-up after close-up of what seems like bored spectators. There's also a couple of drunken/stoned orgy scenes that was probably the main reason for The Hellcats existence. You see some excitement at the end but by that time you'll simply be glad when it's all over. So unless you're curious about these late '60s drive-in fare, I wouldn't recommend this movie. Just the MST3K version will do for me which I'm going to review next...

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.

"No, I can't take a chance... ....I'm losing my baby!!"

Just an example of the splendid music you will hear in this one. Obviously, a low budget clunker, Hellcats gives viewers the ability to perceive the world through drug addled, alcohol fueled eyes. Like a nightmare, Ross "chili peppers still burn my gut" Hagen does his best work almost rivaling his role as Rommel...and that's NOT a compliment!

Not much plot or story, acting needed here. Just pay the actors in booze and narcotics, add jovial characters like Six Pack, Cyclops, Hiney ("Hiney cubed it again") and you have further brain cell eradication. Watch the performances here...you can't act this dazed and confused folks...they really got ripped for this one and we got a camera, HEY, let's film it!

I really thought Wild Rebels was bad, Ross Hagen will have you wishing for Steve Alaimo anytime. However, there's more madcap fun in this one than in Sidehackers (ugh!). Don't miss the music and dancing!

"NO, NO, NO, NO, NO!!" <--- actual song from Hellcats

I watched this travesty of a movie on MST3K and I can tell you, even Joel and the robots can't save this mess of a movie. The movie starts with a little blurt of a plot about an undercover police officer who gets killed. The killed officer's brother and wife decide to infiltrate a biker gang to find who killed the officer. This all takes about 15 minutes to set up. The next hour will be filled by terrible "motorcycle riding" scenes (definate filler) a pointless booze, drug, orgy type thing, a stupid booze, drug, orgy picnic, a motorcycle race (where you don't get to see the race, just the spectators), a fight scene that may well have been choreagraphed by a retarded todler and finally a teensy bit of resolution for the "plot". The only thing I could think about during this movie is how much I wanted some of the copious amounts of booze they were inhaling, it would have made the movie hurt less.

It's worth watching if you feel like getting very drunk and laughing, but for just straight watching it's no Space Mutiny or Gamera.