The Hellcats

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 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.

Budget Steve McQueen (AKA Ross Hagen, of "Sidehackers" fame) romps his way through this tour de force as an undercover agent infiltrating a motorcycle gang in the hopes of avenging his brother's murder. And the very fact I could glean that much information by watching this movie is amazing given the complete lack of plot coherence (what am I saying? I mean complete lack of plot!) in this movie. Well, OK, I'll come clean. I cheated - I read the back of the video box.

Although not as pointlessly violent and nihilistic as "Sidehackers", "Hellcats" is a squalid film, showing the sixties in all its greasy grimy trashy squalor. This film and others like it are useful antidotes for the prevailing baby boomer nostalgia that would characterize that decade as one of peace, love, idealism, and truly selfless devotion a to great causes serving all of humanity. Let's not kid ourselves - the sixties reeked! Just ask Budget Steve! He was there! Right, B.S.?

By the way, it was interesting to see all the Coleman Francis alumni here, particularly the film's producer, Anthony Cardoza as a hapless artist.

Open at a biker funeral - then watch biker chick drive around for miles with 5 bucks worth of drugs in headlight - give to another biker to have them drive for miles burning up 10 dollars worth of gas - give to director guy and dog - Ross Hagen gets out of a plane to investigate what I don't know. Ross then drives around on bike for miles to some bar to listen to the bike song and drink beer then go to a field to drink and throw bugle boy into pond to hear him exclaim "Abbedopluliska a vont" then drive more after implied bike race, go to director's guy hangout then to waterfront while biker gang comes to the rescue at 27 MPH... AAUUUGGGGHHHH!!!

This is a bad movie even for Ross Hagen, and MST3K barely makes it tolerable.

Don't say you weren't warned!!

This incredibly shoddy 60's biker flick is a real mess. It features Ross Hagen as a man who infiltrates a bike gang called The Hellcats in order to find out who killed his brother. The plot has about as much focus as the blurry camera-work. It's all over the place. Random events sometimes happen for no discernible reason, for example, the scene where the artist and his model are attacked by bikers doesn't seem to have any relevance to anything. On the other hand, when a potentially half-interesting moment is about to happen, it's not shown at all; like when the bike race between to two gang leaders happens off-screen, wow the excitement. The scenes with The Hellcats are pretty sloppy in general and often just seem to consist of them muntering around while the psychedelic pop of the never-popular Davey Jones and the Dolphins plays endlessly in the background. The theme tune may nefariously make its way into your subconscious, so please beware. Despite the presence of authentic looking bikers, this is not exactly convincing stuff. When Ross Hagen first meets The Hellcats, he wins their respect by defeating their leader by simply pushing him over. I'm not certain that manoeuvre would've worked with The Hell's Angels to be perfectly honest but hey this is the movies eh? Our gang do incorporate some harder initiation rituals however, such as the strange limb stretching procedure so fair play but, sadly, they also have a member who goes around annoyingly playing a bugle at every given opportunity, so less respect on that score.

At the end of the day this film is all over the place. The camera-work is out-of-focus and badly framed, with peoples heads often off-screen. The acting is really terrible. The story is badly put together. And the action scenes are terribly presented (you would be forgiven for not even noticing when The Hellcat leader is shot, it's so shoddily done). Overall, it wasn't all that entertaining and can only be described as a truly Z-Grade counter-culture clunker.