H.O.T.S.

I saw this several years ago on the Playboy channel. It featured a few Playmates (Kiger & Bryant--an Indianapolis native), a future T.V. sidekick of Mike Hammer (Bloom) and a has-been child star (Bonaduce) all frolicking in the highjinks of college.

Throw in a Hattie McDaniel/Lillian Randolph type maid for comedy relief, lots of boobies and some strip football and you have all the makings of a classic drive-in movie. H.O.T.S. was made after the success of National Lampoon's Animal House, and in some ways was better--more or less because of the girlies. While the plots not memorable (poor girls getting even with rich vixens) it does have its classic moments like the pie fight from a hot-air balloon, nude skydiving--performed wonderfully by the late Angela Aames, the real life bear scenes and the strip football game.

Not a movie to watch with your wife/girlfriend/concubine/lover, but instead one to watch with a buddy or several guys over a six-pack, pizza and snacks.

You know, I really have a problem with movie lists. I was reading Maxim magazine a while ago and they had a list of the 50 Greatest B-Movies of all time, and knowing me, I of course have to go through and watch them all and write reviews of all of them. This is why you see reviews of movies like Gator Bait and Barb Wire and Coffy on my list. So I noticed H.O.T.S. at the video store the other day and recognized it from Maxim's list of the 50 greatest B-movies, and I decided to rent it and check it out. My only consolation is that I rented it because I recognized it from a list of B-movies, so I already knew it was going to suck.

Given the type of movie that it is, I can't say that H.O.T.S. is a total failure, since it is nothing more than a late 70s T&A film, and it never pretends to by anything else. The only place where it strays widely from its objective is in a ragged subplot involving a couple of ex-cons who have stashed a lot of stolen money in the house that the self-named H.O.T.S. move in to, because this subplot has absolutely no place in the movie. Despite the fact that the rest of the movie is as well, this subplot is completely superfluous and unnecessary.

The story is based on a couple of rival sororities at the beloved F.U., which exists as one of those Universities that contains a grand total of one sorority until the rejects form their own in order to get back at the snobs in the other one. This new sorority, Help Out The Seals (H.O.T.S.), is a sorority supposedly based on helping seals (the seal subplot is another one that doesn't really belong in the movie, and little attention is paid to the meaning of that name beyond having a seal running around here and there throughout the movie).

This is going to sound weird, but there was actually one scene that I was pretty impressed with in this movie. One SHOT that I was impressed with, I should say. About midway through the movie, one of the girls in Pi, the rival sorority, is pouring alcohol into the punch, and she pours some for herself in a glass and drinks it. Oddly enough, what she does as she drinks that alcohol reminds me of something that Charlie Chaplin would do, which really brightened up the movie. Obviously, nothing in this movie comes close to anything that Chaplin ever did, but that shot alone raised my score for the movie from a 2 to a 4.

As a whole, however, the movie is exactly what you would expect it to be, a lot of people running around looking for excuses to take off their clothes (I liked how the remove-one-piece-of-clothing-for-every-score in the football game at the end was one of the GIRLS' ideas. Riiiiiiiiight…), and not much thought is put into much of anything else. There is, for example, a scene early in the film when a couple of the Pi girls pour hot sauce into the refreshments at a H.O.T.S. party, accidentally getting caught in an incriminating photograph (the girl taking the picture didn't realize that she photographed them at the time), although the photograph never comes up for any reason later in the film.

I've seen movies like this before, it's kind of like Gator Bait but without the violence and the rednecks and Coffy wasn't far off. Even Barb Wire is much the same, just with a bigger budget and more silicon. Thankfully, Maxim's 50 B-movie list contains only a few more comedies, because while these cheesy teen T&A films are entertaining every once in a while as bad movies with the occasional semi-nude scene, after watching H.O.T.S. I think I've decided that I like the bad horror movies better than the bad comedies. I'd rather watch a lot of terrible actors pretend to be scared than pretend to be funny.

h.o.t.s. is one of those sexy 70's drive in movies that features many of playboys famous playmates from the 70's like sexy tall blonde Susan kiger,Pamela jean Bryant,Lisa London,kc winkler and the late sexy Angela Ames.and would you believe a post partridge family Danny bonaduce?its the snobby girls verses the good girls(the hots girls)led by Susan kiger.there's a couple of comedy relief gangsters,a runaway bear,a trained seal,misplaced bras,etc;etc;think animal house meets hooters.h.o.t.s. is an enjoyable little comedy with t& a no complaints here.i actually think that Susan kiger was one of playboys sexiest playmates from the 70's.she did do a few more movies including deathscreams.if you like fun drive in movies you will no doubt enjoy h.o.t.s. 7 out of 10

H.O.T.S. is a fun film for a trip back to when skin flicks had a more positive fun-filled agenda. They were made simply to titillate and have a few laughs. Everything seems less cynical and jaded. The girls all have natural figures and some are Playboy playmates. The simple plot deals with a group of young women who open a non-sanctioned sorority house to get back at the snooty sorority girls who spurned and insulted them. Instead of the mean spirited tricks of today, most of the hijinks are simply innocent fun. The women are decent actresses for this genre and are mostly very attractive. To keep our attention between the topless scenes, we have mafia henchmen, a stolen bear, a hot air balloon, a funky house mother, and the cheapest robot ever seen. There's even Danny Bonnaducci of the Partridge Family. If you have a sense of humor then let yourself go and enjoy some light entertainment.

I saw this picture when it was released 30 years ago, mainly because of the topless football game. I enjoyed it back then, but seeing it again on Netflix TV after three decades was a disappointment. Not that the movie doesn't have its positives: (1) high-quality cinematography, lighting, editing, and photography; (2) beautiful, often topless, babes; and (3) a couple of recognizable (real) actors from the past (Dick Bakalyan and Louis Guss as the gangsters).

That being said, the flick went overboard trying to be "zany," cramming into practically every scene some sort of tired, infantile gag that draws winces instead of chuckles. Further, beneath the ostensible light, good-natured goings-on, with everybody supposedly having such a great time acting crazy or simply being weird, runs a subliminal hostility and meanness that progressively depresses the viewer. Ha, ha. Isn't the fat girl funny, especially when she outweighs her nerdy boyfriend by 200 pounds? What a riot! Ha, ha. The opera singer bellows off-key and then falls into the pool! How original! Whoever thought of that? Brilliant stroke of comedy! As bright and cheerful as H.O.T.S. makes itself out to be, it's actually kind of repulsive.

As one reviewer noted years ago, H.O.T.S. is one of those movies better watched with the sound off. The outstanding beauty of (my personal choices, in order) Kimberly Cameron, K.C. Winkler, Sandy Johnson, and Lisa London shouldn't be marred by idiotic dialogue.

Five stars: ten for the feminine beauty and the vintage actors, zero for everything else.