The Hellcats

A very lame attempt to show what the motorcycle culture of the late 1960's was like, the Hellcats was just plain bad. The audio was very hard to hear, the plot meanders aimlessly, and most of the time doesn't make sense. About the only redeeming feature for me was the hot babes in skin-tight clothing. Ross Hagen lives out a fantasy of his by getting to "bed" several women in one movie.

The idea may have looked good on paper, but the execution was awful.

Avoid this one unless you're watching the MST3K version.

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.

Another film that starred Ross Hagen and was featured on the cult show, Mystery Science Theater 3000 this is yet another film featuring motorcycles, beer and revenge! Like another Hagen film, "Five the Hard Way" or "Sidehackers", but it does not feature the completely pointless side hacking. That being said, it was the worst of the two films as it was rather incoherent and while "Five the Hard Way" is not an award winner, at least once the side hacking portion of the film was wrapped up it made perfect sense. This one takes forever to get where it is going and goes a very round about way to do so and this is why instead of a cut and dry revenge plot we go by getting drunk at a bar, hanging out in the field, rival gang wars before stopping at our final destination revenge. The film actually preceded "Five the Hard Way" and it pretty much looks like it was shot almost right before they started filming that movie as you can see they used a couple of the same locations. I know that the small cabin in the middle of what looks like a rock quarry was the same place that JC was holed up in at the end of "Five the Hard Way".

The story has a gang that is wild or something and one of their own has been killed or something. A detective is trying to nail some drug dealer or something that uses the biker gang as sort of a delivery service; however, the detective is killed leaving behind a fiancé and his brother, Ross Hagen! Ross must infiltrate the gang and find out who is behind the death of his brother. However, he has plenty of time for beers and having sex with some of the members of this rowdy biker gang who spends most of their time drinking and occasionally having all out fights with rival gangs that can apparently be stopped by someone jumping in and going 'no war'.

This made for a rather funny episode of MST3K as they referenced the fact this film was kind of a lot like "Sidehackers". Sometimes, during the Joel seasons they would do films that were similar or sequels to films and at times the jokes would become stale; however, not so much the case with this one. The main problem I had with this one was the bumps which featured them flashing back to earlier episodes which seemed kind of lazy.

So this film was not good...not by a long shot. I did not care about Hagen's character in this one as much as I did in "Five the Hard Way" as he seemed to be enjoying his time undercover and not really finding anything out while the fiancé was doing all the work. In "Five the Hard Way" he could not talk clearly at all, but I knew his wife to be was killed and I wanted him to beat the crap out of JC because he was annoying! This one, I just wanted it over as at times he seemed to forget his brother.

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.

"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