Teenage Catgirls in Heat

TEENAGE CATGIRLS IN HEAT (2+ outta 5 stars) Extremely silly movie... another ultra-low-budget Troma movie... which means a lot of cheap special effects, stupid jokes, gratuitous nudity and bad acting. In spite of all that... I kinda enjoyed this one. A magical cat idol transform ordinary house-cats into nubile young women in a bid to take over the world (or something like that). A cat hunter and a young drifter team up to try and stop them... but the drifter complicates matters when he falls in love with one of the "catgirls". Some of the actresses do a great job of playing cats in human bodies... speaking in a weird, mewling voice... playing with yarn... coughing up fur balls... Carrie Vanston as Cleo does an especially good job. Other than a few funny acting bits, though... there isn't much to see here. The story is stupid, the dialogue is poor and the directing is mediocre at best. Not enough sex for the softcore audience... and too much nudity for this to be a family movie (thought there were times it reminded of some of those lame Disney movies from the early '60s where people turned into dogs and things).

Usually you expect a certain level of "quality" from the boys at Troma and I eagerly awaited this film.

The first time I fell asleep--which I rarely do even during the worst films. Why was the campy over the top humor? The over acting? The grotesque makeup?

The second time I stayed awake until the end--still nothing!

The third time I kind of liked it--maybe the boys are geniuses after all!

The first half of this movie is dull and plodding, with too little footage of the title creatures and too much footage of an annoying, overacting, unfunny, boozing "cat hunter" who becomes the hero's sidekick. The second half is a bit better, thanks mostly to the beautiful Carrie Vanston, who gives a wonderfully earnest and unembarrassed performance doing things that many other actresses would consider embarrassing (licking, hissing, scratching, rubbing herself against humans, drinking liquids, etc. like a cat). The other "catgirls" do a pretty good job too, and the occasional nudity helps, but overall this is yet another case of the Title Being Better Than The Movie - don't you just hate it when that happens? And I know it's not supposed to be taken seriously, but they still should have come up with a better excuse for the catgirls going so quickly from simply repeating sentences they heard on TV and a tape recorder to speaking perfect English. (*1/2)

The main story of this flick is quite simple....a cat figurine houses the spirit of a long-dead queen, ruler of the catgirls. As soon as she gives the command, all the little kittens around town sprout and grow into full-sized human females with insatiable sexual appetites. The girls sell themselves as cats well: they don't talk, just purr, meow, and lick their hands. Of course we have the hero of the story, who's trying to put an end to the sex-crazed madness, and his buddy, who is quite peculiar to say the least.

Linnea Quigley makes an appearance, if you blink you're gonna miss her.

I think they shot this move primarily in the daytime, because to simulate "night" they slapped a heavy blue filter on the camera. It was so heavy I couldn't see what was going on without squinting.

Oh, one more thing....when the catgirls have sex, they like to say "meow" over and over. Just another way for these ladies to sell themselves as "catgirls". Funny stuff.

In the end, not good enough to go in my Top 10, but not bad enough to ignore....I give it a C+ and honorable mention.

When it comes to trashy films no one makes them like Troma, and, while this is hardly a masterpiece, Teenage Catgirls in Heat has all the ingredients of good entertainment.

Come now, do we expect anything more than cheesy special effects from the Troma team? Do we expect erudite dialogue and interwoven subplots? Of course not. What you get when you insert the cassette is exactly what you would expect. Lots of naked girls, a simple plot with simple-minded characters, and humor that is often wickedly satirical. Take for instance when catgirl Carrie Vanston is asked her name and she replies as if she is being called to dinner, "C-L-E-E-E-E-E-O-H-H! C-L-E-E-E-E-E-O-H-H!" or when she hesitantly touches the truck seat before entering the vehicle. In fact my only criticism is that there wasn't enough of Miss Vanston.

Teenage Catgirls in Heat may not be on a par with one of our Northwest Microbrews, but it is curiously refreshing and entertaining.