209-The Hellcats

Film Year:  1968
Genre:  Drama
Director:  Robert F. Slatzer
Starring:  Ross Hagen, Dee Duffy, Sharyn Kinzie
MST Season:  2

The Movie

*I HAVE SURVIVED WATCHING THIS MOVIE UNRIFFED*

Season two’s unofficial biker trilogy comes to an end, saving the worst for last.  The Hellcats is an ugly movie telling the tale of ugly characters who act determined to make the audience feel dead inside.  The storyline involves an undercover cop gunned down, leading his widow and brother (Ross Hagen of Side Hackers anti-fame) to seek revenge by infiltrating the gang he was affiliated with.

Of course when I say it like that it almost sounds compelling.  Experiencing it is a different matter.

Hellcats is a long, plodding affair of endless padding.  The film feels made for motorcycle gang fetishists who paid to see lowlifes drink, assault each other, make silly faces, and scream “Wooooooooo!” as if they’re doing something worthwhile with their time.  Oh and they might ride a motorcycle or two also.  Maybe someone wanted to see that.

The movie is quite frankly a big load of nothing.  Somebody thought filming random assholes would be entertaining and they made a movie that proved them wrong.  Even the main characters infiltrating the gang come off sleazy and boring, giving us nothing to root for except the sweet release of death.  The trailer to the film shows off all the lady characters giving the impression that this movie is an all woman show, and the movie can’t even deliver on that titillation aspect to make it worthwhile.

And I turn off the DVD player asking myself if life is really worth living if films like this are going to be what I’m subjected to on the show.  But do Joel and the Bots make life worth living again?

The Episode

Barely.

The MST episode of this wretched movie is actually a bit funnier than the reputation it built up would have you believe.  The biggest problem is the movie they’re watching is just so...unwatchable.  But there’s little wrong with the riffing, which is constantly quite funny.  This movie just hurts and it’s hard to take the whole episode in one sitting because of it.

Not helping matters is the well known fact that this episode had a shortened writing period due to the writers being out of town.  If I were to guess based on the final product the host segments suffered more than the riffing.  The episode does only half of an Invention Exchange, which allows Joel to finally reveal the Sign Language Translator he wasn’t able to show in Lost Continent (which is a neat visual prop) while the Mads just dig out the Hobby Hogs and scream at the camera.  Most host segments are flashbacks to previous episodes, making this the official MST3K clip show, recycling segments from The Crawling Hand, Rocketship X-M, and Jungle Goddess.  The last two are goodies, though the reuse of the Shatner segment from season one just reminded me of how bizarre it was.

Hellcats is funny at the best of times, but is hard to watch even when it hits those highs.  Some might say the writing is to blame but this movie is a boat anchor, and they give it a good try.  I laughed, but I feel so dirty…

Average

The DVD

Rhino released the episode individually, which was probably unfortunate since it’s not very popular.  The video transfer is flawed, with a constant tape hit running across the screen during the entire episode.  Audio is unaffected.

The primary bonus feature is the film uncut, which is a slog.  The full frame picture is dirty and the sound is faded and full of noise.  Not a surprise.  A trailer is here too, which shows the film in its original widescreen.

Shout Factory later compiled it into a collection of formerly released Rhino singles called The Singles Collection.  Audio and video were solid, while the uncut film is dropped and the trailer to the film was the only special feature.