Cheap Mystery Science Theater 3000 - The Hellcats (DVD) (Robert F. Slatzer) Price

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Customer Reviews of Mystery Science Theater 3000 - The Hellcats

One of the worst MST3K episodes...
Forgive me for saying so, all you MSTies out there like myself, but isn't this movie just a little TOO bad? I mean, even if Joel and the Bots were in their best-ever form (which they absolutely aren't in this episode), would it really be worth it to sit through this cinematic atrocity? Well, maybe if they were as funny as in Pod People, one of their best, but still when a movie is just too bad, it seems like the writers have too much to work with and just work on the obvious (e.g. bad music, long senseless scenes, corny dialouge, no plot whatsoever). But as in Pod People, where its bad, but its production values are just good enough to have the MST3K writers sweat a bit, the episode seems to be much better than usual.

I would provide some of the best lines from this episode, but there really aren't any. By the by, stay away from CATALINA CAPER also, for similar reasons.

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one of the first great episodes
If you're like me, and i think many people are, you got in to mst3k too late. you caught it on it's switch to sci-fi, and feel like you missed out on the comedy central episodes which old school fans love so much.

well first of all let me say that i now have every single episode of mst3k, and i claim categorically that the sci-fi era is better. but the comedy central episodes (which are the only ones that are available on dvd) are still great, and hellcats is a good one to check out in your effort to discover the older era of mst3k.

hellcats was aired early in the second season, and is one of the first episodes that is truly hilarious (season 1 was not as funny as later seasons, i hate to say). the skits in this episode are flashbacks, clip-show-style, to skits from earlier episodes, so they provide a nice smorgasbord of mst3k humor. the movie is bad and the music is funny, which we all know makes for great riffing from joel and the bots.

so sit back and enjoy "hellcats, careening down the street..."

p.s, if you're confused by all the ross hagen/"chili peppers burn my gut" references in this episode, check out "sidehackers" which is available in the mst3k collection vol. 3 boxed dvd set.

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At their best in season 2, Hellcats delivers non-stop laughs
Until I discovered MST3K I'd never even seen a "B" movie "biker" picture, but the writers and cast of MST3K always seem to be at their best when making fun of these low-budget stories about sociopaths and societal drop-outs. I was overjoyed when I found out that Hellcats would be offered on DVD as this and the other season 2 gem, "Wild Rebels" are to me among the very best MST3K episodes ever. The stupidity of the characters and dialogue is funny all on its own, but the cast of MST3K raise the humor level many notches and never let up on the poor direction, acting or plot for a second. They even manage to make the music in this film fun and you'll be humming "the bike song" after the closing credits.

One cinematic footnote regards a misidentification I believe of the film's director, Bob Slatzer, who is actually the stockier fellow of the two main "gangsters" and not the thinner one pointed out by Joel and the 'Bots during the picture. I discovered this when I saw Bob Slatzer interviewed in a documentary about Marilyn Monroe. But, this minor error does nothing to diminish the quality and quantity of the humor in this episode, which is so dense with jokes that you'll catch something new each time you watch it. Buy this now!