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June 16, 2014

Movie Review: Teenage Catgirls in Heat (1994)

I bought this film years ago when a nearby Blockbuster Video closed (#sorrynotsorryyoucocksuckers) because I thought Joe Bob Briggs did commentary on it. Turns out his little blurb on the cover was as involved as he got in this copy. *sad trombone* But since I’ve adored JBB since his Movie Channel days, I decided to watch it anyway. Let’s just say I was seriously unimpressed.


Teenage Catgirls in Heat is a comedy (Christ, I hope so) brought to us by the Troma Film folks. It opens with an old lady talking to a cat statue moments before she commits suicide. The statue then calls out to all the cats in the area to heed her commands and sacrifice themselves in order for them to become human so they can mate with human men, kill said men, and then give birth to the Great Litter.

Cut over to Ralph, hitching a ride in the back of a pick up truck, and reveling in his new found singlehood. At the height of his happiness a cat darts out in front of the truck. As it swerves, he’s shaken loose and left on the side of the road in the now sudden nighttime (read: shitty blue light filter). Lucky for him the ‘cat’ is now a beautiful naked girl.

Before he gets a chance to talk to her, the neighborhood cat finder, Warren, tears down the road and chases Ralph up a tree. You see, Warren has this homemade radar thing that picks up on cat signals. He assumed the large signal he recently picked up was from a bunch of severed cat heads in Ralph’s back pack. 


Sounds reasonable.

Mumma's gonna need some time alone, kids, all right?
Ralph and Warren develop a bromance and help each other track down the unusual feline activity that’s been happening lately. Mass suicides by the local cat population could be caused by the cat goddess, Keshra (like Kesha but less skanky). Remember that cat statue from the beginning? Yeah, that’s Keshra and she must be destroyed before all these catgirls get busy in the groinal area with the fellas then kill them.

*YAWN*

Mostly I was bored with this film. Troma has delivered so much great camp and over-the-top crap that I was expecting more funny in what they consider a comedy. There were a handful of amusing moments, for sure. Warren interrogating a cat, asking it about Keshra and whatnot. The catgirls trying to act and dress human or when they’re at home playing with a bunch of string (naked, naturally). I did love when Warren came to get the statue and had to fight his way through the girls by using a squirt gun to shoot water at them and they all freaked out. Even the cat suicides had me chuckling because you knew there were a bunch of crew folks tossing cat stuffed animals off roofs, onto moving cars, or down a cliff.

But not much beyond that was really worth watching. The acting was awkward at best, though Gary Graves (Warren) warmed up through the film and I ended up really liking him. That crappy blue filter that’s put over the lights to make it look like nighttime was just terrible. It looked like the Na’vi splooged all over the camera.

I'm wet and sticky and I don't know why.
The story was sort of interesting but it wasn’t executed very well. They tried to put these ridiculous twists in it and the ending felt lazy, like they didn’t know how else to wrap it up so they just said, ‘fuck it’, and threw in the silliest finale they could.

There are a ton of extras on the DVD plus commentary from the director. I did enjoy the quick opening from Lloyd Kaufman before the film started where he tell us this release has been digitally remastered and it’s one of the most important films Troma has made, blah blah blah. When he says, “I haven’t made any pussy jokes because here at Troma we say cunt” I did laugh out loud at that.

For the die hard Troma fans out there, you’ll probably want this in your collection, though I highly doubt you’ll watch it more than once or twice.

1.5 Hatchets (out of 5)


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