“Perfectly Ideal Girls? Melody, that spells PIG!”

Drake’s rating: No, I am NOT going to screencap the huddle.

Drake’s review: All is not well at Fairenville University, AKA “Good ol’ F.U.” Pi, The local sorority, is ruled with an iron fist by Melody (Lindsay Bloom, Sixpack Annie), who looks down her nose at anyone not coming from a life of privilege. She takes a special delight in tormenting Honey (Susan Kiger, best known to Mutants everywhere for her turn as Michelle in that MST3K favorite, Angel’s Revenge), simply because Honey worked for several years as a car hop to earn enough to go to college.

I mean, a car hop! In college! Can you imagine?

Well, yeah, that’s a pretty easy mental picture to complete, quite honestly. Most everyone I knew in college had a part-time job during the year or a summer gig.* It was pretty much a given for everyone.** But for Pi such commonalities are evidently a no-go, which means Honey decides to turn around and form her own quasi-sorority for all the girls who got the cold shoulder from Melody. It doesn’t take too long before they find a house and spruce it up in a quick renovation montage while the credits roll.

Thus is formed H.O.T.S., an elite intelligence agency that does battle with HYDRA as…

Wait, no. That’s not right. I think that’s actually U.N.C.L.E. Or maybe T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Or was it Acapulco H.E.A.T.?

In any event, H.O.T.S. continues to engage in collegiate hijinks as they compete with Pi, stealing boyfriends, engaging in jockstrap raids and pelting their rivals with whip cream pies from a hot air balloon. You know, just typical college shenanigans. Which is all well and good until the campus dean demands “No more shenanigans” because he’s a stuffy sort who gets annoyed when topless skydivers parachute into his hoity-toity party.

And that may sound like it needs some clarification but this is H.O.T.S., so we’re immediately on to the next scene and the antics continue without skipping a beat. Because, let’s face it, the women of H.O.T.S. are not going to let a little thing like a dean’s edict stop them from resuming their feud with Pi. Instead, the rivalry only intensifies as mascots are stolen, vans are duct taped, the dean is blackmailed, and Danny Partridge continues to pretend that he’s a rock star.

Of course, it all ends in the only way it possibly can: In a game of strip football between H.O.T.S. and Pi.

Written by exploitation star Cheri Cafffaro (Savage Sisters), H.O.T.S. is not so much a movie as a collection of gags interspersed with flimsy yet perpetual reasons for the movie’s stars to get naked. Meaning, it’s a fairly standard 1970s drive-in flick, with the added attraction of featuring three Playboy models in featured roles. And honestly, as bad as it is, I’ve seen so much worse. Although decidedly dated, H.O.T.S. still has the benefit of never taking itself seriously and letting the women be a likable bunch whose screen time is wisely spread out evenly enough to hide the more egregious deficiencies in the acting department.

H.O.T.S. is a lightweight exploitation flick meant for nothing more than a fun but forgettable good time. The fact that it stayed in the public consciousness at all was only due to the fact that it was a staple of late-night HBO for a few years back in the early ‘80s, when the service needed to fill up those time slots.

OK, that and the strip football game. For some reason, that seems to be what most people remember about H.O.T.S.

*I hauled boxes of frozen meat. I was always drawn to the glamour jobs.

**Except the chem majors, who scoured the nearby fields for magic mushrooms every Spring.

Intermission!

• A shower scene right off the bat. This movie is not kidding around.
• By seven minutes in we’re into full body shaming mode. C’mon, movie. Do better.
• Even the drummer looks embarrassed by Danny Partridge’s attempts to continue his rock star career.
• There’s also a whole subplot about ex-cons looking to retrieve some loot that was hidden in the H.O.T.S. house years ago. Even by the standards of this movie, it’s pretty silly.
• Disco music, followed by a wet T-shirt contest. The ‘70s are crashing headlong into the ‘80s here.
• So many vans in this movie. We’re bordering on vansploitation.
• A constant bit in the movie is the question of what H.O.T.S. stands for. Is it really Help Out The Seals? Hey, I’m not going to be the one to spoil the movie’s big secret.
• First pass and Honey throws an interception. The following year she was drafted in the first round by the Jets.