Plot:
To find a place to sleep two young hitchhiking girls sneak their way into a house that is seemingly abandoned, but they end up accused for stealing jewelry and are tortured for answers.
Our thoughts:
The reason I wanted to watch "Schoolgirl Hitchhikers" in the first place was because I wanted to see Jean Rollin go even further away from vampires then he usually is. Even films like "Grapes of Death" and "Night of the Hunted" aren't THAT far away from what he usually delivers (even if they are just enough different to be worth a watch). "Schoolgirl Hitchhikers" is nowhere near vampires or his usual poetic style and atmosphere. A step outside of his comfort zone? I wouldn't go that far since it's still very much Rollin in it's random sex and whatnot. But I do believe he was hired to make this and made it under the pseudonym "Michael Gentil". I suppose he wanted to protect his good name? Who knows.
The movie starts off with two girls walking down an isolated path in a dead forest (or maybe it's just autumn. It's all dead to me!). They don't do any hitching but it's not hard to puzzle that together yourself - they're hitchhikers, god damnit. They stray away from the path and find a big abandoned house (or so they think) and stay there for the night. But of course, first they need to get themselves some lesbian lovin'. In the middle of the night one of them wakes up and ends up meeting a man on the bottom floor. Well, I guess it wasn't a surprise meeting since she sneaks into his room and waits for him naked. And then they have sex. That ultimately leads to the second girl waking up and joining them. A poor and fairly booring threesome ensues! But this is just the beginning as they later get blamed for stealing some jewelry from the house and the man along with his "crew" (for lack of better word) torture them. It all ends up in some shoot-outs and whatnot.
One major thing about this movie is how silly everything is. Unintentionally, of course. There's just so much to question when you watch it that you don't know where to start. Small things like "Why did they take the car if they were only going a walking-distance?", or "Why doesn't the the private detective go after the bad guys when they took that one girl, instead they went to sleep, ate breakfast and just did nothing?" I don't need answers because I'm sure that would lower the entertainment value. The little it had was based upon the flaws. And the boobies - Jean Rollin delivers good women yet again!
It does contain some torture scenes, but they're not harsh or bloody, so it's really a movie that focuses mostly on delivering the nudity and a so-so plot to that. But I should say that one scene involving a tool that severly pinches a breast looked very hurtful.
I didn't hate this movie as much as I could have because I was entertained by much of the cheapness. Not to mention I have some sort of interest, fascination, or whatever it really is in Jean Rollin's films. After having seen about 12 of them, I must have! It was just good to see a sexploitation / crime movie by him. Now I just need to look even further for more stand-outs in his filmography!
You could watch this movie without having seen a single Jean Rollin movie and still get something (laughs) out of it. There are some of his films I wouldn't recommend for people who are new to him, mostly because if you start with a bad movie you might not want to check him out at all. "Schoolgirl Hitchhikers" is such a black sheep that it wouldn't matter. But I highly doubt you'll feel suspense, thrill or anything like that from it! |
