Monica (Joëlle Coeur) and Jackie (Gilda Arancio) are out for a hiking vacation in the woods when they start to wonder if there's anywhere they could go to eschew their tents for the night and be under a more solid roof. On wandering amidst the trees, they stumble upon a wall that is concealing a building which looks promising, so they scale the wall and investigate to see that the mansion house is both overgrown and deserted. Perfect, they think, and start to make themselves at home, discovering a bed in an upstairs room that appears to have been freshly made, though why they don't twig that there is someone around after seeing that does not cross their minds. They are too intent on making good use of it...
Schoolgirl Hitchhikers doesn't feature any schoolgirls and neither does it feature any hitchhiking, which may be an issue if your hopes were raised by such a title, which presumably was the idea. That said, if you did find such a title enticing, then you're probably better off not watching that kind of thing and instead should have a cold shower lest you end up "assisting" the police with their enquiries, and you're also the kind of person who shouldn't go anywhere near schoolgirls either for that matter. What this was turned out to be French exploitation director Jean Rollin making a softcore pulp thriller on slender means, not quite one of the pornos he was reduced to making to pay the bills.
His other, non-porn tended to feature female nudity as he was a big fan of the cinematic power of the unclothed female form, but he managed to marry that to dreamlike plots that lent his oeuvre a particular tone and mood all their own, winning him a cult following into the bargain. His heart lay with his fantastical horror movie subjects, conjuring that surreal atmosphere, but he rarely had the budgets to spend on what he really wanted to do, thus you can often detect an air of compromise about his work, as if he was told, sure, you can make a vampire flick, but there have to be naked women in it and we can only give you a small amount of money to realise your lofty ambitions. This didn't even have that.
Oh, it had the naked women, but the whole kit and caboodle came across like a throwaway, didn't really care affair from Rollin (who cameos near the end), padding things out with his female cast members disrobing and embracing each other, while the sole male to get any action, Willy Blaque as a gangster, didn't even have to whip off his breeks. If the director had any interest in the men in his love scenes, he didn't show it to any great extent, as the most enthusiastic examples depicted women going at it with one another, with much tenderness building to writhing orgasms while the blokes could please themselves, Rollin just didn't care that much. The original French title was Jeune filles impudiques, which translated as The Immodest Young Ladies.
Nothing to do with school or hitchhiking there, as once the sex was out of the way, most of it in the first half hour though it did hang around intermittently right up to the final five minutes, this resolved itself into the most cramped and unimpressive thriller plot you could imagine. It all kicked off once the two girls and the gangster had spent the night together, and they went on their merry way only for his boss to discover the jewels they had stolen had been, well, stolen again. So Monica and Jackie are caught and held captive by Bea (Marie Hélène Règne) as the mistress of the gang who gets her dominatrix on by chaining up the hapless Jackie and whipping her with a small stick, though that gets her nowhere since neither of our heroines have any idea of what she's on about. That's right, there was even a touch of light sadomasochism as well, with a catfight too later on. Rest assured, it had a happy ending, and a "playing cops and robbers" shootout that was unconvincing to say the least. Aside from the hints of cruelty, this was mostly harmless fluff, and not even anyone in the film appeared to be taking it seriously. Music by Pierre Ralph (those drum solos!).
A lifelong film fan, French director Jean Rollin worked consistently since the 1950s, but it was his horror films that would bring him most attention, starting with Le viol du vampire in 1968, a work that caused a minor riot on its initial showings. This showed Rollin the way to further dreamlike entertainments, often with a strong sexual element. Other films included Le vampire nue, Le frisson de vampires, Les Raisins de la mort, Fascination (often regarded as his masterpiece), The Living Dead Girl, Zombie Lake and a number of hardcore porn features. He was working up until his death, with his latest Le Masque de la Meduse released the year of his demise.
