Schoolgirl Report # 8
Director - Ernst Hofbauer
Cast - Puppa Armbruster, Wolf Ackva
Country of Origin - German
Discs - 1
Distributor - Synapse/Impulse
Reviewer - Bobby Morgan
Date - 12/4/12
The Film: 3/5
A group of German schoolgirls are embarking on an extended trip to a hostel in the countryside accompanied by several chaperones, including their handsome teacher. During the long bus trip the girls regale each other with their own ribald tales of saucy seduction: Gisela (Christine Szenetra) seduces the bashful Rolf (Werner Singh) who works in her family’s greenhouse, but finds she needs to be even more aggressive than anticipated so he will stop refusing their advances; Annette falls in love with Army paramedic Jorgen (Eduard Meisel) and becomes pregnant with his child but is afraid of the repercussions she’ll face once her parents; Evi (Puppa Armbruster) and Jutta (Sandra Atia) conspire to get their uptight biology teacher Mrs. Eberhardt (Elke Deuringer) to loosen up by hiring swarthy stud Hans (Jurgen Schilling) to first pretend to save the teacher from an attempted sexual assault and then take her for a mighty ride in the sack that will turn her from a prim prude into a voluptuous sex goddess; one of the girls goes for a skinny dip with her chesty cousin Uschi (Marisa Feldy) and have to deal with a horny fisherman (Jurgen Feindt) stealing their clothes and a pair of naked guys who want to help them get revenge on the voyeur in exchange for some special “reimbursement”; Susanne (Yvonne Dwyer) becomes entangled in a sexual relationship with a much older man who treats her to a lascivious romp on his pool table but finds that his body can not keep up his - and her - libido. Finally, once the girls arrive at the hostel Evi attempts to put the moves on the teacher and in the process discovers something unexpected that compels her to petulantly plot revenge on the poor sap.
I must admit, after a week spent suffering through three questionable examples of what the Japanese consider sexploitation I was more than a little numb, and not just in the extremities. Surprisingly though, making movies driven primarily by sex can be harder (no pun intended) to make than you would think. It is all about nailing (once again, no pun intended) down the proper tone of the story; you can either choose to go for the fun and eroticism or make it completely ugly and desperate. Movies of both stripes played drive-ins and grind house theaters for years, with more than one getting released each week during the sub-genre’s heartier years. Myself I prefer my sexploitation to be actually sexy and enjoyable because that is how I happen to view sex, at least when it is done right. The Schoolgirl Report series seems to agree with me because although its characters have only one thing on their minds they do not have a negative outlook when it comes to that one thing. Schoolgirl Report #8 is the first in the series that I have ever seen and on the basis of this volume I probably need not bother watching any of the first seven entries. That is not exactly a bad thing. Most of the sexual vignettes are played for lowbrow laughs - imagine a dirtier version of those sped-up Benny Hill skits - but the actual sex tends to be energetic and passionate. The women are very easy on the eyes too, and at the risk of being seen as living playthings for men to indulge themselves with in the boudoir the women are usually the instigators of the full frontal shenanigans. Equal opportunity smut is not exactly an original idea but it is always nice to see.
Director Ernst Hofbauer and producer Wolf Hartwig are old hands at churning out this kind of sexed-up schlock so their movies usually have a professional veneer about them. The usage of comedic sound effects and goofy pratfalls in several of the stories tend to undermine whatever erotic qualities they may have accumulated, but since those stories are leaning heavily on the comic side to begin with it did not bother me much. The best of the stories, bar none, is the sexual awakening of the comely but reserved biology teacher. There are fewer attractive sights to me than that of a proper lady letting down her hair, removing her glasses, and revealing herself for the jaw-dropping beauty she was concealing all along. Watching this edition of the Schoolgirl Report series I could see where those hot but cheesy Playboy videos in the 1980’s got a great many of their best ideas from. The only thing I could have honestly done without are the excessive amounts of sexual innuendo, as well as the lackluster ending where a group of the movie’s most uninteresting characters sit around a table having a conversation that is utterly meaningless in the context of the other stories. Maybe it is just me but I had expected Schoolgirl Report #8 to have more of a bang-up finish that an strange scene with the girls sitting in a pasture in their bikinis watching cows graze and getting perverted ideas.
Audio/Video: 3/5
Impulse presents Schoolgirl Report #8 in a serviceable 1.66:1 full frame that contains significant amounts of grain and some very apparent print damage but can not be faulted for doing its job just fine. The same can be applied to the German 2.0 mono soundtrack; it is boisterous and tinny but all of the elements in the audio are ideally balanced. English subtitles are provided.
Extras: 0/5
There are no extra features.
Overall: 2/5
I would hesitate to call Schoolgirl Report #8 an actual movie; it is more of a smutty sketch comedy with no clear plot progression and the odd moment of somber reality tossed in to give it a measure of artistic merit. They ain’t fooling me though. Fortunately this sordid little slice of German sexploitation is genuinely erotic and fun and overcomes its occasional pacing issues with enough nude and nubile female flesh (served up with the odd hairy man ass on the side) to satisfy most malcontent horndogs.
