Teenage Hitchhikers 1974

Two young travelers, Mouse and Bird, dream of heading west to start a new life, but help along the road proves hard to find. After several failed attempts at hitchhiking, a rock band traveling with two groupies in a recreational vehicle stops, offering them a ride. The band performs a song and then makes a chilling demand: they will only provide transport if the duo agrees to have sexual intercourse with them. They refuse to be objectified, and they are promptly tossed out onto the highway, left to continue their search on foot.

As they press on, the duo wanders to a river, where Bird unexpectedly catches a trout while still in her underwear, a small moment of luck amid growing hardship. With days without food and no money, they attempt to secure a meal by a bold, ill-fated gesture: a brief striptease in a nearby diner for a paying customer, but the ploy fails to yield any help. Realizing they cannot rely on the kindness of strangers, they decide that in order to survive, they must be the ones in control, even if that means turning the tables and exploiting others in dire straits.

Their fears about danger intensify when reports spread of an escaped rapist, warning them away from hitchhiking. In the woods, the rapist from the news targets a young girl named Jennie, and Mouse and Bird spring into action to save her, devising a plan to trap the would-be attacker and secure her safety. Jennie joins their journey, adding a new ally to the uneasy trio. With money they have managed to accumulate, they buy a car and press on together, hoping to keep moving toward any semblance of a fresh start.

However, their fragile safety is short-lived. The group soon becomes entangled in an orgy, a tangled situation that underscores the moral ambiguity and danger that shadows their trek. By the next morning, their purses and car are stolen, leaving Mouse, Bird, and Jennie once again facing a precarious future and the same rough predicament they began with, just a few steps from where they started on the road west.