Bad Force

I worked at a video store where we happened to have a copy of boardinghouse, and after laughing uncontrollably at the cover, I talked some friends into renting it. Since then, for about 4 years straight we would always rent boardinghouse on new years eve and watch it prior to the ball drop, as it became a cult tradition in our area. My favorite line has to be when one of the random men walk in and say "What is this, a harem?" and a random woman replys in a high pitched voice, "no." the mans response is just, "Well, sh*t." who can write dialogue like that? Great scenes include when the refrigerator throws food upon one of the young women, and you can see the arm stretching out of the fridge to throw yogurt at the poor actress. A truly bad movie that is a gas to watch, I would love to get a copy on tape, but 'tis hard to find.

Boarding House made in the 80's was one of the first shot on video features. What is interesting is that it actually played in a few theatres and of I was one of the 6 people who saw it at a Long Island NY drive-in. Who cares about how poor the acting and story is, there is plenty of gruesome gore and nudity in this one. This movie will numb your mind quite well and you will just want to keep watching it over and over again!! I own BOARDING HOUSE and I'm proud of it!!! BOARDINGHOUSE is good for all the wrong reasons. Good Gore, poor acting, sound, and everything else. I like Cheese I'm Sorry but I'm addicted to bad movies .

This movie is not just truly awful, but its also historically significant in its awfulness because it was the first shot-on-video horror movie and as such actually contributed to the slow decline of the low-budget horror genre. Let me explain. By the early 80's the traditional venues of horror movies--drive-in theaters and inner-city grindhouses--were disappearing. These movies SHOULD have dominated the emerging video rental market, but this didn't happen and one reason was that a lot of unscrupulous individuals said to themselves, hey, if they're going straight to video why bother shooting on film, using professional actors, or having and kind of production values when we can just take a camcorder out in the backyard? It worked for porno right? Never mind that it was impossible to create any kind of horror atmosphere on 80's video. Never mind that fake blood looks a lot more fake on video than the, uh, real bodily fluids spilled in porno movies. Never mind that horror fans are infinitely more discriminating than porn enthusiasts (you don't see anyone shelling out $30 for the widescreen special edition of "Jenna Jameson Does Everybody" or some other obscure porn title do you?) The result was that unsuspecting horror fans who got stuck with amateurish shot-on-video crap like this more than once simply quit taking a chance on renting obscure horror titles on video and the whole market (and genre) eventually went south.

OK, this movie is slightly better than other contemporary SOV crap like "Blood Cult" (a rip-off of "Blood Feast" which makes the latter look like "Citizen Kane") or "Stuff Stephanie in the Incinerator (which made me want to stuff Troma's Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz in the incinerator after I rented it). It at least has a lot of nudity in it unlike those other two titles, but if you want SOV nudity, rent a porno movie for christsake. I can honestly say that not only could I make a better horror movie than this, but I HAVE made a better horror movie than this (sans the naked chicks)with my friends and my dad's camcorder back in high school. But I had the common decency not try to sell it to people it as a REAL horror movie. Total garbage. Avoid it like a social disease.

Holy Crapola-fest Batman! Dear God I haven't seen something so utterly bad, so awful, so mindnumbingly ATROCIOUS in all my years! This is pitiful. Just plain pitiful. I've seen dozens and dozens of schlocky, snooze-inducing, inconceivable messes of film but man does BOARDINGHOUSE take the friggin' cake! NEVER have I seen a film where it ACTUALLY hurt me to sit there and watch it! Ok, now that I'm done with my unnecessary banter...let me explain to you the award winning "plot" (LOL!). A man (who is really awkward looking) rents a house for sale and places an ad in the paper for "women 18-25 not attached and beautiful". Naturally, a bunch of fun lovin' 20 somethings show up. Throughout the movie they whine, moan, and complain...occasionally showing up in various states of undress (isn't that a MUST in 80s exploitation??). All fun aside (yeah, right) a poltergeist moves into the house to brutally butcher, chop, mutilate, and murder our adorable girls. These murder sequences are indeed quite gory, but I'll be damned if they were done by anyone who is, at the very least, a competent (and that's saying a lot) fx artist. Take one scene in the beginning of the movie for instance: This poltergeist creature (or whatever you wanna call it) uses some kind of mind control to force a guy to literally disembowel himself. It is night at first, but when the camera goes in for the close-up to show the guy graphically pulling out his intestines it is in broad DAYLIGHT! It's SO noticeable. I won't even mention the fact that the "guts" are simply just sitting at the bottom of his tucked-in shirt for him to grab out...the fx get worse. I can't remember how the movie ends since it's been awhile (or maybe I suffered brain damage), but much of the film we're lead to believe the main protagonist is the one responsible for the ghastly murders. Did I mention how awkward looking he is? Oh yeah, guess I did haha. Up and coming fx artists might want to take notice on how to do really cheap, amateurish make-up and blood. That's the ONLY good I might see coming from this film. Had it not been SOV, the script revised a bit (ok, a lot), cut out the boring/annoying stuff...it would've STILL only been just tolerable! At best!

Oh yeah, I failed to mention this is all filmed in "Horror-Vision". Gory images follow an annoying UFO-like sound, or a poorly done, computer effect full of bright colors with a black-gloved hand on the screen (??) to warn viewers with a weaker stomach. Cool concept...none of which is done right. Don't let gutter trash like this take up 80 some mins. of your life. I regret it.

Surprisingly watchable shot-on-video horror flick about mysterious happenings at a boardinghouse where people have been dying in various OMEN-like ways. Enter a psychic dude who takes up residence at the place and all hell breaks loose.

Apparently made by people who usually produced porn but decided to try their hand at horror for a change, and it shows.

Nothing about this movie is anywhere near "good", but the filmmakers show a sort of mischievous enthusiasm for their work, and two or three scenes deliver on an amusingly adolescent level.

Basically, it's a showcase for some second-rate gore effects which are preceded by a William Castle-like gimmick consisting of a flashing neon image and an electronic zinger sound. Yes, it's extremely dumb, but at least it's never boring, and it's far more entertaining than other straight-to-video crap such as BLOOD CULT and THE RIPPER.