Family house, pension de famille

A voice-over explains the HorrorVision concept, scary scenes being preceded either by some weird video effect blooming around a black glove, or a certain musical cue. I didn't really get it...

Some opening exposition appears on a computer screen, but the quality of the video was not very good and I could make very little of it out. At least some of what the computer screen shows is actually depicted, I guess, some Nobel Prize winning scientist falling into his pool and drowning, and a woman bleeding copiously after her hand gets stuck in a below-sink garbage disposal. There's some scene in a hospital of a nurse who was going to recommend against someone being released committing suicide by hanging, and a orderly or doctor who disembowels himself with his hands as someone breathing in through their nose, and out through their mouth "sniff... ha HAAA! sniff... ha HAAA!" apparently forces them to do it.

A guy tries to get some hot roommates by advertising the rooms at $100 apiece, which for Los Angeles is quite a deal, I guess, even in 1982. Supposedly the house has ten bedrooms, but it seems like he gets only about five women, and when another arrives all the rooms are taken and she has to get the child's room being used as a storage closet. There's also an Asian woman who appears in some scenes, but not others.

The landlord, Jim, has some kind of business deal with a drunk involving computer printouts. He uses the strange breathing technique the killers uses to move things with his mind. One of the women in the house becomes interested in his mind control and pyramid grid and crystals, etc. and checks out Wisdom of the Mystic Masters, two volumes of A Course in Miracles, and the Tibetan Book of the Dead, among others.

A plan is made to have Victoria's band set up on Friday at the house for a party on Saturday, I think. At some point Jim goes to the beach with Cindy and he's struck over the head, and she starts bleeding and walks into the ocean. When he comes to, he doesn't think to report this.

There's at least a few scenes where their continuity is difficult to determine immediately. One involves a guy named Richard hiring a PI to find somebody. Another involves two policemen briefly coming to the house, one dressed in a shiny green suit and vest. Somebody also has a nightmare while they're sleeping in the den while their room is painted.

There's a weird gardener who saved Jim's late uncle in Vietnam hobbling about. There's odd poltergeist activity in the bathrooms (one which needs its grout cleaned even before the blood gets on it). A bloody icepick gets buried in the yard by one of the women after it stabs another through the hand, while another woman suspiciously gardens compulsively.

What to say about it? It's by no means the worst shot-on-video horror flick - The Last Slumber Party is worse, for one. It's also superior to a lot of more recent shot-on-digital video horror. Johnn Wintergate and Kalassu have been up to more new age stuff since this movie, and if there really will be a DVD with a commentary track by them, I'd definitely check it out.

If you're evaluating this movie in terms of plot structure or character arcs, you're missing the point. If you're saying "the image quality isn't sharp enough," you are consuming the wrong genre.

If you do like backyard horror films, Boardinghouse belongs in the good pile. It has something that most of these films lack: passion. The filmmakers clearly put in more time, effort, planning, and care than most of their peers. The result is something with a vision and level of energy that's hard to replicate, even on films with budgets in the millions.

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.

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.

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.