User reviews

Years ago, murders occurred in a boarding house. Psychic playboy Jim Royce (director John Wintergate) moves in, and has hot naked chicks surrounding him. No, this is not a porno. Unsurprisingly, the house isn't too keen on this, and soon, bad special effects and more come to terrorize those in the house.

Shot on Video (the first horror movie to be SOV in fact) and released theatrically (yes, a SOV movie came to theaters) in 1982, "Boardinghouse" defies any real proper description. The acting boarders on Amateur Porn levels, the music is a blatant "Halloween" rip off, the gore is unconvincing, the 80's fashion styles are an offense to the eyes, and the plot (so to speak) is a ramshackle of odd events.

That out of the way, the movie is never boring. Yes, it's bad. Yes, it is deficient of any real technical merit. Yet, you can't stop watching it. It's a level of bad that manages to be somewhat enduring in it's ineptitude. The movie moves along, though it never really goes anywhere. Hot chicks are knocked off randomly, without any reason to care about any of them.

In short, to say it's incoherent would be an understatement. It's a movie that defies any real explanation, and is unlike anything I've ever seen before. Whether or not I want to see something like it again I don't know.

I own not one, but two copies of this movie and both of them are the "directors cut", which would be fine except both copies are nothing BUT the directors cut, without the option of watching the movie as it is actually supposed to be viewed. Brutal. At 2:35.00, it's easy to see how an hour could be shaved off this thing. If you miss the 80's, you can leave this thing running with the sound off while you are making a tuna casserole with music playing in the background but sitting down and watching it is tedious and borders on masochistic. It's a shame because it actually looks like an OK piece of 80's shlock. The girls are mostly hot, show skin and the death scenes are decent, while the leading man looks like David Lee Roth's tweaked-out second cousin and for some reason seems to have given up acting after this mess. Can't imagine why.

Technically speaking, Boarding House is one of the worst low-budget horror movies that I have ever seen, featuring an incomprehensible plot, lousy direction, awful camera-work, dreadful sound, cheap and nasty special effects, and a cast totally devoid of talent. However, despite this film qualifying as one of the shoddiest productions I have ever seen, it does manage to narrowly avoid being a completely worthless experience by being something of an entertaining mess: it's certainly never predictable (that's the understatement of the year!); it can often be rather unintentionally funny (tell me you didn't laugh at Jim in his pants, and I'll show you a liar); and there's always a cute babe on standby ready to pop her top off when needed. Granted, they're not exactly the qualities looked for by the Academy board when handing out the Oscars, but sometimes, total randomness, inadvertent laughs, and a few tits can make the difference between hitting the off button and watching till the bitter end.

Set in a house where an evil presence has been the cause of several mysterious deaths over the years, Boarding House sees new owner Jim renting the rooms in the property to several pretty women, completely unaware of the building's terrible history. It's not long before the malevolent force is causing all manner of problems for Jim's sexy young tenants, scaring them at first with terrifying hallucinations, but eventually becoming much more dangerous. Throw in some silly malarkey about Jim's amazing telekinetic abilities (he can make soap spin in the bath and levitate eggs) and lots of sexy hijinks (Jim gets it on with several ladies whilst the rest of the girls indulge in some sexy horseplay in the swimming pool), and you have one hell of a confusing film that should appeal to those who enjoy really bad movies.

3.5 out of 10, rounded up to 4 for being so awful, yet so strangely watchable.

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.

I'm watching BOARDINGHOUSE as I'm writing this and the "film" is woeful. There's almost no redeeming quality to it. It feels and looks like a porno production but without any hardcore sex scenes. In this case, the "horror" scenes have replaced the sex scenes. The film even warns you at the beginning that every shocking scene will be preceded with a warning of sorts. Funny enough, throughout the movie, people (mostly women) get killed without any warning to the viewers. The producers weren't even able to do what they promised they were going to do. Yep, the film is THAT cheap.

The only thing one can credit this film of being is that it's one of the first direct-to-video "film" specifically made for the booming video market of the early 1980s. Today, they're dime a dozen. So, I guess the producers of the film were ahead of the times in this regard. But that still doesn't change the fact that BOARDINGHOUSE is devoid of acting, a script, special effects or any suspense or fright whatsoever. I can't even tell who is supposed to be who.

You do see a lot of women sans clothes (all natural breasts, no less) and guys in bikinis. Ah, the 1980s.

Boardinghouse (which calls itself a horror movie, though that's true in a bad way) is just plain bad. Bad in a way I don't like. Like the all-time horrible classic "Manos: The Hands of Fate," this movie has almost no coherent plot other than the title haunted house itself. Unlike the latter, this movie makes slightly more sense.

To me, the "horror" in this movie was so artificial that it was comical instead of frightening. There's a scene with a brunette sitting on her bed and a frightening-looking hand reaches out to grab her. In the chest area, of course! But a careful observation will show an uncovered human arm attached to said frightening-looking hand. This movie is full of such.

Basically, what this movie is is a lot of naked women and a lot of fake blood without any sense of timing or structure or even artistic thought. The director (who also starred, etc.) cuts scenes far too early and it's hard at times to keep track. But that's not the point.

If you like a lot of young naked women and fake blood, then this is for you. Otherwise, there's plenty of far more graphic horror movies that are easier to follow and enjoy. I only recommend this movie for those who find such horror hilarious. Otherwise, skip this one.

In the hands of a skilled film maker, a video camera can be used to create an impressive film going experience. In the hands of a talentless pillock, you get Boardinghouse. The acting is of the kind that only parents enjoy during their child's Nativity Play. The cinematography manages to consistently clip off the top of people's heads, which removes the most substantial things about them: their hair.

To describe the plot as laughable would be over praising it. A group of young attractive women move into a boardinghouse that it run by a man who is so sleazy that he leaves a slime trail behind him when he walks. There is a gardener who dresses like a Vietnam veteran - which is all the personality he seems to have. The film culminates with a trendy party that includes the one thing every adult invites to a party: a magician!

There is no characterisation. There is a lot of cheesy bulging eye staring and sone terrible music - if you've never heard of the band 33 1/3, this film will show you why.

A truly dreadful film.

Oh this movie was really bad, it's one of those movies that you can't judge a movie by it's cover movie. This movie was about a playboy, Don Johnson with a bad hairdo gigolo that inherits a house haunted by the previous owners who apparently died during a party ten years ago. After the man gets settled in, he totally surrounds himself with women that look to be rejects from a cheap porno movie that couldn't get any decent roles much less acting abilty and decided to settle with this one instead. Jim, the owner of the house is into some metaphysics and involves one of the tenants with it also who is having nightmares that become obnoxious throughout the movie with her midnight screaming and unexplained flashbacks of the meaning of these dreams. In the beginning of the movie we are subjected with typing words that gave me more of a headache than this horrible movie did. During the movie we see a drunk veteran that the movie seems to place as the killer in the movie who is all but laughable in his biker suit, wig and glasses. After watching this movie, I wanted to do exactly what the victims did to themselves in this movie and that was to rip my guts out, dive in a pool and drown and I'm sure you'll feel the same way. Avoid it!

"Boardinghouse" is among the weirdest horror movies I have ever seen.It's obnoxious and stupid.Jim Royce(played John Wintergate)buys the house where supernatural evil dwells killing various people.Like typical alpha male he wants to create for himself harem of numerous college girls.But the evil begins to kill girls one by one...Incomprehensible-this is the perfect word to describe John Wintergate's "Boardinghouse".There are several hallucinatory moments that has to be seen to be fully believed.The acting is pitiful,the direction is bad and the gore effects are nasty and amateurish.Whole sections of "Boardinghouse" are utterly nonsensical and ignore each other.Still if you are a fan of completely whacked out horror movies like "A Night to Dismember","Scream" from 1981 or "Blood Beat" give this cinematic drug a look.6 meditation tapes out of 10.

I love bad movies but this is just too much! The lead character,Richard,is some geek who's supposed to be sexy.

He buys a large house and places an ad in the paper offering to rent rooms to females only. Of course,a bunch of beautiful bimbos quickly fill the rooms. The funny thing is that there's no guys helping them move in,most of the time it's just him and the girls lounging around the house. The film has warning signals before the "gory" scenes which are horribly done,even for a no-budget film.

This is almost one of those so bad it's good movies,but it's just too bad! If you like this movie you must be a fan of the true bottom of the barrel cheesy movies. This movie convinced me to plan on making my own film,because I could do better then this with a cheap camcorder and a few hundred bucks!

When people speak about BAD cinema, they forget one very important fact: no-one remembers the very worst film they ever saw. If a film is bad enough, you don't bother watching it. You merely change channels or fall asleep, walk out of the theatre or whatever. Truly bad movies are so mediocre that they don't even register on our consciousness.

Seen in this very specific light, Boardinghouse is a pretty good film, really. It's certainly quite memorable and does a pretty good job of grabbing one's attention, which is more than one can say for a good 50% of movies.

I find it hard to explain why I actually LIKE "boardinghouse" When I caught it on TV the other night I thought I was watching some South American soapie. The plot is basic slasher stuff (guy peoples boarding house with scantily clad girls while serial killer type lurks in the shadows), the acting is pretty much a non event and the special effects (such as they are) are easily outdone by even the cheapest of modern day digicams.

On the positive side, some of the girls aren't bad looking, everyone has these wonderful, late 70s clothes (huge collars, big fluffy hairdos on the men, flares, etc. etc) and the film is fast and gory enough to guarantee that there is never a dull moment. The film was shot straight to video and the very cheapness of the production adds a rough, nasty dimension to the film which would otherwise not be there.

Boardinghouse is nowhere NEAR being a fantastic movie, but if you have a sense of humour and are not too pedantic it can be a fun and memorable experience. I would certainly watch it again.

This is a consistently boring, gonzo-style, shot-on-videotape slasher movie and it is amateur in every way. That is, until the final 10-min, where it becomes decent. However, by that point, you will have surely abandoned all hope. This movie is TERRIBLE, people, and not worth anyone's time. Although fairly heavy on the T&A (the women are mixed), most of the scenes are unacceptably dull and the male lead is incredibly annoying. (Picture a 115-lb David Lee Roth wannabe, who insists on showing off his embarrassingly tiny arms sleeveless for most of the movie. (That is, when he isn't wearing only bikini briefs). I spent an hour debating how much I'd pay to see him get clotheslined). Anyhow, as a slasher movie, "Boardinghouse" is 90% unconvincing, but also thoroughly unfunny. Expect about seven fairly tame murders (e.g. electrocuted in the bathtub, drowned in the pool, stabbed in the dark, etc.), with the majority of the first 90-min spent on filler dialog sequences between the girls and a range of coked-up wimps. In the accompanying interview featurette, the filmmakers claim that the project was originally made as a horror comedy, but the distributor reedited it into a slasher film. Although I don't buy it, this might explain some of the poopiness, but it doesn't explain most of it. Even for gonzo, this one is difficult, and it rubbed us the wrong way. I think the main deal was seeing the cast having so much fun, while we, the frustrated audience, ground our teeth into powder. In a word: excruciating. O.5 star. ---|--- Reviews by Flak Magnet

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 .

A group of aspiring young actresses start dying in LA while living at a Boardinghouse.

After watching this, I have to admit it was hard to come up with a plot synposis in this write up. The movie was so all over the place from one scene to the random next scene, it was difficult to make sense of it. Pretty much, the plot revolves around a group of young models and wannabe actresses living at a boardinghouse. They start getting murdered in very strange ways that seems to be linked to a telekinetic psychopath.

Boardinghouse is a very cheaply made and not very entertaining movie that is apparently the first ever horror film to be shot on video. There was one beach murder scene which was done pretty well, but for the most part, Boardinghouse failed to show any frightening or terrifying moments throughout. The acting was atrocious by pretty much all involved, but the terrible dialogue didn't help their cause as well.

All in all, Boardinghouse is a very weak entry to the genre. I'm sure the filmmakers put a lot of heart and a lot of sweat into making this one, but as a viewer it failed to keep my interest due to a bad script and low budget quality.

2/10

Phew, I'm really glad that's over! Many movies are plain bad, but "Boardinghouse" goes several stages beyond bad; - straight to the point of being downright unwatchable. After three failed attempts already, I now literally forced myself to finish it, and only good old-fashioned stubbornness (I did pay 12 Euros for the French DVD edition after all) motivated me to persist until the end. You could ask yourself several valid questions whilst analyzing "Boardinghouse". What was John Wintergate thinking when he penned down the script and reckoned it would make a proper film? Better yet, what were the producers and distributors thinking when they decided to theatrically release this piece of SOV rubbish? But let's get back to John Wintergate, as he is the undoubtedly proud writer, director, make-up artist and lead hero of his self-declared masterpiece. Wintergate certainly doesn't have any modesty issues, as he introduces his character Jim Royce as a telekinetically gifted yoga-instructor and natural born ladies' magnet. When Jim inherits and reopens a former boardinghouse, beautiful and lewd girls are literally standing in line to become his tenants! These girls don't mind sharing Jim's hunky muscular body, spend their days splashing in the pool like 8-year-olds and gaze with sheer admiration when Jim randomly levitates eggs. In fact, the only remotely meaningful line of dialogue in the entire film comes from a supportive male character when he enters the house, looks around and asks: "What is this, a harem?". Unfortunately for Jim and his babes, evil forces are also roaming within the walls of this boardinghouse. These evil forces caused several unresolved massacres in the past and not even our psychic wonder boy with his terrifying yoga-pants can prevent another bloodbath from happening! Apart from the utterly senseless script and the painfully amateurish acting performances, "Boardinghouse" is also inept in every single technical department. The SOV camerawork is obviously shoddy, the sound & editing are miserable, and even for this level of low-budget cinema, the splatter effects are abominable. Wintergate evidently also couldn't resist inserting a couple of pathetic and typically 80s gimmicks, like the "Horror Vision". This concerns showing a bizarre image and playing a nearly inaudible sound prior to "shocking and/or petrifying scenes", supposedly to warn squeamish spectators and give them an opportunity to look away. Yeah, whatever, stuff like that only worked when William Castle invented it in the late fifties/early sixties already. The only scary thing about this production is that there apparently exists a 157 minutes director's cut! Sitting through that version would be my personal definition of pure hell. "Boardinghouse" incomprehensible has a fair share of loyal fans, and there will always be people who recommend die-hard horror genre fanatics to check it out. Well, I'm also a die-hard horror fanatic, but I can safely confirm that "Boardinghouse" is NOT worth your time or money.

Even if you have minimal standards about film-making quality, you'll agree that we all have a human right not to be subjected to a film as bad as "Boardinghouse". If there were a Movie Police, they would arrest everyone associated with this "movie" and never allow them to make another one (actually, most of the people involved here never DID make another one). Amateurish "performances" (most of these people don't even TRY to act), incompetent direction, laughable visual and audio effects, a "script" that makes no sense (assuming there was a script to begin with, that they didn't just improvise it on the spot), pathetic "cinematography" (or should I say "videography"). The real injustice is that this movie will never receive enough votes to make it into IMDb's "Bottom 100" list, when other films are there undeservedly.

0 out of 4 stars.

As I sat down to watch the 1982 horror comedy "Boardinghouse" in 2022, I had never even heard about the movie. And I can't really claim that I was having much of any expectations for writer and director John Wintergate to deliver a gem of a movie that I had been missing out on for the past 40 years.

Yet, I opted to sit down and watch "Boardinghouse" on the account that it was a movie that I hadn't already seen. And I do believe in giving a movie a chance, regardless of it being old or something I have never heard about.

But "Boardinghouse" was by no means a great movie. Quite far from it, actually. It was insanely difficult to get into the groove of the movie or get swept up into the storyline. Why? Well, because the storyline, as written by John Wintergate, quite simply failed to capture my interest and thus didn't provide me with any sense of entertainment or enjoyment of the movie.

The movie is labeled as a horror comedy, but it didn't really offer much of either of the two genres. So it was a swing and a miss on both accounts.

As for the acting performances in "Boardinghouse", well, let's just say that you shouldn't get your hopes up. You are not in for an evening of Shakespearian performances here.

This is not a movie that I would recommend fans of the horror genre to rush out to get their hands on.

My rating of "Boardinghouse" lands on a two out of ten stars.

"Boardinghouse" follows Jim, a strange playboy with occult interests who inherits a house with a dark past of supernatural activity. The house, which is not so much a boardinghouse as it is a standard California ranch-style home, is rented out to a bunch of aspiring models, actresses, and musicians; Jim, who also lives there, essentially acts as a quasi-Hugh Hefner guru figure to the women. All is well at first, but eventually, hell breaks loose when one of the women taps into her own telekinetic powers which trigger a series of deaths.

Known mainly for being the first horror film that was shot on video and theatrically released, "Boardinghouse" is a profoundly bad film--incoherent, cheaply made, and truly a mess. It is in the same vein as Doris Wishman's "A Night to Dismember," but almost weirder.

As a horror film, it is mostly a failure as the majority of it consists of meandering dialogue and trite conversations amongst the women in the house, who largely resemble girls you'd see in a Poison music video. Their association with the house's owner makes little sense, as does his identity as a guru figure, but I suppose in order to really enjoy this film, one has to abandon all logic. Script inconsistencies aside, there are a handful of nightmarish sequences that, despite the low production value, manage to be oddly creepy, and there is one notably graphic death scene at the end that is still cringe-inducing even though the effects are low-rent.

The film's conclusion is rather insane, replete with a psychotronic montage of crazy video effects, strobe lights, and fog, and is unlike anything you'll probably ever see. By the time the film was over, I was utterly perplexed by what I had just watched--and that might be the film's singular offering to genre audiences. At best, "Boardinghouse" is an utterly bizarre film that will inevitably leave even seasoned trash cinephiles scratching their heads. 5/10.

'Boarding House' is one audaciously top-ten, top-popping, scream teen tormentor! A low-rent B-movie monstrosity of titillatingly Tromatized, skid row-skeezey, cheap-as-chips, twice-as-greazy, groovily girl-goring, death-dreaming delirium! Watch in bicuspid-bashing terror as some erotically challenged, sick-headed, fat-backed, funk-baller, righteously slays a bodacious bevy of sickly sweet-lookin', big haired, pneumatically jugged, goofy-headed, aerobically-assed. Uber-babes! 'Boarding House' can ONLY admit those hardier sick-headed souls able to cope with such inhumane resolve-dissolving excesses of conniption-inducing, scalp-singing, gut-churning, generously cheese-laden 80s horror!!!! This is one hotly-buttered, thickly slice n' diced, hellaciously hardcore murder-mess of serially slashing, arterially spraying, blissfully bloody, bodaciously babe-slaying B-Movie madness! - 'Who might actually dare to spend one frightful night at the 'Boarding House?...where the rent won't KILL YOU, but something else WILL!!!'

I really can't add anything to what the others on this board have already said. I just wanted to show my support and say that this is one of those bad movies which is genuinely amusing. The average movie buff may have trouble, but any seasoned bad movie lover should be able to find the humor.

It's shot on video. With bad acting, bad script, bad spelling (two typos appear in the opening message) and some bad fashion (our hero begins the movie wearing a light blue shirt with a pink tie). It even has some really generic rock songs apparently performed by the two lead actors. Oh, and the lead guy really does look unusual. Kind of like a cross between Sting and Malcolm McDowell.

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.