Houseboat Horror

This film is so bad it's good. In fact if you watch it you may bar up. It has some classic Aussie charactors performing roles. Neighbours fans should not miss this with a steller performance from Alan Dale.

The wildlife like the yellow belly black snack at the BBQ a highlight.

Houseboat Horror is dreadful. Appalling. Pathetic at best. But at the same time, it is amusing to see people like John-Michael Howsen and Jim from Neighbours (remember him?) in such a dreadful film.

Of course the movie itself is not great, but that in itself is entertaining, especially if you get a few mates around and have a few drinks while watching it. Because like everything else, it's always better when you're drunk.

Or to put it simply, if you can put up with bad acting, bad filming, bad directing, bad sound, bad lighting, bad special effects, and bad everything else, you'll love it.

Australian horror movies aren't very popular, but that doesn't mean that they're inferior. There have been some good ones, the very tongue in cheek "Cut", the bizarre "13th Floor" and the interesting "Out of the Body." Of course, there have been some really terrible ones, the worst of which is "Houseboat Horror." This movie was made in 1989, a time when horror films were running out of steam. Making a movie like "Houseboat Horror" was a mistake at this time. It recycled all the cliches used in 80's horror and recycled them badly. The movie looks to be extremely low budget, and seems to be shot on videotape. That doesn't matter though, a movie can still be low budget and be brilliant. But "Houseboat Horror" uses it's low budget for gore effects that look disastrous. You can't help but wonder if the money could have been used for something better, like a decent script. The story revolves around a film crew that travels to Lake Infinity to film a music video. But in the woods lurks a mad killer, who slaughters the film crew when they are stupid enough to split from the rest of the group. The killer's motive? Kill film crews because he was nearly burnt to death by a film crew some thirty years ago. Sound ridiculous? It is. Oh, and they're on houseboats, hence the title. The characters are not well written, I could hardly distinguish one from the other and I didn't even know their names. When they're murdered, am I supposed to care? Probably, but there's no emotional impact.

On the technical side of things, the photography was decent enough. But annoyingly, there are so many POV shots that it made my head spin. There is, on average, about one every five minutes. It gets tiring, and boring. The acting varies, some people are okay, I suppose. There are some funny one liners hidden in there. Some of the actors are really horrible, looking like they want to get out of there as fast as they can. But probably the most important part of a horror movie are the death scenes. For a movie that wants to be a gorefest, "Houseboat Horror" doesn't cut it (pardon the pun). Most of them have no suspense, and just cut away to a wall being splashed with blood. In my opinion, that is the weakest of murders in films.

So, if you can find a copy of this, watch it if you must, but don't expect to have fun. It's not even good in a 'so bad it's good' way. It's just bad.

This film is utter crap. Yes if you are really drunk then you will have a laugh at how bad it is, but seriously it is definately the worst Australian movie ever made. The only mildly amusing moment was hearing Alan Dale (Jim Robinson from Neighbours) say the F word.

Where do we start with this one?

Houseboat Horror is really a love it or hate it film. No doubt it is an extremely poor effort in filmmaking. That fact alone will alert most viewers to never allow this DVD into their player, or even their house. If you are looking for a finely crafted filmic experience, this is definitely not the film for you. I fully accept that fact.

However....if you are looking for an awesome, low-brow and incredibly stupid night of unadulterated fun, don't go past this movie! Admittedly, this is not what the filmmakers had in mind when they made this feature (and if they did, they are geniuses!). It is seriously so bad...it's good! Some of the lines are so stupid they are awesome.

To sum up: 1. The script is infantile. 2. The quality of the filmmaking is amateur hour. 3. The acting is utterly....well, let's not go there.

For these reasons, I loved watching it with a few mates (and plenty of beers!). However, I still can't give it more than a 3.