Matialth Good concept, poorly executed.

TeenzTen An action-packed slog

Aneesa Wardle The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Lidia Draper Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

Flak_Magnet 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 In the accompanying interview featurette, the filmmakers claim that the project was originally made as a horror comedy, but the distributor reedited it into a slasher film.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

FieCrier 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.

gridoon 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.

deecroh 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.