BoardingHouse -1982
By The Bottom Reel Editorial Team ·
The First Shot-On-Video Slasher and King of Psychotronic Trash
Plot
On September 18, 1972, Dr. Hoffman and his wife, both specialists in telekinesis and the occult, are found dead in their Mulholland Drive ranch home on their anniversary. Their 13-year-old daughter Debbie witnesses it and is institutionalized. Subsequent buyers – including Herman Royce – die gruesome, unexplained deaths.
In 1982, Jim Royce John Wintergate, nephew of Herman, inherits the house and reopens it as a boarding house. A playboy obsessed with the occult and telekinesis himself, Jim places a newspaper ad for young, single women. Aspiring actresses and models Sandy, Suzie, Cindy, Gloria, Pam and Terri move in.
An English woman, Debbie Alexandra Day, arrives begging to move into the cramped spare room.
Detective Richard Grant is casing the house. His private investigator is electrocuted in a bathtub and buried in the backyard by an unseen force. Jim shows Victoria Spelling Kalassu – an aspiring singer – his telekinetic powers. She has visions of a monstrous entity dragging her into Dr. Hoffman's grave. Her cat Pumpkin is found dead.
At the housewarming party, Jim learns Cindy’s body was recovered from the beach and that it is the 10th anniversary of the Hoffman deaths. Outside, a supernatural force makes Jim’s cop friend shoot a partygoer and then kill himself. Pam claws her own eyeballs out. The gardener – played by Wintergate himself as Hawk Adly – is stabbed by the pool.
Debbie reveals herself as Deborah Hoffman, daughter of the original owners. She had an incestuous relationship with her father and murdered her parents. Using telekinesis, she has been killing tenants for trespassing. Jim and Victoria unite psychically and defeat her.
A postscript: the house burned down that night, Jim is now a programmer, Victoria is a successful singer, and Debbie’s body was never found.
The film also used a gimmick called Horror Vision – a warning popped up on screen before a violent scene.
Cast & Crew
Victoria Spelling – Kalassu
Debbie Hoffman – Alexandra Day
James “Jim” Royce / Gardener – John Wintergate as Hawk Adly
Cindy – Mary McKinley
Richard – Brian Bruderlin
Joel Weintraub – Joel Riordan
Suzie – Tracy O’Brian
Gloria – Rosane Woods
Pam – Cindy Williamson
Officer Paul – Jim Vincenzo
Directed / Written / Starring: John Wintergate musician
Produced by: Peter Baahlu
Cinematography: Jan Lucas, Obee Ray Elliot Van Koghbe
Edited by: Jim Balcom, Johnny Kay
Production Co.: Blustarr
Distributed by: Coast Films
Runtime: 88 min theatrical / 99 min home video / 157 min “director’s cut” fan-edit
Budget: US$10,000
Wintergate developed the idea with wife Kalassu in 1978 as a comedy-horror. After reading that George Lucas was experimenting with video, he shot it on video to save money for the film transfer. The distributor cut most comedy to make it strictly horror, which made it a “quirky somewhat puzzling film” – and an eventual cult classic.
Social Impact & Reception
Historical first: Boardinghouse is notable for being the first horror film to be shot on video. Shot in Los Angeles on consumer video, it was blown up to 35mm and given a limited theatrical release starting Knoxville, Tennessee April 15, 1983. Every SOV shot-on-video horror since owes it a debt.
Contemporary reception: Brutal.
Cinefantastique (1984): “This film is a perfect example of why horror grosses have plummeted at the box-office. Charging anyone to see this crap is a crime. Special effects, acting and production values are non-existent.”
Cult reevaluation:
Chicago Film Society (2017 revival): “Boardinghouse is an essential piece of lunatic cinema, complete with requisite high levels of gore and camp.”
The A.V. Club: “a shotgun marriage of Halloween, Carrie and The Amityville Horror.”
Film scholar Scott Aaron Stine in The Gorehound’s Guide to Splatter Films of the 1980s called it “godawful lousy.”
Rotten Tomatoes audience reviews: “This is the first shot on video horror film that was blown up to 35mm and released in theatres! And it's everything you'd want from an SOV flick. Lots of cheese, bad acting, some blood and lots of boobs. This is something any die hard horror fan and b-movie freak should own.” Another: “The first horror film in history to be shot on video, Boardinghouse is…well…there really isn't anything else like Boardinghouse.”
Home media kept it alive: VHS by Paragon, DVD by Code Red 2008, 30th anniversary 2-disc by Slasher//Video 2013, and AGFA Blu-ray 2021 with 2K scan of a 35mm theatrical print plus the Psycho Killer cut.
Budget vs. Box Office
Production Budget: $10,000
Box Office: No reported grosses. Limited theatrical in 1983, then VHS rental market. It was profitable on video due to ultra-low cost.
Profit Model: All profit came from VHS / DVD / Blu-ray cult sales and midnight screenings. AGFA’s 2021 Blu-ray sold out its pressing.
Ratings
IMDb: 3.8 / 10
Rotten Tomatoes: No Tomatometer too few critic reviews, Audience Score ∼32% – listed as “A real stinker, but some fun!”
FilmAffinity: 3.0 / 10 from 97 votes
Rating: R for nudity, violence, language
Bottom line: BoardingHouse is profoundly bad – incoherent, cheap, mesmerizingly sleazy – and historically vital. If you want to see where Troma, Cannibal Campout, and 80s SOV horror came from, watch the 88-minute theatrical cut with Horror Vision on. If you want a good movie, watch something else.