Boarding House (1982)

Directed by John Wintergate
Starring Kalassu, Lindsay Freeman, Selma Kora, John Wintergate
Rated R 
USA

"Last week the Hoffman house was open for boarders. Along with the residents...something else moved in!"

For most of the 20th century making a feature film was an enormous and prohibitively expensive pain-in-the-ass. Trucks full of lighting equipment, giant expensive cameras with a range of specific lenses, reel to reel recorders and boom mikes, and the lab processing of miles of fragile film were all required to make even the cheapest low-budget quickie. The trashiest ultra-cheapo roughie would still cost you more than 5 or 10 brand new Jeep Cherokees.

And then came Videotape. The consumer grade video camera made it possible for any jerk with $700 and a pair of VCRs to shoot, edit, and foist upon the world, a craptacular feature film. And, if two-hours of internet research is to be trusted, the first shot on home video feature to receive a North American Theatrical release was 1982's BOARDINGHOUSE.

It is easy enough to give the plot of the film in a nutshell, because there is not really a nutshell's worth of plot to begin with. A crappy house in the San Fernando Valley has been the scene of a series of unexplained "telekinetic" deaths and has been bequeathed to an amoral young (if 45 is young) swinger named Jim. He runs and classified ad for roomies that begins with the phrase "Girls Girls Girls!" and encourages attractive and unattached party  (age 18 to 25 - No Fatties!) to move into his pad for dirt cheap rent and some good times.

Apparently back in 1982 women in Los Angeles were more concerned with inexpensive rent than with their own personal safety, so in the wink of an eye, a bevy of busty beauties move in with Jim a settle into a life of constant sexual harassment and telekinetic hi-jinx.  As the girls are getting settled a latecomer named Debbie shows up and, in a super-fake English accent, begs to get in on the action.  The girls are skeptical, but after Jim gives her a sleazy once-over, she is welcomed aboard.

A note about Jim. Director John Wintergate realized that the character of Jim, a middle-aged scum ball who the script requires to make out with a bunch of topless 20 year old starlets and have off-putting mechanical shower sex in a 46 second scene that is 45 seconds too long, was too complex a figure to place in the hands of just any actor. So, despite looking like a cross between Marty Feldman and Mike Reno from the band Loverboy, Wintergate cast himself in the demanding role. He must have also worried that the role of the alcoholic gardener would prove too nuanced as well, so he donned a leather jacket and a mothy wig and grunt/mumbled a spellbinding performance.

It's all laughter and topless splash fights in the pool until strange telekinetic horrors begin visiting the fun-loving girls. Bloody hallucinations in the shower, refrigerators that spew yogurt at your face, bars of soap that spin with unearthly fury, and flying eggs are just the beginning of the nightmare. Things get worse for the girls (and the audience) when we begin seeing an amorphous evil blob with 8-bit computer sounds right before something gory is about to happen.

Things come to a head when the girls throw a pool party/orgy and host an impromptu concert for the band 33 and a Third (Apparently a real band featuring Wintergate's wife, Kalassu). The fuzzy blob gets busy and has girls gouging out their own eyes and veteran cops turning their weapons on themselves. I won't spoil the ending for you, but I will say that Jim spends a few minutes screaming, "No Debbie! No!"

With it's total lack of production value, it's flimsy plotting and dialog, and it's profoundly bad editing, BOARDINGHOUSE is pretty thin soup, even for fans of laughable crap. Maybe the ample supply of buxom 80's boobies is enough for some fans to give it a look. The film is available on DVD from Code Red and would probably be a much more satisfying experience for fans of nudity than the third generation VHS transfer that I watched. But in truth, no format is going to make this shot-on-video disaster look good.

- Kent "Woodshed" Shelton

Run Like Hell (1995)

Directed by Robert Rundle

Starring Elizabeth Lamont, Liz Davies, Colleen Corrigan, Robert Z'Dar

Unrated 

USA

"We'll have to fuck 'em for guns."

"Oh, we'll fuck them all right. Just not the way they're expecting."

Mutant-jawed Robert Z'Dar toplines this sexed-up, no-budget, post-apoc mess as the scuzzball warden of a women's prison. The plotline is delightfully senseless, but it goes something like this: in the near-future (now the past - it takes place in 2008!), single women are rounded up and incarcerated in brutal work camps because they're deemed too dangerous for society. Why? Who knows. Boner problems, maybe. A ragtag group of plucky prisoners break out of Z'Dar's prison and go on the lam. He hires ridiculous bounty hunters to chase them down. Hijinks ensue. 

In the opening scene, Z'Dar - looking as fucking crazy as ever - watches on his futuristic 2008 video monitors as a couple prisoners shower. Two things stick out - first, it's clear from the beginning that the producers nabbed the Maniac Cop star for one day - maybe even half a day - and shot all of his scenes in one take. Secondly, while it's a good sign to see boobs within three minutes of the movie's starting time, who takes showers in their thongs? 

After getting thoroughly chubbed up by the sensual two-girl shower, Warden (that's the warden's name - Warden!) orders the girls in to his office for the expressed purpose of raping them both. 

However, he is soon overpowered by the scrappy duo, who bash his skull with a truncheon and bail. They meet up with two other prisoners, and the four of 'em skulk around the office-building-masquerading-as-a-prison, picking off guards and snatching their guns. Did I mention that they're all topless, barefoot, and be-thonged? 

They make it outside - luckily, the door was unlocked - and cross some railroad tracks. In their bare feet! Ouch. That gravel had to hurt. Eventually, they stumble onto a guard shack/tent. Using their feminine wiles, they seduce and manhandle the two goofy idiot guards, taking their guns (didn't they already have enough?) and, inexplicably, finding a bunch of clothes that fit them all perfectly. 

So then they get dressed. Bummer. And then they shoot the guards, for about ten minutes.

This wears them out, so they build a campfire and go to sleep. Before their well-deserved snooze, however, they all decide that they're going to head for Paradise City where, we can only presume, the grass is green and the girls are pretty. 

They wake up to find a cowboy fighting a ninja. Why not? The ninja wins and suggests he tag along with them, because the mutants come out at night, and they'll need his protection. Sounds viable. By the way, Ninja wears his Ninja mask all the time, so all his lines are muffled.

Meanwhile, Warden sends a bounty hunter and a goony "droid" to chase after the girls. The bounty hunter dresses like the terminator. The droid has some sort of apparatus strapped to his head. Or maybe its' the other way around, hard to say. At any rate, that's going on, as well. 

Not all of the girls survive their first few days in the wastelands. It's pretty tough out there. Ninja decides they need kung fu training before they go any further. So that's what they do. 

There's also a couple subplots going on. One involves another bounty hunter wandering around with a girl in 80's rock video jeans. Nothing much happens there. I think they just crowbarred that bit in because the girl has awesome pants. 

Another one has something to do with a prison guard who's dresses like a gay porn stud. He's got a brothel in the prison bathroom. He likes to make the girls dance topless while he fiddles with his nightstick. That sounds like a euphemism, but that's actually what he does. 

Also, did I mention the topless fight club in the basement? 

And the chainsaw-wielding "Arena of Death" match in the desert? 

Of course, with all this madness going on, you are surely wondering whether our heroines ever make it to Paradise City. Well, let me ask you this: do any of us ever make it to Paradise City? Life's a journey, man. Not a destination. 

While it always looks more like outsider art than an actual film made by sane individuals, and the budget could not have topped a week's paycheck, I can't really fault director Rundle for anything. He had a vision, and a camcorder, and he went for it. Likewise the cast gives it their all, whether bashing each other in the face, or rolling around in a swamp, or tromping around under a hot sun wearing nothing but dollar-store thongs, this is one seriously committed acting troupe. For their sakes, I suggest you watch this nutty little 80 minute time-waster. Don't let their considerable efforts go in vain. While Run Like Hell is neither the greatest film ever made or the worst, there are moments throughout when it is both. 

Plus, there's boobs galore. Galore! 

- Ken McIntyre

Cannibal Hookers (1987)

AKA I Will Dance on Your Grave, Volume 3
Directed by Donald Farmer
Starring Annette Munro, Amy Waddell, Sheila Best
Unrated
USA

"This sorority has a reputation on campus, and I just hope you're able to live up to it."
"I think so. After all, how hard is it to act like a drunken bitch?"

First off, this is not a movie about cannibals. Nor is it about hookers. It's about big hair, and big dreams. To be fair, it's not even a movie at all, really, it's an hour long home-video, part of that first awful wave of horror-themed, shot-on-video junk that cluttered video store shelves in the 80's, a shoddy, eyeball-bruising wave that included sheer lunacy like Boardinghouse (1982), Killing Spree (1987), and 555 (1988). It was in these cut-and-run days that Tennessee-born filmmaker Donald Farmer first forged his empire, crafting no-budget tits n' blood epics like this, Demon Queen (1986), and Scream Dream (1989), and selling the VHS tapes via ads placed in horror-zines like Draculina. Despite a near constant stream of bad press, both for dubious business practices and dubious product, Farmer never stopped believin', and never stopped doling out sleazy SOV garbage. He's still doing it. Cannibal Hookers, however, is still, not surprisingly, his most well known work.

Lobo (Gary Levinson), a mute cannibal maniac, chomps on a chunk of bloody (or perhaps barbequed) meat in a cellar full of chains and weapons. Camilla (Diana Cruz), a blonde woman with severe eyeliner and S&M garb, tells him to prepare for the evening's entertainment.

Cut to: A skinny, tiny-titted chick with teased hair (Sky Nicholas) strolling down Hollywood Boulevard. She walks into a dark, threadbare bar, where she's quickly picked up by a john (Drew Goderis). He brings her to some rathole with a stained mattress, and they commence to get frisky. She excuses herself and comes back topless and armed with a hatchet. And then she bites off his finger and eats it.

Cut to: Hillary (Amy Waddell) and DeeDee (Annette Munro), two big-haired college girls head off to pledge a sorority, Gamma-Zeta-Beta, the "Sleaziest sorority in the state," according to DeeDee. Stephanie (Priscilla Barnes doppelganger Sheila Best), the president of the sorority, tells them that they have to dress up like hookers on Sunset Boulevard and pick up two johns for their initiation. They agree, but once they get outside, DeeDee has second thoughts.

"Maybe a sorority's not such a good idea," she offers. "Couldn't we just find a frat house that needs two little sisters?"
"Little Sisters?" Snorts Hillary. "For your information, being little sisters holds about as much social status as being gang-raped by nazis."
What?!

Cut to: Another hooker (Kristie Etzold) picking up a couple idiots with child molester mustaches. She brings them back to some crumbling mansion, and after stripping naked and sloppily humping one of the guys on an ugly checkered couch, she bails so that Lobo can choke the fucker to death.

Then he brings a cup of blood down to the basement, where his vampire queen - or whatever she is - sleeps topless, holding a plastic skull.
She wakes up and gulps the blood down.
"How nice," she hisses. "Breakfast in bed."

Cut to: Hollywood Book and Poster, where Hillary and DeeDee are shopping for hooker outfits. A poster store seems like a dumb place to look for such items, but whatever. It's a good excuse to ogle the awesome merchandise.

Cut to: Saturday night. The girls have their slutty outfits on, and after a pretty bitchin' tour of the strip and all it's X-rated theaters, Stephanie drops them off in the sleazy side of town. She gives them a few pointers ("Avoid vice, and charge extra for blowjobs,") and hands them an address to bring their customers to.

The girls are, naturally, nervous about the prank, but luckily Hillary's boyfriend Bruce (Tommy Carrano) and his goony friends show up. Since Stephanie doesn't know who his friends are, Hillary figures they can just bring Dwight (Matt Borlenghi) and Darrell (Don Trimborn) back.

They all head to the address Stephanie gave them: the crumbling castle/mansion. They are greeted by Lobo and the goth-y cannibal hookers. Hillary and DeeDee have had about as much of this bullshit as they're gonna take, so they bail, taking Darrell with them. Dwight, however, thinks he's hit some sexual jackpot, so he sticks around. Not surprisingly, he ends up with his heart torn out and eaten.

The next morning, Camilla calls Darrell and tells him that Dwight had too much to drink last night, and wants him to come pick him up. Darrell happens to be on his way to have lunch with DeeDee, so he picks her up first, and they zip over to the cannibal house. In a bizarre turn of events, Darrell gets turned into a zombie, and DeeDee ends up chained to wall, her bright yellow Buckwheat shirt torn wide open, the now-ghoulish Darrell inching towards her.

Cut to: actually, I'm leaving a bunch of stuff out, but it's not all that important. The important bit is that Stephanie throws a party for the new sorority sisters, and zombie DeeDee shows up, looking exactly like Courtney Love. So that's pretty funny. She chomps Hillary on the neck, and she turns into a zombie-cannibal girl, too.

How's it all end? Badly. How else?

Considered laughably cheap and amateurish when it was initially released, this hopelessly dated romp now has considerable kitsch appeal. It might even be a low-level classic, at this point. If you weren't there and wonder what 1987 really looked like, this is the perfect time capsule for that ridiculous era. Younger sleaze-beasts will be both pleased and amused to find out that hookers, metal chicks, and sorority girls pretty much dressed the same back then.

Surely, as the days of Aquanet and Casio slip further into time's incinerator, the legend of Cannibal Hookers will only grow in stature. 100 years from now, it'll probably be a holy relic. The inevitable digitally remastered version will surely look amazing.

As to its bizarre alternate title, a fly-by-night distro called Eden snatched up a bunch of these SOV flicks during the early days of DVD and released splotchy, washed-out, budget dupes in a 'series' called I Dance On Your Grave. Other titles included Killing Spree, Farmer's own Savage Vengeance (1993), and Lethal Victims (AKA W.A.R., Women Against Rape, 1987).

Farmer is still at it, of course. 2006's Dorm of the Dead amped-up the star power with appearances from Tiffany Shepis and Miss Howard Stern, Andrea Ownbey. In classic Farmer form, it featured blood splashing walls, murky camerawork, and hysterical non-acting. You may scoff at the man's shaky technical expertise, but you do have to marvel at his rock-solid consistency. I have no doubt the 50 year old Farmer will be churning out witless splatter-porn 20 years from now, and it will still look exactly like this. His latest film, Chainsaw Cheerleaders, is currently making the festival rounds. Call me a glutton for punishment, but it looks fuckin' awesome.

As to the hookers themselves, well, they've all moved on. But I'll bet half of them still have the hair.

Availability: Cannibal Hookers is available on DVD.

- Ken McIntyre