Boardinghouse (1982)

In 1972 Dr. Hoffman and his wife, who are Nobel prize winners for their research in telekinesis, are found dead in their home.  Over the next ten years, everyone who buys the house dies a mysterious death.

Jim inherits the property after his uncle's death. He decides to make it into a boardinghouse, putting an ad in the newspaper looking for attractive young women to rent the rooms.  Next thing you know, the ladies have moved in, and are ready for fun with Jim and his large backyard pool.

But there is evil in their midst.  Is it the house?  Is it the creepy gardener?  Is it Jim's telekinetic powers? Or is it Jim's propensity to wear bikini underwear?

The movie clocks in at close to two hours, which is far too long.  While the film has some charm, it gets tedious at times since nothing is happening.

If you choose to watch this be prepared for lots of scenes of the backyard pool, women in bikini's, scenes that go nowhere, Jim in thong bikini's, a pie fight, the bands butts, scenes that seem to cut off in the middle, bad acting, lots of telekinesis, and a performance by the band 33 1/3, who are actually Lightstorm,  the real band of our two leads, Jim and Victoria.

Yellow pants, leopard thong, cowboy hat?
Jim's a fashion plate.

According to the interview and commentary track with John Wintergate (Jim/writer/director) and Kalassu (Victoria), the film was meant to be a parody of horror films.  But their distributor wouldn't release it as he said no one would be interested. So it was re-edited to be a horror movie.  They say this is why things don't make sense.

The problem I have with this explanation is that parodies are amusing or downright funny, and the film isn't funny.  So it fails as both a horror film and a parody.   I'm left wondering if they may be pulling a Tommy Wiseau (The Room), and stating it is supposed to be funny since people are already laughing at it.

In the interviews John and Kalassu come off as nice people, and it's impressive that they are still a couple after so many years.  The commentary tracks are interesting, but Kalassu often stops John from telling behind the scenes info.  She jokingly insisting that the telekinesis was real and that they shouldn't give away their secrets.  This is a detriment as part of the fun of a commentary is finding out how certain effects were done.  I would have loved to know how they did the telekinesis soap scene, but Kalassu stops John from talking about it.

Yeah, I really don't want to rent a room from this guy.

It's James Brolin's brother - seriously, it really is.

She's got a poster of herself on the wall.

All I could think when I saw this scene
was that's a huge slice of salami.

Oh no. This we do NOT need to see.

Pie fight!

I really hope that's a wig.

Good god no! Don't ever play a show on the edge of a pool.

Is there something wrong with my eyes?

I feel like I'm watching a Lita Ford video.

This is not my idea of telekinesis.