BoardingHouse… Where the Rent Won’t Kill You, but Something Else Will!

The home video revolution in the early 1980s brought a plethora of shot-on-video horror titles to rental store shelves. Aspiring filmmakers from across their land picked up heavy, prehistoric video cameras, gathered friends and family as actors, shot their epics over the course of a few unoccupied weekends and edited their efforts with two VCRs. Many of these titles are remembered fondly for their quirky enthusiasm in lieu of technical proficiency. Some foremost examples include Video Violence (1987) and Video Violence Part 2 (1987) that turned a satirical, critical eye towards the splatter film phenomenon. Chester Novell Turner’s Black Devil Doll from Hell (1984) and Tales from the Quadead Zone (1987) continue to shock and amaze viewers with their primitive genius. Invitation to Hell (1982) from Britain has yet to topple any other comparable project for its unintentional, artless surrealism. Even by-the-numbers home-brewed efforts that follow strict slasher templates such as Sledgehammer (1983) serve as relatively non-demanding time killers.

Standing head and shoulders among this batch was John Wintergate’s BoardingHouse (1982). This title is remembered mostly due to its parade of pretty, frequently naked girls, anyone-can-do-it special effects, and knee-jerk story about evil spirits at a Southern California ranch house. More importantly, BoardingHouse had something on its other shot-on-video brethren that they didn’t: a wide, theatrical distribution. “It opened across Jaws 3-D (1983) in the theaters. It was distributed all over the United States, some places in Europe, too. It was floating around, and we had our rights to it, but [our distributor] Howard Willette died shortly afterwards,” Wintergate explains. “And it’s been black marketed everywhere in the world. It’s out in Germany, translated into German, into Italian, Spanish. We haven’t seen a penny.”

Wintergate, speaking to this writer on a sparking telephone connection out of British Columbia, Canada has quite a tale to spin about the film. Like most stories about independent films, BoardingHouse’s tale is a mixture of ambition, personal vision, and the almighty dollar lurching into the international film marketplace.

The story… In “HorrorVision”

BoardingHouse begins with a warning that the film is shot in “HorrorVision,” with scenes of horror and extreme violence being preceded by a shot of a black-gloved hand flexing and a synthesizer sound effect. Over a threadbare synthesizer score, the film’s credits unfold with ultra-primitive computer graphics. Wintergate directed, scripted, and produced the film under his nom-de-plum Hank Adly. Those chintzy bitmapped graphics are not done with you yet, either. In a prologue, we learn of the title house in question. Accompanied by irritating “dit-dit-dit-dit-dit” sound effects (Bill Landis in an early issue of his Sleazoid Express fanzine likened the effect this had on the theatrical audience of a collective thumbscrew), we learn of the Hoffman family, who was mysteriously murdered while conducting research into psychic phenomena. The fate of the Hoffman children remains unclear.

The introduction then goes into the fates of the subsequent tenants at the Hoffman house. A man floating on a raft in the backyard pool falls off and drowns in what appears to be two or three feet of water. Wintergate explains that this actor was the house’s actual owner and personal friend of his. “We had to promise him a part in the movie, we did, and he died,” remembers Wintergate.” “He played the ‘dying man,’ the one who went in the pool and drowned.” Other tenants are shown to have suffered far worse fates, such as an unlucky woman who puts her hand in the garbage disposal as a mysterious force flicks on the switch and her hand is ground into a bloody mess. Wintergate expresses a certain amount of pride about these opening scenes.

“If you notice, some of the scenes for example, the garbage disposal scene?,” asks Wintergate. “That was the first time it was ever done, and since then it’s been done many times in many different pictures. The computer writing in it? Totally annoying and funny! Subsequently what we did was we added a voiceover for the people to make it not quite so annoying. They really got frustrated and they left because of it! We thought maybe we should just use a voiceover.”

The narrative then jumps to modern day Los Angeles, with Wintergate decked out in the ugliest clothes this side of an International Male catalog as he closes the deal on the accursed house. Our hero plans to rent out the rooms to only the prettiest girls in Tinseltown for $100 a month. It’s not long before hordes of the loveliest ladies in the film and music industry start beating a path to Wintergate’s door. Among them is brunette beauty and rock musician Kalassu (pronounced “Callah Sue”), portrayed by Wintergate’s real-life wife.

It’s a bachelor’s paradise for a while, with a rambling home full of gorgeous women and little more than romps around the pool and bedroom to occupy the time. But slowly but surely, an evil supernatural force is felt around the property. This gives Wintergate and company ample opportunity to indulge in all sorts of cut-rate special effects. Bars of soap and pieces of paper are jerked around by wires. A shrieking male victim disembowels himself by pulling out a few sausage links from his shirt. In a piece-de-resistance of cheap gore effects, a kinky leather blonde lady is commanded by unseen psychic forces to tear out her eyeballs. Contrary to popular viewer opinion, Wintergate says the eyeballs in question aren’t the rubber ones you get out of vending machines, but pig’s eyeballs.

In an unusual plot development, it’s revealed that the film’s hero successfully practices telekinesis as a counterpoint to the evil psychic forces in the film. This reflects Wintergate’s long-standing belief in metaphysics. “We wanted to put in metaphysics, because in our basic cinematography style creations that we had done, a lot of metaphysical stuff was used negatively,” says Wintergate. “We wanted to give a juxtaposition with negative and positive, showing that it can be utilized in ways that can be helpful rather than just destructive. That’s why we needed a negative and a positive force in the movie. Using the metaphysics kind of gave another twist to it, with other weirdo, wild wacky things, instead of just straight horror.”

It’s not revealing too much that one of the house’s tenants is behind the evil psychic disruptions. A blonde beauty (Alexandra Day) whose faux British accent fades in and out is high on the list of suspects. There is a showdown at a wild party, a neat resolution, and room left for a sequel.

Building a Foundation

At the time of BoardingHouse’s filming, Wintergate had worked extensively in the motion picture industry. He is reticent to speak specifically about his previous film work. “Well, I’ve worked for other people before, doing some directing, some writing and acting in different things,” he says. Such as? “Let’s not get into that, it’s old and not really important.”

Had Wintergate seen many other horror movies? “No, we really weren’t into horror films,” he tells me. “We had seen a few of them. Roger Corman had did some, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) was out and so we thought, ‘hmmmm. All these horror movies.’ Why not do something … different? Why don’t we do a genre of making fun of horror movies? In other words, make a comedy out of it? A parody, comic interaction, and do it really over the top. A campy kind of thing, instead of making it serious and horrific and bloody. We wanted it to be funny. We wanted it to be a spoof, which at that point no one had done that I was aware of at the time. Kalassu and I got together and wrote the script, got some friends together, and said, ‘let’s do this.’”

Wintergate cast a lot of his friends and acquaintances in the music and film business. “A lot of them were our friends because we had been in the business, and knew different people, and some actresses wanted to have some film on them and such, so we got our friends together and started casting,” Wintergate says. “We did put out a casting call out for a couple different things but basically we just used friends from the industry.”

Foreseeing the trend to shooting motion pictures on video, Wintergate used the newly emerging technology as a cost-cutting measure. “We thought of doing it on film, but it was a new adventure, and we knew we would have to do a lot of takes, a lot of outtakes,” explains Wintergate. “With film, the cost would be really exorbitant. We would have to shoot 15 to one or something like that. Normally, we shoot three to four to one, because we were trying something new and something different, we had to get the right feel for each on video and see what happened. We could blow it up to 16mm if necessary, and that’s what we did.”

BoardingHouse was shot quickly and inexpensively. “The film was shot in two segments,” Wintergate says. “One shoot lasted two-and-a-half weeks, the other about a week.” While there is a fleeting reference to the house’s address on Hollywood’s Mullholland Drive, the film was shot entirely in the San Fernando Valley. Wintergate pegs the budget around $35,000. “We did a lot of the food catering,” Wintergate points out. “We did spend a lot of money on the costumes, just to make it different. It wasn’t a lot of money for everything. The blowup alone cost 35 grand. Then of course all of the prints cost a grand apiece.”

The one aspect of the film that isn’t scrimped upon is the many garish, rock star costumes. Characters don’t wear the same outfit twice in the film. “That was the whole idea, to make it different,” says Wintergate. “That was accomplished, but the comedy was kind of left behind a little bit. When you watch the movie, really, you don’t know whether to cry or to laugh or to be scared. It’s a little confusing, but I guess that’s what made it so interesting.”

Once completed, the Wintergates looked for a distributor and found it in the person of Howard Willette. “The funny thing is, is that once we did it, and it was done very comical, a lot of the comic scenes were taken out by our distributor,” remembers Wintergate. “He looked at it and he said, ‘No, no, no, no we can’t make fun of a horror movie! It has to be a real horror movie!’ And I said, ‘No, that’s impossible! We shot it to be campy, to be funny. You’re going to confuse the audience!’ He said, ‘No, no. We can’t sell a funny movie. We have to make it a real horror movie.’ I said, ‘Well, I can’t do it! If you want to reedit it, go ahead!’”

Wintergate estimates that at least 20 minutes of footage were cut out by Willette, which leads to certain “continuity issues” with the finished film. The most glaring example is a male character that comes snooping around the house and asks to use the phone. He’s next seen in bathing trunks by the pool surrounded by the girls without any transition shots.

Another example of story elements lost in editing is a mysterious hooded figure with glowing red eyes that appears in a few scenes without any explanation. Wintergate says this will be explained away in the film’s proposed sequel. “Basically what the idea was if you saw the movie, the apparition that comes, the black hooded figure is actually an evil that comes from another dimension and takes over a particular body,” says Wintergate. “BoardingHouse II, which we just finished writing, will be a sequel if the money comes along. We will bring that particular evil apparition to life. Basically, the evil comes from another dimension, disappears [once the villain] disappears, but that can’t be broadcast. That was the idea behind it. She kind of slipped into a different dimension. Anyway, the whole thing will be cleared up a little bit more in BoardingHouse II.”

A notable highpoint of BoardingHouse is Kalassu’s nightmare sequence, where she’s pulled into her bed by groping hands (rendered on the film’s poster and video box art), menaced by a pig-headed phantom, and wanders into an eerie graveyard that sports a headstone with the name “Ilsa Wolfe” on it. Is this a reference to the Ilsa films starring Dyanne Thorne, such as Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS (1974)? “There was no conscious reference to anybody,” claims Wintergate. “It was basically just the tombstone that was around. We created it, but I don’t know why it came out that way.”

Theatrical Distribution

Wintergate only has praise for distributor Howard Willette, who he says “really got it out there!” BoardingHouse played the dwindling grindhouse and drive-in circuit, as well as the sterile suburban multiplexes. “I don’t know what [Willette’s] books really read. People have double books most of the time, and I think we made 150 prints that were sent out all over,” says Wintergate. “We put it up into 35mm which at that particular time was still a novelty. Nobody had ever really done a movie in video and then blown it up. It looked reasonably okay on the big screen. There was pretty good visual quality. The one that we saw was not bad. It wasn’t crystal clear, like the big budget movies.”

How did theatergoers react to the Wintergate’s unique creation? “It was very diverse,” Wintergate remembers. “Some people thought it was just absolutely a hoot. I guess there were people who love to party, and just watch and make fun of movies. Other people went ‘This is just the worst thing I’ve seen in my life!’ From A to Z, the gamut was pretty big, which is an indication that it made an impact, regardless of which way.”

Money continued to roll into the Wintergates’ coffers until their original distributor Willette passed away. This writer first encountered BoardingHouse on the Paragon Video label, and clearly remembers both a version transferred from film and a straight video version of the movie on rental shelves. Michael Weldon of Psychotronic Video declared that the tape version took a permanent place in all check-cashing stores throughout the nation. It was even floating around under the alternate video title HouseGeist. By this point, John and Kalassu weren’t making a cent off of the feature.

“Somebody made out big, and it wasn’t any of us,” Wintergate laughs. “It wasn’t the distributor, either. It’s all water under the bridge, I guess. Karma paid!”

Life After BoardingHouse

Wintergate, his wife, and his two children forsook Hollywood a long time ago, but before they threw in the towel, there was one more feature to be made.

“We made a film called Sally and Jess, the direct opposite,” says Wintergate. “It’s a Walt Disney type of movie, shot on film, 16mm and 35mm. It had a lot of woodsy scenes, and I didn’t want to take 35mm into the woods because you have to clean the lenses forever and the housing. The 16mm was easier to deal with in the woods. After our distributor died, we finalized it and we tried to find other distributors. We found two, and both of them tried to rip me off, but I got wind of it. I still have it. It’s perfectly virgin. I couldn’t find a distributor who was clean and honest. I tried the big distributors and they didn’t want to hear from us, and I tried the small ones. A lot of them were fly-by-night outfits and I didn’t feel it was right just to lose another one. It’s still there and one day if some distributor comes along, it would be a very nice TV movie, but now nobody will accept it if you know good people.”

Today, shot-on-video movies on theater screens are common. Due to increasingly sophisticated digital technology, video can now replicate the diffuse nature of film stock. Films such as 28 Days Later (2002) and Wolf Creek (2005), among several others, were shot on video with all sorts of technical trickery used to conceal their humble origins.

Wintergate and his family have since traveled all over the world, playing in their rock band Lightstorm. Wintergate’s clan now resides at an idyllic mountain retreat. “We have a home in Idaho, way on top of a mountain,” Wintergate reveals. “We took the kids out of the big city because as they were growing up, you can’t keep them in the backyard or the front yard anymore. Kalassu said, ‘They need some more nature,’ so we moved them up into the mountains. It’s a beautiful house. It’s a place where there’s silence, clean water, clean air, and lots of nature for the kids to have interaction with.”

And yet there’s an indication that we haven’t heard the last about that spirit-plagued home and that the story may very well continue. “We wrote BoardingHouse II because it’s a cult classic, and there are lots and lots of people interested,” says Wintergate. “So we wrote a second script and it’s ready to go. Our daughter and our son will continue the BoardingHouse sequel. Kalassu will be in it, and I will be in it for a few cameos.”

In any case, Wintergate is gratified that his feature is vividly remembered some 25 years afterwards. He remains heartened that anyone who sees BoardingHouse never forgets it and points out that “in the entertainment business, that’s a big plus!”