Simon Alford Where do we start with this one?Houseboat Horror is really a love it or hate it film. No doubt it is an extremely poor effort in filmmaking. That fact alone will alert most viewers to never allow this DVD into their player, or even their house. If you are looking for a finely crafted filmic experience, this is definitely not the film for you. I fully accept that fact.However....if you are looking for an awesome, low-brow and incredibly stupid night of unadulterated fun, don't go past this movie! Admittedly, this is not what the filmmakers had in mind when they made this feature (and if they did, they are geniuses!). It is seriously so bad...it's good! Some of the lines are so stupid they are awesome.To sum up: 1. The script is infantile. 2. The quality of the filmmaking is amateur hour. 3. The acting is utterly....well, let's not go there.For these reasons, I loved watching it with a few mates (and plenty of beers!). However, I still can't give it more than a 3.

symbioticpsychotic This absolute trash is based so closely on the Friday the 13th series that is practically a carbon copy, accept for it being an Australian film with people who can't act.Once upon a time a young boy got burnt up accidentally during the filming of a music video at Lake Eildon. Now, a number of years later, the boy is all grown up and taking revenge on anybody who comes to the lake to film a music video. It is cliche-ridden and a waste of time and money, see it only out of curiosity, or if you're an aspiring actor trying to learn how NOT to (not be able to) act. Lead role Alan Dale used to star in the television soap opera Neighbours, but ended up in The X Files - how did THAT happen?

denise17 Yep, this film is bad. Really bad. But it's worth watching just so the next time you watch Gavin Wood on the Lotto draw on Saturday nights, you can laugh at the memory of his acting performance. Incidentally, this film is so bad it was featured by D-Generation members on The Late Show back in the 90s, in a "Is this the worst film ever made?" type review. Although a possible runner-up in the Worst Australian Film category could be the Day/Strike of the Panther, two appalling martial arts films shot in Perth. I have no idea how they got the funding for the second effort!

insert_name_here Australian horror movies aren't very popular, but that doesn't mean that they're inferior. There have been some good ones, the very tongue in cheek "Cut", the bizarre "13th Floor" and the interesting "Out of the Body." Of course, there have been some really terrible ones, the worst of which is "Houseboat Horror." This movie was made in 1989, a time when horror films were running out of steam. Making a movie like "Houseboat Horror" was a mistake at this time. It recycled all the cliches used in 80's horror and recycled them badly. The movie looks to be extremely low budget, and seems to be shot on videotape. That doesn't matter though, a movie can still be low budget and be brilliant. But "Houseboat Horror" uses it's low budget for gore effects that look disastrous. You can't help but wonder if the money could have been used for something better, like a decent script. The story revolves around a film crew that travels to Lake Infinity to film a music video. But in the woods lurks a mad killer, who slaughters the film crew when they are stupid enough to split from the rest of the group. The killer's motive? Kill film crews because he was nearly burnt to death by a film crew some thirty years ago. Sound ridiculous? It is. Oh, and they're on houseboats, hence the title. The characters are not well written, I could hardly distinguish one from the other and I didn't even know their names. When they're murdered, am I supposed to care? Probably, but there's no emotional impact.On the technical side of things, the photography was decent enough. But annoyingly, there are so many POV shots that it made my head spin. There is, on average, about one every five minutes. It gets tiring, and boring. The acting varies, some people are okay, I suppose. There are some funny one liners hidden in there. Some of the actors are really horrible, looking like they want to get out of there as fast as they can. But probably the most important part of a horror movie are the death scenes. For a movie that wants to be a gorefest, "Houseboat Horror" doesn't cut it (pardon the pun). Most of them have no suspense, and just cut away to a wall being splashed with blood. In my opinion, that is the weakest of murders in films.So, if you can find a copy of this, watch it if you must, but don't expect to have fun. It's not even good in a 'so bad it's good' way. It's just bad.