With 10 Schlocktoberfests under our zippers, we’re going back to our roots by keeping things a little simpler, and we thought it would be adorable if we revisited past themes this year. For example, this garbage you’re about to read is inspired by:

Houseboat Horror (1989)

Trailer (couldn’t find one, so here is the entire film):

*Spoilers Throughout*

What’s This About: An Australian sissy rock band takes a bunch of houseboats to film the most boring music video in Australian MTV history and run afoul of a killer whose motives are ridiculous, mate. 

Here are some of my observations as I watched the film:

• There are 27 hitchhikers on this road.

• The driver of the van who picked up this lady hitchhiker is some kind of rock star.

• They may as well be speaking Mandarin instead of Australian.

• The hitchhiker says she’s staying at a campsite with her boyfriend, then what the fuck was she doing hitchhiking miles away without him?

• Oh he’s been slaughtered. It’s nice that he lived just long enough to tell her to run, which she definitely wouldn’t have done otherwise after seeing his mutilated corpse.

• Dr. Houseboat (I’m calling him, for now) catches up to her and stabs her anyway. 

• Lemmy is playing a gas station attendant!

• Stop saying “mate”!

• These guys stopped to get gas and are talking about a rock band, so this fits the rock band theme, way more than Witchcraft IV.

• There’s a couple driving side by side on the road on walkie talkies or giant cell phones. Why are they not in the same car? The world may never know.

• The local sheriff is pissed because this music video crew is partying way too hard but all they’re doing is drinking a couple beers and boating, and there’s literally nobody else around.

• Dr. Houseboat kills the dick sheriff. His fingers look like if John Carradine’s were burned in a grease fire.

• Holy wombat shit what is happening.

• Wombat shit is square, by the way.

• “The song really is a bag of shit.” BINGO.

• So apparently Dr. Houseboat was burned on a film set as a child, so he wants to kill this film crew, for some reason. I guess pure coincidence that this film crew is in the exact same location as the killer.

• Where are they going and why do they need to take houseboats instead of just driving there?

• So the houseboats go to a location that is exactly like the location they initially set off from.

• They film the video finally and it’s the absolute lamest thing put to video since we recorded commentary for Nightmare on Elm Street TWO! It’s basically watersports (not the Cruising kind) and standing on the houseboat. Even Mr. Big tried harder.

• Dr. Houseboat’s mother apparently comes to visit the houseboats. She’s like if Pamela Voorhees had no direction in life.

• I suppose any boat can be a houseboat if you live on it.

• The band here should be Midnight Oil because the killer was severely burned. I hope that joke makes sense. Or maybe this is a good place for a Great White joke.

• One couple goes to a spooky abandoned building, which is actually a horse stable that looks like it was freshly built 3 weeks ago.

• They keep looking in the empty horse stalls like they’re going to uncover some great mystery. This has been going on for 10 minutes. It’s what the Australians call “fyllah.”

• Shitty Mrs. Voorhees keeps rubbing someone’s swatch of pubes.

• A horseshoe through the eyeballs, but not exactly in the eyes, so how did that kill her?

• I guess we’re done with the houseboats now? That definitely wasn’t enough houseboat time for the movie to be called Houseboat Horror.

• Oh, now we’re back on the houseboats. The geography of this movie is senseless. That’s what you call scathing criticism.

• People are getting murdered but it’s really nothing of consequence to write about.

• We finally get a full look at the killer and he sort of looks like Jason if life wasn’t so hard for him, or Michael Berryman after a hard night of partying.

• Half of the band is still at this random bar god knows where from the houseboat.

• Maybe there would be more suspense if you knew literally anyone’s name in this movie. I think maybe there’s a Tracey but I don’t know if it’s a girl or a guy or both.

• A glacial houseboat speed does not a dramatic escape make.

• How did Lame Jason make it on the houseboat?

• Oh they burn him again, good call.

• Where did Shitty Mrs. Voorhees go off to?

• Oh she pops up at the end, luring the remaining band people to the nice horse barn.

• And Shitty Jason’s hand pops up out of the water at the end. Where have I seen this before? Oh yeah, Starship Troopers.

Where are all the categories that used to be here?: We’re not doing them this year because they were a useless waste of time. You know, like everything else. They may pop back up again here and there if we really have something to point out.

Final Thoughts: This movie is almost unwatchable, but it also kind of has a certain charm that redeems it a microscopic amount. It’s probably but definitely the Australian accents. If these hosers were from St. Louis it would be tragically bad. It’s pretty generous with the gore but it’s nothing to write homeboat about. Plus, the band sucks and would rate a Shit Sandwich on the Schlocktoberfest V band scale. It’s all about as thrilling as spending a night on an actual houseboat. If you like funny accents, mullets, and VHS, I guess you could do worse, like eating a cassette covered in Vegemite and a murder victim’s pubic hair.

Score: 2 Video Shoot Locations that are Exactly the Same (out of 10)