Haunted Boat (DVD)
Mike Phalin
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Starring Courtney Scheuerman, Brain Harr, Jon Ericksen and Isis the cat
Directed by Olga Levens
Distributed by Lionsgate Home Entertainment
Haunted Boat really does exist. We all thought it was a joke Foy made up while we were recording a Dinner For Fiends episode, but he wasn’t lying. When the disc arrived there was a sudden stillness in the air as the cover art was examined. It had all the tell-tale characteristics of a bomb: extreme photo shopping that could in no way match the film, no special features and screen caps that were too generic to reveal plot or quality. The only certain thing was the run time (98 minutes) and the possibility of some nudity. Shall we take the dive?
Goddamnit! Shallow waters!
A half dozen teenage friends set off in a small boat to Catalina Island only to get stuck in a thick fog. While waiting for the air to clear, the six kids encounter ghosts, cats, nipple piercings and strange visions. The teens are picked off one by one, meeting their fate via their worst fears. Will the cliche good girl character be able to escape while all the over-sexed friends die?! Can all this be accomplished with a new camera technique called Vomit-Vision and a directorial styling known as ‘scrapping the bottom of the barrel?!’
A woman named Olga Levens is responsible for this mess. Her roll as writer, director, cinematographer, producer and casting director are solely to blame for the Titanic pile of crap that is known as Haunted Boat. This film manages to run through every single thing a filmmaker could possibly do in order to piss off viewers and bore them to tears. Adding talentless characters to play paint-by-numbers characters isn’t a good way to start things. Follow that up with camera work that makes those at home sea sick is quite an accomplishment and almost brings the audience right into the movie. Too bad that isn’t a thing to be proud of.
One can’t be proud of the Haunted Boat‘s plot either. According to the DVD cover each of the characters must face their worst nightmare. But then why do some just disappear, while another person only throws up spaghetti, and finally one kid dies of a bad heart while swimming? Olga must have never seen a Freddy feature before or even had the slightest bit of creativity. Were they facing their worst fears somewhere off camera? Maybe something like, “How the hell am I going to get future work after this?!”
The actors may have been the most glaring problem with this DVD, but the real killer is the direction. Haunted Boat skips back and forth from problem to problem and characters the audience is never given a reason to care about. How is one supposed to feel anything for dead teen when we hardly knew his/her name, let alone their personality. There’s not one redeeming minute out of all ninety-eight of them to justify this as a purchase or even a rental.
Haunted Boat is not worth the $10.00 used to make it. There are many other teen horror flicks out there that really deliver on scares, boobs and blood. So why even make this in the first place? What is the point of wasting everyone’s time and money if the filmmakers are not even going to put in a real effort to make an entertaining feature?
Speaking of unanswered questions; what has happened to the home video market for the horror genre? Is it really in such desperate need of filler that anyone with a camera a few friends can get a DVD produced? That must be the case because throughout the past year we’ve seen a flood of bare bones, camcorder quality horror flicks hit the store shelves and there’s no end in sight. This rash of bastardized horror is leaving some of us with a sinking feeling …
Too bad that the Haunted Boat didn’t take on water during production. Oh, if only the gods had been watching that day and had foreseen the painful experience this film would put on many unsuspecting horror fans. Was there no way to stop this film from being made? An iceberg or giant squid? ANYTHING?!
Special Features
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Special Features:
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