Boardinghouse

Somebody had to shoot the first feature-length horror film on home video and haul it into cinemas, and it was John Wintergate with this. A man opens a house with a lethal history to a rota of young women, telekinesis starts flinging them into swimming pools and garbage disposals, and every frame of it was taped on consumer gear and optically blown up to 35mm for a theatrical run nobody saw coming. It even shipped with a gimmick called Horror Vision, a hand signal flashed on screen to warn you gore was imminent, in case the title had undersold it.

As a film it is barely functional. As the origin point of the entire shot-on-video underground, it is essential.