Burnt Offerings
by Dan Curtis
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DVD details
Actor: Burgess Meredith, Eileen Heckart, Karen Black, Lee Montgomery, Oliver ReedDirector: Dan Curtis
Brand: TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX HOME ENT
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled)
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 114 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2003-08-26
Audience Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
DVD Reviews of Burnt Offerings
DVD Review: A masterpiece
Summary: 5 Stars
I had read the book BURNT OFFERINGS by Robert Marasco and loved it. I was thrilled to see it made into a movie. This film is very underrated. It is expertly crafted classic horror. These days most horror films are filled with violence and gore galore. Not this film. The evil in this film is the house and is a character of the movie in itself.
We have a very happy family - mother, father, son with grandmother in tow - who rent a summer house. It's a run down huge mansion style house and amazingly cheap. They are asked to do upkeep and merely feed the owners mother who lives in the attic. The creepiness starts at the very beginning when the parents are being interviewed and the son is playing in the yard. The owner sees him fall and hurt himself through the window and smiles gleefully, saying nothing.
This film plays upon all your innermost fears. The creepy atmosphere never lets up - it ebbs and flows but is always there. The acting is impeccable. Karen Black is superb as the mother who becomes more a mother to the house than her own family. The house seems to change her and possess her. Oliver Reed is excellent as the husband who is trying to figure out what is happening. This film is rare for it is not a mere suspense film. It is a definite horror film but without the blood and gore. The mood that keeps butterflies in your stomach never lets up. The dreams that the father has about the funeral are absolutely terrifying here. Bottom line, we have a house that is not happy and discovering how it gets what it needs is chilling.
We also have the benefit of Bette Davis here who is always great. It is one of her later roles and she is fine with playing second fiddle to Karen Black. Karen rules her. As she become one with the house she becomes a mysterious presence to be reckoned with.
I highly recommend this film. Excellent acting and horror that will stay with you long after viewing it. Remember there is not blood and gore here but something that is actually worse. The is an undertone of creepiness and a growing terror that will stay under your skin. This shows what a great movie it is.
DVD Review: What a Way to Renovate a House!
Summary: 4 Stars
[This review is part of my 30 Days of Halloween series. cultural past.]
BURNT OFFERINGS unites three icons of 1960's to 1980's thriller gendre: Karen Black, Bette Davis & Burgess Meredith. Karen Black & Burgess Merdith formed a bizzare daughter-father team in THE DAY OF THE LOCUST(that I previously reviewed.) The film also features veteran actors Oliver Reed & Eileen Heckart.)
It has been suggested by other reviewers that the plot is a rip-off of THE SHINING, but I don't accept that. The only similarity is that the male lead (Oliver Reed in OFFERINGS)has gone through some sort of break down. And that's it.
The plot revolves around the small extended family of Black, Reed, Davis as the aging aunt & the family's teenage son. Brother & sister Meredith & Heckhart are off for a vacation & offer the family a much need temporary accomodation in an old mansion (that familiar staple in horror movies.) They ask only a pittance in return--provided Black agrees to provide care for their mysterious mother who never leaves her converted attic boudoir. The rest of the familiar never see the woman, but Black becomes obsessed with her. The husband, son & aunt think this is pretty weired, but they are experiencing big time problems of their own.
Thus the story unfolds with good thrills & some chills.
My favorites scene is when the house begins to regenerate--but you have to see it.
BURNT OFFERINGS is Kid Friendly.
Trilogy of Terror
Bette Davis Centenary Celebration Collection (All About Eve / Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte / The Virgin Queen / Phone Call from a Stranger / The Nanny)
The Devils (Special Uncut Restored Edition 1971)
Important Documentary Films: The Forgotten Village DVD (1941) Written By John Steinbeck. Narrated By Burgess Meredith. Music By German Composer Hans Eisler.
The Bad Seed
DVD Review: Eternally Evil, This House Demands A Blood Sacrifice
Summary: 4 Stars
"Burnt Offerings" is one of the greatest haunted house horror movies ever made. It rivals that of "The Amityville Horror." Wonderful direction is given by Dan Curtis who is a master of modern gothic horror. He directed numerous television horror hits such as "Trilogy of Terror" and "The Night Stalker." The later spawned a television series of the same title and greatly influenced "The X-Files." He is most famous for his gothic daytime soap opera, "Dark Shadows," of which I was a devoted fan.
This masterpiece of modern gothic horror has a great all star cast that includes Karen Black ("Trilogy of Terror"), Oliver Reed (Hammer Film Production's "Curse of the Werewolf"), Lee Montgomery ("Ben"), Bette Davis ("What Ever Happened To Baby Jane?"), and Burgess Meredith (Amicus Production's "Torture Garden"). Ben and Marian Rolf (Reed and Black), their son Davey (Montgomery), and Aunt Elizabeth (Davis) move into a sprawling, dilapidated mansion for the summer. Mysterious accidents plague the family. Each time blood is shed, the house is rejuvenated, becoming stronger, more malevolent. Soon it becomes apparent that the house has a life of its own and has no intention of letting any of them leave alive.
A creepy atmosphere pervades this chiller. Especially notable are the terrifying visions that Ben has of the chauffeur that was at his mother's funeral. The man was positively frightening with his gaunt, cadaver-like facial features and malevolent smile. I found this film much more terrifying and disturbing than "The Amityville Horror." The ending was quite shocking and downbeat. It reminded me much of Dan Curtis' "Night of Dark Shadows" when Tracy Collins screams hysterically upon realizing the hopelessness of her situation.
"Burnt Offerings" is highly recommended for those who love good old-fashioned stories of ghosts and haunted houses. It is for those who love their horror subtle and suspenseful. You will be required to use your imagination because not everything is explained. That is the nature of the occult world.
DVD Review: "Hello, Benji...!"
Summary: 4 Stars
"Burnt Offerings" follows on the tail of some vastly superior "evil" films of the 1970's: "The Omen", "The Exorcist", and "Rosemary's Baby", but it should be kept in mind that 1976 was the Satanic renaissance in film. Holding this to the standard of the aforementioned films is both unfair and sets you up for a disappointment.
If you take it out of context and give it a chance, though, Curtis' loose adaptation of Marasco's chilling (and neglected) horror novel is bound to give you a good scare. The premise is not all that complex: Marian Rolf (Karen Black in one of her better roles) and Ben Rolf (Oliver Reed in a great performance) move into a house that has an odd past behind it--people always dying after moving in, that sorta thing--but it's spacious and great for Ben's research. The house is Moloch: it needs the blood of others to regenerate. Hence the title.
Things go from bad to worse the moment they move into the house: Marian continually retreats to the attic to serve the owner of the house, a Baronness who we never really see until all is lost, Ben tries to drown his son in the swimmming pool and becomes increasingly violent. The legendary Bette Davis has a nice macabre farewell to cinema as Ben's Aunt Elizabeth, who slowly rots away as the will of the house becomes stronger and stronger: she is the first to recognize what's going on, so she dies first. Karen Black becomes more psychotic and frightening as the movie continues, visiting the unseen Baronness more and more frequently.
The ending of this movie is one of the scariest that I have ever seen. It is, beyond a doubt, the highlight of the entire movie. A must see for any horror fan.
DVD Review: Nasty old house, yummy Oliver Reed = Dark Shadows Lite!
Summary: 4 Stars
While I was a huge afficianado of Dan Curtis's "Dark Shadows" as a child, somehow I must have been too interested in teenage/college boys by the time "Burnt Offerings" came out to have bothered to take in a viewing...thus, I saw this for the first time a couple weeks ago. I liked it a great deal! I must say that much of the movie's appeal had to do with my nostalgia for "Dark Shadows", because Robert Cobert's musical score (and even the music box tune) were so heavily reminiscent as to almost bring a tear to my eye. I recall a shot or two of Karen Black (Marian) looking suspiciously like a latter-day (and much crazier) Kathryn Leigh Scott (who played several lovely but weak-willed damsels in distress on Dark Shadows over the years), and have to even say that while Oliver Reed (Ben) is a sexy beast par excellance in this movie, even he had a slight Jonathan Frid thing going in a couple scenes. Ah, the days of Mom ironing Dad's shirts with my sister and I in the living room, all 3 getting the daylights literally frightened out of us by some supernatural creatures appearing on a soap opera!
Enough nostalgia for now. I love the tone of many of the '70's horror movies, that kind of psychedelic/hazy around the edges, slow, dreamy pace, and this movie does not disappoint at all from that standpoint. I was surprised (and shocked at all of you who say nothing exciting happens until 2/3 of the way thru the movie) that the father tried to drown his boy so quickly, almost from the get-go, in the first pool scene - the house was able to have a nearly immediate nasty effect upon its occupants, and that was truly startling. I found the attempts of poor Ben to be affectionate/playful with, or make love to his wife, all of which she absolutely repels due to the house's "lock" on her heart and soul, to be sinister and suitably frustrating (you just know his choice to overlook her repugnance and go whack weeds in the garden instead to be a sincere mistake, one he'll never be able to overcome as things progress). Bette Davis is marvelous as the untiring auntie who gets eaten alive by the house, and I mean sucked through a straw like so much chocolate milk. Unlike many other reviewers, I found the child actor to be significantly LESS annoying than either of the boys who play Danny in either of the adaptations of "The Shining". Kubrick's little Danny overacts to the point of ridiculousness, and the nasaly little monster used on the TV mini-series adaptation was so distracting I could barely watch - I wanted to hand him a kleenex in every scene.
But it is Karen Black and Oliver Reed who steal this movie, along with the house itself. The family breaks down, the marriage breaks down, the car almost breaks down, everyone's minds bend and twist, and still those 2 are believable as intense obsession strikes one and equally intense horror strikes the other, & still they struggle to relate as human beings (if nothing else) to one another. Heady stuff, and it's where all the magic of this movie lies.
Just one comment regarding the leering deaths-head chauffeur - truly the stuff of the grown Ben's childish nightmares, he is (to me) clearly representative of the Grim Reaper, or one of his minion, himself. As such, he ushers Ben across the line into the land of death on several occasions (initially just to VIEW the scenery, if you will), and one just wonders if his toothy, sinister grin isn't the last thing Ben sees at his end. Who wouldn't feel "welcomed" into Death by a smile that inhumanly wide?
BRAVO again for Cobert's score, Reed's perseverence, Black's utter strangeness, and Davis's rapid & queasy character descent. BRAVO for the moody, fuzzy, exotic pacing - like a nightmare you might have yourself. Loved it.
Description of Burnt Offerings
A family of vacationers rents a sprawling mansion for the summer and soon discovers that all is not as it should be. Among other equally strange things dead plants come back to life and the swimming pool kills bathers.System Requirements:Starring: Oliver Reed Karen Black Bette Davis Burgess Meredith Directed By: Dan Curtis Running Time: 114 Min. Color Copyright 2003 MGM Studios.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre:?HORROR Rating:?PG UPC:?027616888518 Manufacturer No:?1004824Based on the Robert Marasco novel of the same name, Dan Curtis's eerie movie puts a spin on celluloid haunted-house sagas. The well-adjusted Rolf family (father Oliver Reed, mother Karen Black, aunt Bette Davis, and young son Lee H.?Montgomery) rent a huge old summer house only to find that its spirit is in control of the estate. The requisite sinister proceedings appear--including a possessed pool and the vision of a sinister hearse driver following Reed--that disrupt the family's unity. Black also falls under the spell of an elderly woman whom she is required to take care of, but no one ever sees. While it may not be as overtly shocking as other ghost tales, Burnt Offerings has a creepiness that gets under your skin thanks to good performances and the dreamy, soft-focus photography. --Bryan Reesman
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