Verdict
Summary
A truly creepy and unsettling horror film in the haunted house style, predating The Amityville Horror by a few years, Burnt Offerings gave me the willies big time with its very grounded sense of supernatural chills by director Dan Curtis and screenwriter William F. Nolan (Logan’s Run).
Plot:
A family rents a home for the summer and the home takes a great deal from the family, as it requires life force to exist.
Review:
Married couple Ben (Oliver Reed) and Marian (Karen Black) and their son David (Lee Montgomery) rent a mansion for a summer from an eccentric brother and sister who only have one requirement: The renters must provide a plate of food three times a day for their very elderly mother who resides in the room upstairs, a woman who is neither seen or heard as she is virtually a hermit, sleeping all day and fiddling around with a purported huge collection of photographs. When Ben and his family move in with Ben’s feisty old mother (played by Bette Davis), things would seem to be great at first when they restore the empty pool, but soon Ben begins having severe nightmares and violent urges towards his son. Then, Marian starts acting weird when she dwells around the old woman’s room upstairs, behaving strangely as if in some kind of trance. When Ben realizes that the house is sucking the life out of them, he tries taking David away, but the house won’t let them leave. With the nightmares intensifying and the violent urgings only getting worse, Ben tries drastic measures for them to leave, but Marian is only more attached and ingrained to the house, setting the stage for a summer of hell.
A truly creepy and unsettling horror film in the haunted house style, predating The Amityville Horror by a few years, Burnt Offerings gave me the willies big time with its very grounded sense of supernatural chills by director Dan Curtis and screenwriter William F. Nolan (Logan’s Run). The movie somehow really got under my skin the further along it went, with an escalating sense of madness and paranoia, with well portrayed characters who don’t realize how trapped they really are. It’s a very effective horror film, even by today’s standards.
Kino Lorber has just reissued Burnt Offerings on Blu-ray, with all previous special features still attached, including two audio commentaries, interviews, and the trailer. The high definition transfer is extremely satisfactory, and there’s a slipcover for this release.
