No-Burn Horror
Directed by Dan Curtis
Starring Karen Black, Oliver Reed, Bette Davis
Released August 25th, 1976
Rated PG
A secluded mansion in the country, left in disrepair, can be yours to rent for only $900 for the whole summer. What a deal! Marian (Karen Black), her husband Ben (Oliver Reed), and their young son Davey (Lee H. Montgomery) arrive to take advantage of this money-saving opportunity, and meet with the caretakers of the mansion, the wheelchair bound Arnold Allardyce (Burgess Meredith) and his sister Roz (Eileen Heckart).
The siblings greet the family with some strange requests, most notably that their mother will be in the house during the family’s stay. They explain that their mother never leaves the house, or her room, and all they will have to do is leave meals outside of her door. They emphasize how little this will affect the family’s holiday, saying “you probably won’t even see her.” This would be a dealbreaker for most people, but this particular family decides that the inconvenience is made up for by the money saved.
Marian, Ben, and Davey meet the house’s handyman (Dub Taylor) who says he keeps everything at the property spic and span, but from the looks of it he’s not much better at keeping up the mansion than he is his personal hygiene. For one thing, all the plants in the greenhouse are dead. The Allardyce siblings leave, and the family starts their summer holiday in the old mansion. Marian leaves food outside the door of the mansion’s unseen occupant, knocking on the door without response. The next morning, she finds the empty tray where she left it, the food eaten. Marian finds herself uneasy as the days pass. She finds and listens to an old music box, which offers her a strange comfort.
Meanwhile, Ben experiences visions of an evil hearse driver (Anthony James). I know that’s a weird sentence to read. It felt weird to write it. But that’s what he is, a driver of a hearse, that is obviously evil. The lone disturbing sequence in the film takes place when Ben and Davey are taking a swim in the mansion’s outdoor pool, and the father attacks his son. The poor kid has to smack his dad in the face with diving goggles to get him to stop shoving his head underwater. A similar scene can be found in the recent horror film Night Swim, but Burnt Offerings does it better.
Did I mention that the family brought their elderly Aunt Elizabeth (Bette Davis) with them for the summer? Aunt Elizabeth is a role far below Bette Davis’ legendary talent, amounting to little more than elderly cannon fodder. Karen Black, such a fascinating actress, is stuck with Marian, a character that gives her precious little to do. Oliver Reed’s Ben is such an unlikable character, he makes Jack Torrance look like father of the year. This is kind of an unlikable family all the way around. Perhaps we are supposed to be rooting for the house. The plants in the greenhouse do look a lot better after blood is spilled.
Based on the book by Robert Marasco and directed, produced, and co-written (with William F. Nolan) by Dan Curtis, Burnt Offerings is a total snooze. Robert Corbert’s creepy score attempts to conjure an unsettling vibe, but there is nothing scary for it to accompany. Kino Lorber’s Blu-ray transfer looks alright but is inconsistent. Some scenes come across as bright and colorful and others are dark and grainy. The special features are sparse, with only a few trailers and an audio commentary. I could not find an option for subtitles on the disc, which is unfortunate.
Burnt Offerings has a runtime of only 116 minutes yet moves far too slow to maintain interest. Calling the film slow would be an insult to molasses. I held out hope that the ending would boast crazy visuals, cool twists, and horrific images, but sadly the conclusion is a whole lot of nothing. I cannot recommend watching Burnt Offerings, a film that is not scary, and does not contain any offerings that are, in fact, burnt.