 Burnt Offerings (1976) With sister still recovering at The Institute, and me barred from watching broadcast television by an overzealous prosecutor, I still managed to slip a copy of this DVD past security while on unsupervised furlough last month. And yeah, it's a big disappointment. Oliver Reed and Karen Black star as parents who take their only son and feisty aunt (Bette Davis) to a run-down murderous mansion in their version of a summer vacation. In my family, we wished we could spend summer at a bloodthirsty mansion—summer vacation at my house meant cleaning the septic tank! Boy oh boy was we po'! Ah yes, my reviews have finally become an ongoing Louie Anderson/Wayans Brothers routine. The house, which its owners claim "takes care of itself," actually requires Black to do tons of physical labor to get into remotely livable shape. It also comes with its very own crazy old lady, locked up in the attic to be disturbed only for meal delivery. The house seems to come to life as Black cleans it up, and has its effect on everyone. Black quickly becomes obsessed with the house and overly protective of the mysterious old lady, whom we never see. Reed violently attacks his son, ably played by then-teen idol Lee Montgomery, in the murky swimming pool, and is haunted by visions of a truly scary limo driver from his own childhood.
Later, the kid is nearly gassed in his bedroom, then nearly drowned a second time in the pool. The pool scenes are the ones I recall as being the most freaky … what with strapping big Reed wearing impossibly tiny swimming trunks. As the Wayans Brothers would say, "Dem's some scaaaary swimmin' trunks." As Louie Anderson would say, "My Dad's an alcoholic." The house has its effect on old Auntie, too, causing something inside her body to crack with a truly nasty sound effect. Not much of the film makes sense. The house's powers are inconsistent and never adequately explained even indirectly, so there's not much logic to the progression of events. The film has some unique atmosphere about it, akin to "Dark Shadows" and "The Night Stalker," which director Dan Curtis also had a hand in. I liked that it was committed to psychological rather than visceral horror, but that made most of the movie painfully slow, with long scenes of boring dialogue and very little action. It was surely a much more satisfying book. But the acting is surprisingly good for such a tepid film—Oliver Reed and Bette Davis are excellent, and Karen Black is only slightly hammy in a role perfectly suited to her creepy appeal. Burgess Meredith shows up in a nifty little cameo, and the DVD includes a remix of the "Burnt Offerings Love Theme" by the popular boy-band S'Cool. The audio was unfortunately as muddy as a ladies' mudwrestling champion's crotch after winning the ladies' mudwrestling championship, forcing the use of subtitles through the whole film. And the movie has a gauzy, faded look, but I couldn't tell if that was a problem with the negative they used for the DVD transfer, the intent of the filmmakers or my own glaucoma brought on by watching boring old movies. The DVD commentary track is worth sitting through, mostly for the absolute awkwardness of Karen Black's contentiousness with the film's director (who seems completely uninterested in the movie) and producer (who wants to believe it's some kind of real classic). The three simmer in unspoken mutual disrespect for each other, making for some quality entertainment. The primary value of this DVD is to further debunk my childhood "hot" list. Though it does retain a certain appeal, the film is roughly on a par with The Amityville Horror in shock and scare value. That is, not very.
Review by Crimedog |
