Ballata macabra

Burnt Offerings came along with other late 70s slow burn creepers like The Hearse and The Changeling. It has the slimmest of plots being like an early blueprint for The Shining. It crawls along at a snail's pace with very little happening besides episodic slices of marital strain under the guise of the evil house that possesses and ultimately eats people. Filmed through pantihose, this is one of those hazy deals that must have been created to provide a surreal, dreamlike effect but I dunno.... Bette is sort of wasted, Oliver makes it a vanity project and comes through exceedingly well and Karen is of course superb and losing her mind. Your patience will reward you make no mistake, as it is the last third of this movie where it really swings into top gear and will get under your skin. Slow burn indeed. Oh and last but not least, that smiley chauffeur....

I'm a kid of the 70's before all the CGI special FX. And this is still an old school fav of mine. I love spooky Karen Black. I always had an affinity for large creepy houses, especially when they become one of the characters in the movie. This is another 70's slow burn in the haunted house genre that more than likely helped fuel my NIGHT TERRORS and SLEEP WALKING issues. Still holds up decent for it's age, but if your looking for a GORE FEST, move on, cause this won't fill your cup. If you like psychological Gothic style horror then check it out.

Talky, but unusual and creepy haunted house movie concerns an ordinary family from the city who rent a country estate for the summer--at a suspiciously low price! A bit confusing at first, but whenever something bad happens (like the father cutting his thumb on the champagne bottle) something good immediately takes its place (the kid switching on what was previously a dead light bulb). The house absorbs the good (the sacrificial new family's spirit and energy) while its inhabitants wither away, physically or mentally. Bette Davis' Aunt Elizabeth ages suddenly (with frighteningly effective make-up), and Anthony James as the chauffeur who haunts Oliver Reed's head is a scary, freaky presence. Karen Black is even odder than usual: I'm not certain whether her not-quite-there expression is what was intended for the role of Marion, but she does something very gutsy for an actress, making herself into a gargoyle (only in her final scene does she overdo it). Superior to the source novel by Robert Marasco, "Burnt Offerings" (the title taken from a biblical reference) is a well-directed slice of the macabre. *** from ****

A lot of horror movies rely simply on sudden jolts of sound to make you jump. I recently watched Friday the Thirteenth (2009) and it was literally all it had. Which is fine, no one can deny it gets the job done. The problem with it is that the movies become inseparable and which one is scarier can only be judged really on which made you jump the most.

Burnt Offerings instead creates an atmosphere. It creates it masterfully through character decisions and great use of music. There was a stage early on when I realized nothing eventful had even happened as yet and despite this my heart was pounding. Sure enough a moment later some frightening action took place and I realized for the first time in a long time a horror movie had alerted my sub-conscience and not my mind. These days in horror movies it's far too easy to predict when the event is coming (it's generally when the filmmaker is trying to make you think NOTHING is coming).

Burnt Offerings is more than watchable in this day and age. The lines are nowhere near as cheesy sounding as a lot of other pre-1980 films make them sound today and the acting, whilst not perfect, is anything but bad. The suspense will have your heart pounding and it's all building up to something so terrifying it deserves far more recognition among horror buffs. Not to be missed.

I had never heard about this film before, I saw it once at a video store once but hesitated to rent it. While at the store around Halloweentime, I happened to see it, and it was on sale for 10 bucks so I decided to give it a chance. And I actually enjoyed it, it was a fairly good movie.

"Burnt Offerings" is pretty much a typical haunted house story, but with a bit of a spin to it. It's about Marian and Ben Ralf (played by Karen Black and Oliver Reed) and their son, who move into a summerhouse in the country that is owned by a very strange brother and sister. The price is a steal, the only catch is that they would have to supply minimal food and care to the sibling's grandmother, who lives in an upstairs bedroom. Marian takes on this duty, and the family begins to prepare themselves to have a relaxing summer out at the old manor. Ben's Aunt, played by the legendary Bette Davis, also is staying with them at the summerhouse. After staying there for awhile, strange things begin to happen, and Marian becomes very secretive of the grandmother in the upstairs room. In fact, nobody in the entire house besides her have even seen the old woman. As tension mounts between Ben and Marian, strange events plague the family, including apparitions, strange sounds, etc.

The ending of this film was pretty different, it may be a bit confusing, but it's still good. Apparently the film is based on a book, which I may personally like to read myself. There are some parallels to "The Shining" too, even though this was released 4 years before that. But, Mr. Stephen King himself noted the novel as one of his favorite horror stories, so it leads me to believe he may have taken some inspiration from this story for "The Shining". Karen Black and Bette Davis give great performances, they are the most remarkable in the film. Oliver Reed was also great, and the kid, while a little whiny and unconvincing, was good enough for his role.

Overall, "Burnt Offerings" has a pretty good story, good acting and a well known cast (primarily Black and Davis). One of the better classic haunted house tales, with a different twist on it that makes it stand out a little in my mind. 7/10.