Ghost Month

Saw 'The Offerings' being fond of horror/thriller regardless of budget (even if not my favourite genre), and the cover was cool. Was less taken by the concept though, which sounded ridiculous. Being behind on my film watching and reviewing, with a long to watch and review list that keeps getting longer, it took me a while to get round to watching and reviewing.

Unfortunately, do have to agree with the low rating and the poor reviews. 'The Offerings' is one of those films that never took off, starting off not very interestingly and never recovered and progressively got worse, particularly in the near-unwatchable later stages. Never judge a film without seeing the whole thing and wanted to not make 'The Offerings' an exception, so gave it a fair chance.

The location is also suitably spooky. It is agreed too that the too infrequent and brief special effects are surprisingly not bad, having seen so many films recently where the effects have been one of the biggest problems.

However, so much brings 'The Offerings' down. All the acting is either over-histrionic or disinterested, both in a few cases, and the direction is so phoned in and pedestrian, one gets the sense that the director showed no interest in the film at all. Too much of the soundtrack is intrusive and annoying, made worse by the excessive and obvious sound effects that just cheapens the mood. The film looks drab generally and like it was made in haste, the photography especially betrays that with its amateurishness.

Where 'The Offerings' most underwhelms is the writing and story. The writing is incredibly lazy, it's awkward in dialogue, very confused as a result of not tying things up or going into full detail and doesn't feel complete. The story suffers from a very limp pace, apparent early on and gets slower and slower until an interminably dragged out second half. It further suffers from feeling too much like a short film stretched out with a lot of useless padding. The stereotypical characters are both bland and annoying and the inconsistent and illogical motivations bring them down further.

For a film billed as a horror, there is very little interesting and nothing remotely scary which makes a waste of such a spooky-looking location. The scares and thrills are too few, barely any even, and are far too predictable, anaemic and weakly timed to make impact, with the dull pacing and obvious sound effects cheapening them significantly. 'The Offerings' doesn't engage let alone thrill, the more it progressed the duller, predictable and more nonsensical it became for a premise that was already ridiculous. The ending leaves very little impact, very contrived and could have been rounded off better.

In summary, very poor on the whole. 2/10 Bethany Cox

This is a straight rip off the Asian horror film "The Maid" with a few minor differences and a whole lot more plot holes. The filmmakers here didn't even bother to acknowledge that fact. These people should really be sued. Do I really have to go through the motions to convince you that this isn't worth watching? Watch "The Maid"; even though that film wasn't great, it actually passed for a movie with real actors and a real crew. This is among the top worst films I have ever seen. Lazily slapped together, unapologetically stolen ideas, plot holes the size of a Buick. There's no redeeming quality here. I know we all like to watch bad horror movies now and again, but generally those supply some source of entertainment whether it be a cheap scare or a few laughs. This has neither. Sue these people.

Holy crap! Or should I say spiritual crap, actually, I'm just gonna go with plain simple - crap! This is a movie about a pretty teenage maid who takes a job house keeping for a couple of women - Chinese women! Yes, it's the east Asia thing again, because of course that's what makes a scary film isn't it? No of course not, but every other horror director in the US thinks it is! Why don't they just set up a camera in Beijing, the fear factor would be immense.

Of course, as the women are Chinese it is only right that they are very spiritual and follow the ancient ways (blimey, it's so stereotyped I was just waiting for one them to pull out nun-chucks and perform a spinning back kick!), and it just happens to be 'Ghost Month'. So rituals are performed every night to keep the scary demons at bay, until of course the maid cleans up some charcoal! Then the scary stuff begins, or at least tries to.

Terrible cgi, bad makeup and worst of all, no scares. A few 'jump' moments are there, but they hardly register on the fear factor. Acting is appalling, back-story is dreadful and unneeded well, unneeded in the way it was done here anyway. The 'twist' isn't really a twist as you can see whats coming a mile away.

Overall, this is the worst horror movie I've seen for a long, long time. Avoid at all cost 1/10

Why is Horror and Genre movies being handled by people like the detrimental Charles Band, or The Asylum! And why despite all these amazing bad reviews and comments (you figure i have never met anyone who could even merely stand one of these!), people asking for their money back and so on, why this demented, disrespectful crap is still being made? Why? I don't know, it is just so not right, especially since being a huge fan of B movies, cult's and Horrors, I am always having fun whenever there's at least an attempt in making something decent! But, here, there's no respect, there's no boundaries, most of all, there's no movie! Charles Band and the people at the Asylum are guilty up to an extent though! I personally would call them scam artists, con artists and not filmmakers, but, who's even worse than them is the Distributors buying this crap, instead of a lot more deserving movies I often see at some Genre's Film Festivals and that rarely get released, or if they do, they even get less space and attention of these atrocious boring non movies! Abortions my mother called them, and so referring to something she obviously not only despise, but, also avoids! Why haven't I? Oh, believe me people! I am not into pain or sadomasochistic activities at all! I will, from now on! And, like the plague! And, also because crap like this is an offense to the culture of our Country (hey.. and that's already saying something, right there ha ha!) but, I had, before, refuse myself i was so rightly so doing for quite a while, just based on other people's comments or on dear friends suggestions! Well now, there's one more motive! Wanted to be fair and had to go through (I honestly ever made it to a three quarters, but, should be getting kudos, because of that!) to a few Charles Band's productions, finding them some of the worst scam, especially, certain homo erotic's movies he produces, with some director, David De Coteau! Man, that stuff wasn't just bad and boring, cheap and cheesy, that stuff was sick,morbid! YUK! Ewwwwww Young guys in speedo's (those two should be ashamed of themselves) exploited while making out for virtually 100 minutes! That's disgusting! And i am not homophobic at all, but, that was just plain insulting and disturbing, way more than some good erotic flick! This does not have those, but, just has amateurish everything and bore to no END! People, let's strike against these frauds! LET'S STOP BUYING or RENT ANY OF THESE MOVIES! BE WARNED: Either Charles Band (FULL MOON Ent.) or THE ASYLUM's logo on the DVD mean that you're never gonna watch anything good, but actually, either, an AMATEURISH BORE or a vulgar rip off of someone else's film, most likely, actually, certainly, made for cheap, featuring some of the worst acting ever seen worldwide (by the way, WHO CAST THESE NON MOVIES??? WHO? I would wanna see them on their faces!) and, most of all, remember you are spending money into something you may save, and, just watch instead (and for free) some really fresh and cool internet TV Series on you tube! You'd be surprised how EVEN THOSE, if next to such deplorable fare like this one here, or other products coming from those 2 awfully corrupted Brands, may be feeling COOL, FRESH, and even professionally shot, at times! Not too much to ask, uh?

I just watched 31:19 of this flick and came to IMDb to rate. I should have came here before I started watching and checked the rating. It is such a poor movie. I kept hoping it would get better, but it didn't, and it's not worth watching more of it to find out; especially after reading reviews. It's a cliché, but WHAT WERE THEY THINKING when they made this movie. Complete trash. I believe I was exposed to 7 actors in the first 31 minutes and the two best are the taxi driver and the aunt--no lines. The scene where the maid character is sitting on a blanket reading a book and the neighbor comes may be the worst acting I've seen--at least in a long time. This is one of those movies that if you sit down and watch it, when it's over you'll say to yourself, "Why did I waste my time watching this?" Don't watch it.