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Surprisingly incoherent and boring

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Ben Rolf (Oliver Reed), his wife Marian (Karen Black) and their son David (Lee Montgomery) visit a country manor for renting to spend summer vacation. They are welcomed by the weird siblings Roz Allardyce (Eileen Heckart) and Arnold Allardyce (Burgess Meredith) that offer the mansion for nine hundred-dollar only for the whole summer. The only condition is to feed their mother Ms. Allardyce that lives recluse in the attic three times a day. They move to the house with Ben's Aunt Elizabeth (Bette Davis) and soon Marian becomes obsessed for Ms. Allardyce and the house. Meanwhile evil things happen to the Rolf family and Ben feels that the house is absorbing their life forces. After the death of Ms. Allardyce, Ben decides to live the manor but he realizes they are trapped in the real estate. What is happening to the family? "Burnt Offerings" is a horror film with an original storyline of haunted house. Instead of ghosts, the house is an evil force that drains human life to renew. There are curiosities on the Brazilian DVD, such as Bette Davis hatted Oliver Reed; or the director's daughter had used PCP (angel dust) and jumped off the highest LA building to fly a couple of days before the shooting of the last scene. My vote is seven.Title (Brazil): "A Mansão Macabra" ("The Macabre Manor")

. . . would involved Bette Davis hacking off various people's appendages as she'd recently done in HUSH, HUSH SWEET CHARLOTTE, and grilling these pieces and bits for her dinner guests. No such luck. BURNT OFFERINGS is more like that Eagles song, "Hotel California" ("You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave"). Only, in this case, it seems like the haunted Allardyce House represents Our Increasingly Decrepit America, in which the Repugs are currently overtaking Drugs, Terrorism, and Riots as our Leading Cause of Death. Bette Davis, for instance, suffers a Health Crisis during BURNT OFFERINGS and is soon shown enjoying the Benefits of TrumpCare. This involves a hearse swiftly arriving to box up Bette. The U.S. Congressional Budget Office and the American Medical Association concurred this month that TrumpCare will terminate the lives of 1.25 million U.S. citizens annually. But let's look on the Bright Side. The Repugs will have to rig another election for Red Commie KGB Chief Vlad "The Mad Russian" Putin in order for TrumpCare to top Hitler's World Record for Genocide. So sit back and savor BURNT OFFERINGS while you can, before TrumpCare chauffeurs you into an oven.

I don't believe I've ever reviewed this movie on IMDb. It is certainly better than it often gets credit for. One of my all time horror favorites. Definite spoilers in here if you haven't seen it. A bit of trivia: Lee Montgomery, who plays the son in this movie later starred in "Dead of Night" with Joan Hackett wherein he plays her deceased son returned to life. A good scary TV movie available on DVD. Also, the main title theme in Burnt Offerings is "Memories of a Lifetime" which is also the line that Karen Black utters as she pores over the photos upstairs in the mansion. Another bit of trivia, Dan Curtis, the director can be seen in one of the photos in the collection. He's wearing a top hat I believe and has a rather scary/scared expression on his face. Yes it is dated. I saw this in its original theatrical release in 1976. A good movie that is better on the big screen because of its camera-work. Almost anything from the 70's is going to look dated now, particularly how many station wagons there are! (see the original Stepford Wives) The "fuzziness" is deliberate--Dan Curtis used "gauze" type filters over the cameras to give it a dreamlike effect. This was also done by Alfred Hitchcock in "Vertigo". I still like this movie. A lot of critics are not kind to it. But when I had it out on rental, I loaned it to a number of people and all of them liked it. I remember seeing this on network TV before the days of tape and DVD's and it really suffers on the small screen. But the widescreen DVD looks excellent, really good. The color and print have been restored for the DVD and it looks flawless in widescreen. Great music too by Bob Cobert, who did the music for the original Dark Shadows TV series. Anthony James was perfectly cast as the chauffeur, a character that can give me the absolute creeps watching this movie in broad daylight. I still to this day have a hard time watching the dream sequence where the chauffeur first appears. The music and photography are very eerie and unsettling. When he comes driving up the entrance to the mansion, oooh! His pale face, the sunglasses, not being able to see what's in those eyes. He represents death but he's scarier than a hooded grim reaper would be. You feel sympathy for the family, including the young boy as they are completely helpless tragic characters who will never "get out". The "chauffeur" has a special significance for me because of my grandfather working in the funeral business. He also represents an omen as he's a bad memory from a nightmare Ben has about the death of his mother and he comes back from the past, in an old car, in broad daylight where he shouldn't be. I believe he is foreshadowing the doom to come. The effects in this movie are good. The house "regenerating" itself looks very convincing and with no CGI. When Karen Black died, there was a film tribute to her in San Francisco, which I went to see. They showed this movie in actual 35 mm but the print was not a restored one I'm sorry to say. Color went in and out, some other minor glitches etc. but at least I got to see it on the big screen for the first time in a long time. It was nice to see Bette Davis getting a serviceable role in her later years--some complain she doesn't get to do enough in this film but I think she was good as always and got enough screen time. I don't think it could be made today with the subtlety that makes it so great. Oliver Reed gives a wonderful and sensitive performance and you feel for him as his wife can't see how the house is taking over her. It's a bit like The Shining, though this story and movie were made before Stephen King published his novel. I listened to the commentary on the DVD and was dismayed at how they badmouthed Reed, who isn't here to defend himself and who is great in this movie. One (two?) of the best lines in the movie: "Marion?" "I've been waiting for you Ben" which then lead to the GREAT ending which still shocks me. If you like horror with a more mysterious and subtle edge, this is the one.

Burnt Offerings is a pretty typical haunted house flick- albeit one where the supernatural manifests itself in a wholly psychologically way.When a young couple & their son are offered an incredible deal, renting an old isolated mansion that comes fully furnished...they simply can't pass it up. There is only one caveat: that an old woman- whom they never see- resides in an upstairs room. She isn't a bother. But the family is required to offer her a plate of food 3 times a day.The family moves into the house with their elderly aunt...and things start off well enough. However, the wife and husband soon seem to exhibit irrational outbursts of anger. He starts to suffer from haunting nightmares; while she seems to have become extremely overly-attached to the house. All while odd incidents begin to occur at an increasingly alarming rate.Something sinister is targeting the old aunt and young boy; while the wife and husband begin to grow distant from one another. He wants to get the hell out of the house and back to their old life; while nothing can convince her that the house is worth giving up. She's adopted as her own...or so it seems, at least.Only after their aunt is killed and their son nearly dies, does the husband take it upon himself to escape...without his wife. Though he failed to realize that once you occupy this house....there is no escape. Your fate is sealed.While it is engaging, there is nothing particularly spectacular about this film. It does have some creepy moments of tension, but (until the end) they tend to manifest themselves in very subtle ways- with almost all the hauntings affecting the psychological well being of the characters.That being said, the film does wrap up with a bit of a triple twist. While two thirds does come off a bit cliché and predictable, they manage to redeem it with an ending that is both extreme and absurd.It's a long film that plods along slowly, but it's worth a watch if you are into that.Can someone please explain to me why it's called Burnt Offerings though!? Because that explanation eludes me...6 out of 10.