BURNT OFFERINGS (1976 - HORROR / HAUNTED HOUSE FLICK) *** out of ***** OR 6 out of 10
(Clearly, you morons have a different idea of
what constitutes a "great deal"...)
CAST:
Oliver Reed, Karen Black, Bette Davis, Eileen Heckart, Burgess Meredith,
Lee Montgomery.
DIRECTOR:
Dan Curtis
IT'S LIKE THIS: We've mentioned in our recent reviews of SCREAM, THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT, and FRIDAY THE 13th, that horror movie characters seem to exist in a parallel plane of reality where everybody has the survival instincts of drunk lemurs and an IQ no higher than room temperature (if that). Indeed, we're only about four days into our "31 DAYS OF HALLOWEEN" reviews, and we've already met a bunch of people who, shall we say, don't ever have to worry about overthinking anything.
In SCREAM, we watched as teens-in-peril Sydney
Prescott (Neve Campbell) and Tatum Riley (Rose McGowan) decided to react to the
news that a vicious killer is terrorizing their sleepy Northern Cali town, not
by locking themselves securely in their respective panic rooms at home, but
instead by... throwing a massive house
party in the middle of nowhere where everyone - including the killer - is
invited. Then, in THE BLAIR WITCH
PROJECT, we watched as three earnest college students (Heather Donahue, Michael
Williams, Joshua Leonard) went willingly into the deep woods of rural Maryland
to hunt for and document the existence of the legendary "Blair Witch"
- only to find out firsthand how appealing (and safe) concrete and city noise
can be as opposed to the dark forest where things go screeching into thenight. Then, in FRIDAY THE 13TH, we saw how
uber-dumbfuck Steve Christie (Peter Brouwer) essentially signed his and seven
other people's death warrants by deciding to re-open the "cursed"
summer camp known as Camp Crystal Lake - despite knowing about a history that
pretty much dictates anyone who tries to re-open the place meets a dire
end.
Now, in our fourth "31 DAYS OF
HALLOWEEN" review, we meet another group of people who definitely will not
be under consideration to join MENSA anytime soon. They are the Rolf family, which consists of:
(1) Ben (Oliver Reed), studly dad who shows the only glimmers of intelligence
in this group; (2) Marian (Karen Black), cutie mom who you just know has a
frustrated Martha Stewart simmering somewhere inside her (uh-oh); (3) Davey
(Lee Montgomery), whiny son who screams like a girl on helium; and (4) Aunt
Elizabeth (Bette Davis), loud broad who you just know is not going to benefit
at all from a "quiet summer in the country."
The Rolfs are looking for a house in the Northern
California countryside to spend part of the summer in, and they've decided to
check out some mansion deep in the forest.
It's called Allardyce Manor, and not to put too fine of a spin on it,
it's kind of a shithole. Sure, it's big
and imposing and must have looked great at one point in time (like, oh, 500
years ago), but now it looks like the kind of abandoned place that horny
teenagers like go to fuck in when their car is too small. Hell, the front door itself looks like
something is growing out of it.
The owners of this not-so-grand manor, Arnold and
Roz Allardyce (Burgess Meredith, Eileen Heckart), reassure Ben, Marian, Davey,
and Aunt Elizabeth that the place will grow on them. Oh, if only the Rolfs knew that statement
will soon prove to be more literal than figurative. And, then, just to allay any reservations the
Rolf family may have about renting the place, Roz tells them they can have the
place for the apparently bargain-basement price of... $900 for the entire summer.
Well, "entire summer" may be a bit of
an exaggeration, but that is the exact phrase that Roz uses - even though the
Rolfs specify they will be boarding only from July 1 to Labor Day - which by my
calculation is just a teeny tad over two months. Which, really, is only two-thirds of the
summer. Furthermore, if we start breaking
down that whole "$900 for two months" deal, we find that it actually
ain't all that great, folks. You see,
according to some inflation calculator on the Internet, $900 in 1976 would be
around $3,800 today. So essentially the
Rolfs would be paying $1,900 a month for what is basically is a really run-down
version of the Addams Family Mansion.
Wouldn't that same money be better spent on a cozy little beach house in
Point Reyes or Bodega Bay or somewhere up the coast? I mean, what good is all that extra space if
it's full of dust and spiders and evil spirits? More on the latter a little
later…
Oh, and I forgot to mention the kicker: it turns out that Roz and Arnold's ancient
mother lives in the attic and the Rolfs, if they agree to rent the place, will
have to feed her three times a day by leaving a tray of food in the sitting
room outside her bedroom. So, now, the
Rolfs are also going to have to "work" for the Allardyces and take
care of their mom, too? All in all, this
really ain't shaping up to be a Deal of a Lifetime by anyone's definition,
right? That's what Ben rightfully thinks
and he tells Marian as much.
Unfortunately, Marian has already scoped out the place and her
previously-mentioned inner Martha Stewart has decided it would make a great
fixer-upper project for the summer.
Anyone who's been in a relationship with a woman will already know that
Ben is destined to lose this argument.
Sure enough, Marian coerces Ben into signing a
lease for the "entire summer" - which is really only two months, ahem
- for "only" $900, which really equates to almost $2,000 a month for
a house that they will have to clean up and fix. And on top of that they still
have to feed some old crone upstairs in the attic whom they've never even
met. Do you see know what I mean about
this family needing to change their last name to “Dingleberry”? And that's before they find out the fucking
place is probably haunted by some evil shite.
Oh, don't you love it when the other shoe finally drops?
Soon, Marian starts turning into even more a
bitch than she already is. She starts
dressing up in the old Victorian clothes they find in the house, and begins
putting her hair up in a bun like she's trying to pass for an uptight
librarian, and becomes more and more obsessive about protecting Mrs. Allardyce
and the house – which she calls her “responsibilities”. Soon, Aunt Elizabeth - who used to have more
energy than the rest of the family combined - begins to get frailer and
weaker. Soon, Ben begins to get more and
more aggressive to Davy, almost drowning him in the pool while rough-housing
one day. Soon, it's looking like these
assholes should have all stayed in San Francisco for the summer.
And the weird thing is, for every awful event
that happens to the Rolf family, Allardyce Manor shows an eerie improvement in
appearance. Essentially, each time
something scary befalls our moronic protagonists, the house looks like it just
got another face-lift. At this rate, it'll
look like a washed-up Hollywood celebrity still trying to hang on to past
glories by scarfing some Botox.
Maybe we'll see a picture of it in the National Enquirer, trying to get
a gig on DANCING WITH THE STARS or I'M A CELEBRITY - GET ME THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!
Things take a turn for the worse when Davey, he
of the high-pitched bitch-like screaming, gets accidentally locked in his room
and nearly smothered by a gas leak. Ben
is now sure that the house is trying to kill them somehow. Try telling that to Marian, though, who
glides around the place looking like she's hosting the Summer Party To End All
Summer Parties. She thinks Ben is just
being irrational and blaming the house for their domestic issues. Meanwhile, Marian also seems to have formed a
bond with old unseen Mrs. Allardyce up in the attic - and she refuses to let
anyone else see her. Hmmmmm....
What exactly is going on at Allardyce Manor? What strange forces are changing the
personalities of the Rolf clan? Will
Marian continue to morph into some sort of Martha Stewart Monster? Will Ben finally succeed in bumping off Davey
during rough-housing? Will Aunt
Elizabeth get her lifeforce sucked right the fuck out of her by the house? Will any of them survive the summer? Are they all some sort of... offering to the
house? And most important of all: what
the fuck does that old lady do all day and all night up in the attic?
Probably slapping her thighs with gales of
laughter over how imbecilic the entire Rolf clan is. Like shooting tuna in a barrel.
BUT SERIOUSLY:
Based on the 1973 novel of the same name by Robert Marasco, BURNT
OFFERINGS is reportedly one of bestselling horror author Stephen King’s favorite
movies. This is isn’t so surprising,
since King’s 1977 novel titled “The Shining” echoes a lot of this movie’s
themes and elements. When “The Shining”
was turned into a film in 1980, those similarities became even more apparent projected
on the silver screen. THE SHINING may be
the superior film – but BURNT OFFERINGS paved the way for it with its premise
of a family undone by the malignant forces in an isolated manor. Whether or not King consciously used elements
of Marasco’s novel and its cinematic adaptation is up for debate. What we can say for sure, though, is that
King did a better job with them.
Just like BURNT OFFERINGS, THE SHINING showed
a parental figure slowly becoming unhinged and “possessed” by the
forces of the place that he has been assigned as caretaker
for. Just like in BURNT OFFERINGS, THE
SHINING shows the evil atmosphere of the location slowly widening the cracks in
the family’s relations with one another.
Just like in BURNT OFFERINGS, the actual source of the “haunting” is
never fully explained. And just like
BURNT OFFERINGS, THE SHINING ends with an indication of its protagonist being
tied indelibly to the history of the haunted place.
In the end, however, BURNT OFFERINGS lags behind
THE SHINING in terms of quality, because of a somewhat obvious, sometimes
cheesy execution. Unlike THE SHINING
which was tantalizingly ambiguous and subtly eerie, this movie pretty much
beats you over the head with the notion that the Allardyce Manor is very
haunted. In THE SHINING, the stark,
sterile environs of the Overlook Hotel seemed to be the last place on Earth
that would be afflicted by supernatural phenomena – which made the later
manifestations all the more scary and unexpected.
Also, while the cast are all competent and
relatively engaging (especially Oliver Reed as the father who is the first to catch
on to the evil of Allardyce Manor), they don’t really hold a candle to the
memorable turns of Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, and Danny Lloyd as the besieged
family in THE SHINING. Whereas THE SHINING had the father of the family be the
one slowly “transformed”, here it is much more the mother. Karen Black is appropriately creepy in
showing us Marian’s gradual conversion to the sinister side of Allardyce Manor, but she
is nowhere near as menacing as Nicholson’s interpretation of the same
role. Meanwhile, Bette Davis doesn’t
really get all that much to do as Aunt Elizabeth, who departs the narrative
rather abruptly. Reed, as mentioned before, is stuck in the “Wendy” role that
Shelley Duvall would make so affecting four years later in THE SHINING. And let’s just say the Lee Montgomery’s Davy
Rolf is blown out of the water by Danny Lloyd’s Danny Torrance.
Ultimately, though, BURNT OFFERINGS deserves an
extra point for first using the tropes that THE SHINING would perfect later on:
a domestic family whose weaknesses are used against them by the evil of the
building they are living in. It’s a
slightly above average horror flick that is prevented from completely hitting
the mark by some rather over-the-top supernatural elements – but still has some
effective moments here and there. Had
director Dan Curtis tried to go the more understated and subtle route that THE
SHINING used, BURNT OFFERINGS might have been better. As it is, it’s merely an okay Haunted House flick that’s
good for one viewing – unlike the repeat value of THE SHINING.
