UnowPriceless hyped garbage

Forumrxes Yo, there's no way for me to review this film without saying, take your *insert ethnicity + "ass" here* to see this film,like now. You have to see it in order to know what you're really messing with.

Mathilde the Guild Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Fleur Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

cricketbat Burnt Offerings is like a lesser version of the Amityville story. It has its creepy moments, but, for the most part, it slowly plods along in a predictable manner, with the audience staying two steps ahead of the characters. However, Oliver Reed and Bette Davis give excellent performances and I feel this fits right in with other classic haunted house movies.

icaptainchaos Not the best film ever made (not that it was meant to be), but Oliver Reed was very good, Karen Black was a bit strange ....But the Chauffeur took the whole film to a creepy level beyond creepy.I remember seeing this when I was quite young, and that chauffeur caused endless nightmares.Certainly worth a watch for the whole atmosphere.

donbanf 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.

PimpinAinttEasy Stanley Kubrick writes a letter to Dan Curtis after watching Burnt Offerings: Dear Dan,I caught Burnt Offerings at a screening recently. It is such an impressive film, so unlike some of the loud, unremarkable and tasteless horror movies that are released every week. As you might know, I am about to start work on The Shining which is based on the Stephen King novel. King has admitted to borrowing some of the plot ideas from the novel on which Burnt Offerings was based.You were fortunate to assemble the cast you had. Oliver Reed was intensely brilliant and Karen Black was the perfect foil as his bimboish wife. Some of the exchanges between them, although meant to be serious were quite amusing. I have quite a few ideas for the exchanges between my lead pair in The Shining that I have come up with after watching your movie. If I may say so, I have a superior cast in Jack Nicholson and Shelly Duvall.Alas, Betty Davis was almost unrecognizable.The swimming pool scene was genuinely scary. Did you use a wave machine to create the waves? You could have done a lot more with it. I wish I had a swimming pool scene for The Shining.I also liked the way you shot the Victorian house. That table with those symmetrically arranged photographs was a fine show piece. A few more scenes in the city would have helped establish the isolation of the house occupied by the family. There was also not much of a background to the husband-wife relationship.Oliver Reed's dream sequences deserve special mention.I fear that the plots of our movies are extremely similar and my film might be compared to yours. I intend to work harder on my film.Best Regards,Stanley.