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.

It may sound like a round of toast gone wrong but it's actually a religious term: a "burnt offering" occurs when an animal is incinerated on an altar as a sacrifice. The consumption is absolute – soul and all – which may give a clue as to where this 1976 gem, written and directed by horror veteran Dan Curtis, will ultimately go. Marian (Karen Black) and Ben (Oliver Reed), along with their son Davey (Lee H. Montgomery) and Aunt Elizabeth (Bette Davis) move to a rundown California mansion for the summer. The landlords are creepy siblings whose reclusive mother, Mrs Allardyce, is locked in an upstairs room. For a knock-down rent, the incoming family need only take care of the building and leave a tray of food each day for the mad woman in the attic.The tenants move in and initially enjoy the peace and majesty of the great old house. But tempers quickly flare. Ben becomes uncommonly angry; Marian increasingly obsesses about the unseen Mrs Allardyce; and Elizabeth falls prey to a terrible manic illness. Is Mrs Allardyce the cause of all these tensions? Or could it be the house itself, which seems to bloom into life as its inhabitants succumb to mutually assured destruction?For fans of The Haunting (the Robert Wise version, obviously) and The Shining, this is a must-see psychological horror which has been relatively "overlooked" (Shining joke). In a way, Burnt Offerings is a relic from a time where scares were more understated whilst, paradoxically, performances were more melodramatic. It doesn't parody these genre aspects in the way that Kubrick's monolithic milestone would do four years later, but instead plays everything straight. Which is why it seems such an oddity, coming at a mid-70s moment after the dawn of the new allegorical horror of Romero, Hooper, and Craven and before the seedy/gory horror heyday of the 1980s. It's more like The Exorcist, pagan style. The film relies principally on atmosphere and gradually growing sense of menace and madness. For the first two thirds it's impossible to tell where the insanity lies. Is it in Marian, with her discomforting interest in Mrs Allardyce? Or Ben, whose visions of his mother's hearse are pushing him to hysteria, manifesting as rage? The dynamics work not only thanks to strong lead performances, but because Curtis takes time and care to portray a functioning family, comfortable with each other's foibles; so when the fractures appear, it's genuinely disturbing. When the playful, protective Ben starts wrestling his son in the pool to the point of drowning, it's not only intense but feels terribly wrong. Moreover, the dialogue throughout is well written, so when the silliness kicks in we take it seriously. Support-wise, Anthony James – a know-his-face actor who played many a memorable creep – rocks up occasionally to smile sinisterly, and there's a supremely creepy cameo from Burgess "Penguin" Meredith, playing Mrs Allardyce's son, who watches Davey playing from the window whilst practically dribbling.The framing, lighting, and production design is top-notch, and the editing is meaningful. This is a work of poise and control; and these qualities are consistent all the way to the final Hitchcockian scene, which is scary in spite of being, by that point, predictable. Burnt Offerings is a slow, stately, dense psychological horror, low on gore and obvious shocks – and all the more impactful for it.

"Burnt Offerings" is a haunted house movie, not reviewed very kindly among horror fans, and it does kind of lay itself open for this by being a bit daft. Basically, a not-so happy family rent out a HUGE empty mansion for the summer, from very kindly caretakers and for next to nothing (Why is it so cheap? What's the catch? Oh please...). Soon, they are turning on each other and terrible things are afoot. Will they escape alive?I won't reveal the secret of the house in Burnt Offerings, just in case a handful of people wish to find it out first hand, but be aware that the title is completely meaningless! What you should know in advance, though, is that Karen Black, Oliver Reed and Bette Davis (plus small boy) have to be the most unlikely family unit ever in existence - they are all nothing like each other. I know this is supposed to be a dysfunctional family, but there isn't an ounce of screen magic between any of them, they all act like they are not even on the same screens as each other, let alone in the same film. Without this important chemistry, you may find you don't have the slightest interest in the fate of this unlikeable bunch, as none of the characters are even particularly nice people: Black is a whiney drudge, Reed is a thug, and Bette Davis plays almost no important part at all.Apart from the quite picturesque looking house at the centre of all the trouble, there isn't really a lot of on screen excitement to get carried away with either. There are very few shock or horror scenes, and the very low level of evil atmosphere marks this down as more of a "made-for-TV" chiller rather than the big budget theatrical release it is supposed to be. Mind you it was created by TV veteran Dan Curtis, who has a very impressive TV success legacy to his name, but maybe that is exactly what seems to be keeping it rooted in this understated territory. Now I can enjoy a low key thriller, but with all the rather grand presentation, I felt let down that nothing really dazzling ever actually happened.There are however, some good moments. All the characters seem to be menaced in ways that seem tailor made to prey on their personal fears (Reed's visions are of a creepy hearse driver which actives painful memories of his mother's death). This personal manipulation is a nice idea, but it's not new, as characters being preyed on by something that "knows what scares you the most" is an old horror staple, already used a decade earlier in "The Haunting", a film which this movie often draws comparisons with. Still, some of it works. Reed has one good scene when he appears driven to quite roughly (and realistically) drown the young son in the swimming pool - I wondered for a moment whether the boy's struggles were actually acting or not! Black's fate is a bit more whimsical, she appears to drift into reveries that connect with the former residents of the house and ends up moping over old photos and spending all day in the attic. And as mentioned, Bette Davis has an insult of a role that simply sees her fall prone to some degenerative affliction and become bed-ridden and unintelligible.The main problem (and it's one that the film is not alone in), is that there is no reason why these people don't just pack up their stuff and leave. The script still gives us all the various excuses, but surely when lives are very obviously at risk, they would just get out? And when they finally do manage this, the script STILL engineers a way to get them to follow each other back inside, i.e. "She's been gone too long, I'll just go back inside too and check on her...arghhh!"...Groan!Sorry, it's just not exciting or horrifying enough to satisfy horror or haunted house fans. The house is elegant rather than creepy, and the scares are thinly served. Watch it only if bored, or if any of the cast are favourite actors of yours.

Does your house need a face-lift? Then, take a little tip from brother and sister Burgess Meredith and Eileen Heckart. Rent it out for the summer to a nice married couple with a small child and just let the house take over. That's exactly what happens here, and boy, no plastic surgeon has the ability to do what this house does. Karen Black and Oliver Reed, two cult favorites of the 1970's, have done some weird films in their time, but other than a T.V. movie where Black is chased by a little African doll with a knife, they don't rank anywhere near as frightening as this. Sure, Reed scared the bajeebers out of kids being mean to Oliver Twist and Black had us frantic when she announced that there was nobody flying the plane, but now, she's got something serious to want to desperately fly out of.Literally, the house comes alive, as do several ghosts, with one of the most frightening swimming pools ever in the movies. Bette Davis adds a touch of class, not camp here, as Black's kindly aunt who comes for a visit and finds more than she bargained for on a holiday. The spirit of a deadly chauffeur haunts both her and her great grand-nephew (Lee Montgomery) while Reed and Black slowly go batty on their own as the evil spirits surrounding the house literally take over. This is severe horror at its scariest, a "Poltergeist" way before that horror classic came out and one that will tingle your spine in ways its never been tingled before. Anthony James may not be a household name, but the chauffeur he plays is as spooky a character to ever appear in a horror film and may haunt your dreams if you watch this right before going to bed. This is a great horror follow-up to the original "Dark Shadows" and its movies for director Dan Curtis.