31 Days Of Horror: Day #8 - BURNT OFFERINGS

 

Burnt Offerings, 1976, Directed by Dan Curtis
Grade: B+

I really have to be honest here: I'm a big fan of Dan Curtis.  Tim Burton is finishing up post-production on his version of Curtis's 60's horror soap opera "Dark Shadows" (a show I have never seen...so I guess that cancels out my Curtis Fan status, yes?)

Curtis produced the original high-rated TV movie, "The Night Stalker" and directed its sequel, "The Night Strangler" both of which are considered by this blogger to be true TV-horror classics.

Burnt Offerings is another of my favorite haunted house movies, a film that I thought at one time was a made-for-TV movie, simply because I saw a commercial for it on a breezy Sunday afternoon, and was intrigued..however, for whatever reason, I only watched like 30 minutes of it and never finished it.

It wasn't until years later when I rented the film from the local Turtle's that I began to appreciate its sheer creepiness...and that's not just because of Oliver Reed's completely wacko performance.

The movie (based on a novel of the same name) most definitely looks like a film from the 70's.  Washed out colors and bland art direction abounds...is it just me or did every movie in the 70's look like someone spilled beer on the film stock? (Thank you, Tom Servo for that line.) Anyway, none of this deters from the film's greatness.  The entire movie seems to look like one big long hallucination as experienced by the residents of this most unusual mansion. 

As a Blues Brother reject, "The Chauffeur" found gigs only singing and smiling in haunted mansions overrun with campy over-actors.

Karen Black continues her pace as the woman slowly slipping into madness, with just a touch of camp added to her performance.  Oliver Reed as always looks like he's had one too many and is phoning in his acting skills, but that's the fun of this film.  Add in the always wacky Bette Davis, the original Penguin himself (Weh! Wehhh!) ...Burgess Meredith, and the scariest looking chauffeur-in-sunglasses you will ever see, and you have a recipe for a wonderful night of scares. 

Dan Curtis slowly builds his direction to an unexpected ending climax, which was altered ever-so-slightly due to the fact that Curtis and the producers didn't like the ending of the book.

No matter, Burnt Offerings is a fun film and one of the great creepy camp classics.