Burnt Offerings (1976)

Despite scoring on the small screen as the creator of the vampire soap opera Dark Shadows (1966-1971) and as the director of a number of creepy TV movies, filmmaker Dan Curtis wasn’t able to achieve big-screen success. In fact, he directed only one significant theatrical feature, the second-rate thriller Burnt Offerings, which squanders decent actors and nifty production values on a dull storyline shot through with clichéd haunted-house gimmicks. When the movie begins, Ben Rolf (Oliver Reed) and his wife, Marian (Karen Black), movie into a California vacation home accompanied by their young son (Lee Montgomery) and their dotty old aunt (Bette Davis). The house’s owners, creepy siblings Arnold Allardyce (Burgess Meredith) and Roz Allardyce (Eileen Heckart), instruct the Rolfs to deliver meals on a daily basis to the Allardyces’ elderly mother, who lives in an upstairs room but never sets foot anywhere else. Instead of acknowledging this obvious warning sign that something’s not right in their new abode, the Rolfs hang out long enough to get caught in the building’s otherworldly spell—before long, both Ben and Marian start to feel inexplicable homicidal compulsions. (As for where they find victims, suffice to say Davis’ presence in the movie doesn’t last very long.) The whole silly affair leads to a revelation that the house is feeding on death, since the Allardyces are stewards for some sort of supernatural force. Whatever. It’s all very familiar and perfunctory, and the whole story is predicated on the Rolfs being too stupid to vacate a threatening environment. Furthermore, Burnt Offerings has leaden pacing, since Curtis seems more preoccupied with composing cool low-angle shots than with moving the story along. As for the acting, the performers all look bored, and who can blame them?

Burnt Offerings: LAME