50 Years of BURNT OFFERINGS
With another year upon us, that means there’s another batch of horror films celebrating milestone anniversaries. In this installment of an unofficial series, I wanted to hop in the back of a phantom hearse and pay tribute to a movie that doesn’t get the kind of attention others in its genre have garnered. That certainly doesn’t mean it’s any less of a film and, for my money, it’s one of the best of the lot.
Today, I shine a suddenly regenerated light bulb on 1976’s Burnt Offerings.
I first came across the novel Burnt Offerings at the library nearly twenty-five years ago. The book, by Robert Marasco, had a weird cover and had clearly not been rented out for quite some time. I remember thinking the cover art looked like some sort of malevolent Humpty Dumpty. Years later, it dawned on me that it’s a doorknob with a face on it. I loved the title and the synopsis on the back of the book had me intrigued.
I didn’t check it out for some reason or another that day. Then I sort of forgot about it until I was at my favorite Chicago independent bookstore, Bucket O’ Blood, two years ago. I found a beautiful copy there, with a more modern cover (although if I had to pick, the ominous Humpty Dumpty doorknob face wins ten out of ten times). I bought it that day, settled in that evening for a reading session and didn’t put it down for hours. It was one of those whirlwind reading marathons that gets me all sorts of giddy.
Of course, I was aware there was a film adaptation of the book, and I was eager to dive into it after finishing the source material. Having enjoyed the weirdness and eerie goodness of the novel, I was quite excited to see what would or wouldn’t translate well onscreen.
Let me show you ‘round the house, may I?
“It all began as a summer vacation…”
While the film is relatively faithful to the novel, the movie comes from a script by famed sci-fi novelist William F. Nolan and veteran producer Dan Curtis, who also directs here.
Curtis had already become a titan of horror television by the time he sat in the director’s chair for this one. Having worked on Dark Shadows and The Night Stalker among a laundry list of other television adaptations of horror classics, he was the perfect choice for this project. Curtis had a reputation as a gothic horror expert with a penchant for slow-burn, atmospheric dread. He also directed Trilogy of Terror, released in 1975 and starring Karen Black in arguably one of the greatest anthology sequences of all time.
Burnt Offerings was released in theaters on August 25th, 1976, with a budget of $2 million, conjuring up mixed reviews that both applauded and bemoaned the familiar haunted house tropes and the creeping dread tone that had some critics feeling like the film dragged. At the end of the theatrical run, the film raked in less than its budget but has since become a cult classic.
There were two ways to navigate a film adaptation of Robert Marsco’s source material. Behind door number one (no pun intended), a filmmaker could play it straight, with a reasonable family fighting the supernatural terrors that await them. Behind door number two, the film could be a sometimes-confounding mixture of unhinged performances and uneven paranormal threats.
Curtis understood the assignment and went with door number two. Frankly, it’s an interesting approach that I think works for the most part. However, a more subdued adaptation of the novel would intrigue me, too. Maybe someday…
Curtis wrangled up quite a cast of characters here. The leading faces of Burnt Offerings are straight from a roster of cinema and horror royalty. Karen Black (Trilogy of Terror, House of 1000 Corpses), Bette Davis (What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, Dead Ringer), Oliver Reed (The Devils, The Curse of the Werewolf) and Burgess Meredith (The Twilight Zone) create quite the ensemble cast here. Every one of them gets a chance to spread their overanxious, uncanny and weird wings here, to varying degrees of success.
If you’re uncertain of the vibe this movie is going to give off, just take a look at one of my favorite movie posters of all time. It is bonkers. We’ve got Reed looking like a brooding bastard and Black in all of her pouty lips glory. Then there’s Meredith looking like an extra from Young Frankenstein and Davis almost looking like a caricature of herself. Last but certainly not least is Eileen Heckart (The Bad Seed) as “The Landlord’s Sister”. The poster looks like a playbill, and I absolutely love it.
Both novel and film center around the Rolf (or Rolfe, if you’re reading the novel) family and the summer they spend in a remote home on the far end of Long Island—almost as far as possible from the hustle and bustle of their home in New York City. Ben (Oliver Reed), Marian (Karen Black) and twelve-year-old Davey are ready for a much-needed mental recharge, and this place promises to be just what the doctor ordered. The film’s version of the summer rental is a hulking, run down and sprawling mansion that feels out of place almost instantly, even in a world where everything seems just a little off from the jump. Shit gets wild, ok?
If the palatial estate looks familiar in this one, that’s because it was also used as the main location for Phantasm a few years later! The property, called The Dunsmuir House, is a nationally renowned public park that was rented out for the movie and ultimately dressed up (or down) to appear as the sagging, luster-less giant it is shown as in the film.
Stop me if you’ve heard this premise before: Our protagonists are offered a deal they simply can’t refuse to live in a giant house that looks like it’s haunted as hell. It can be all theirs for the entire summer for a meager sum. What a bargain! Of course, if a deal seems to be too good to be true, it probably is.
In this case, the stipulation attached to the lowball asking price is a weird one. The owner’s elderly mother is to remain in the home for the summer, living in an upstairs suite, and the Rolfs are asked to ensure she is fed throughout the summer. Making it even more bizarre, the mother is a recluse who doesn’t interact with the Rolfs. Therefore, they simply leave the meals outside of her locked bedroom door.
As if the family is hellbent on making this summer retreat an absolute nightmare every step of the way, they bring Ben’s elderly aunt along for the vacation. Good ol’ Aunt Elizabeth (Bette Davis) is a firecracker of a lady who strikes an uncanny resemblance to Aunt Gladys from Weapons.
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As the film unfolds and the summer home from hell opens to the Rolfs, it becomes clear quickly that this house has a lot more wrong with it than your typical Victorian fixer upper. See, the house feeds on the energy of those living in it. Yes, folks, we are in the presence of a vampiric house.
Weirdness ensues. Of course it does! We learn that each time a human is hurt near the estate, something seems to be repaired or made stronger within the home. VAMPIRIC HOUSE. Wilted plants start coming back to life, dead light bulbs are replaced by phantom repair men, and visions of an unnerving hearse driver begin to plague Ben, a hearse driver Ben saw at his own mother’s funeral years earlier. The chauffeur, played by Anthony James, is an unnerving antagonist who walks the tight rope between fever dreams and reality.
I told you this shit gets wild, didn’t I?
Marian, the mother, becomes infatuated with keeping the house clean and organized while also wearing old garments that she finds in the mysterious mother’s suite. Marian slowly detaches from everyday reality and the family in the process. Naturally, Marian also finds a collection of portraits of people from all different generations and eras which we are led to presume were previous residents of the home.
Scream Queen Karen Black absolutely nails the role of Marian, and while this poor mother starts losing grip on reality as she’s possessed by the house, you can’t help but smirk at just how perfect Black is for this role.
When Aunt Elizabeth dies suddenly off screen, the family bond withers even more.
There’s a not-so-subtle acknowledgement of trauma and abuse of different flavors rearing its head as the film continues. The vitriol between family members oozes through the halls of the mansion. Like so many haunted house/possession films that have come before and since this one, the family bonds fray while the supernatural suspicions ramp up. There’s a particular scene in the pool where Ben gets too aggressive with his own son and it almost feels like you’re going to see something truly horrible on camera.
Marian, living every waking second to ensure the home looks perfect, skips her aunt-in-law’s funeral, which throws Ben into a tizzy. When the argument erupts into Ben storming out of the home, he sees pieces of the house fall away, revealing new shingles and siding. This place is like This Old House from Hell, am I right?
When Ben witnesses some of this transformation, he does what any sane person would do, he accepts that the house is actually living and tries to get out of Dodge with his son, Davey. Ben suffers a hallucination (or does he?) and righteously loses his marbles when he can’t escape the home.
When your house has killed your great-aunt, and has your mother doing chores at all hours of the night and your father in a catatonic state after the hallucinations consume him, what’s a boy to do but go for a swim? Davey’s lazy summer day in the pool turns into a nightmare when the pool rumbles awake with waves and an undercurrent that sucks the boy under. Marian snaps out of it just long enough to rescue her son, and Ben shakes off the stupor of the visions from the day before.
The family decides enough is enough and plans on leaving the home. However, Marian can’t help but bid the reclusive mother of the owners a farewell. Marian goes back into the house and Ben follows shortly after. I’m not going to spoil all the surprises this movie offers, so the last act must be watched to fully absorb the madness that is Burnt Offerings.
It had been a while since I’d watched the movie. A rewatch for this essay was due and I can’t help but wonder if this one showed up just a little ahead of its time. It’s got a lens on the overwhelming burdens of consumerism in America, even in the mid-to-late 1970s. Negligence, familial trauma, materialism and the usual horror tropes are main tent poles for this underrated gem.
It’s a story about a family who wants to live a lavish lifestyle, and their affinity for the nicer things this house offers ultimately threatens their very existence. It deserves to be mentioned as one of the better horror films from the decade. The movie has its flaws, and the script lends itself to some head-scratching decisions made on screen by our actors, but if you can’t suspend disbelief for less than two hours while watching a film with that sort of poster, what are you even doing?
The movie came out at a time when horror’s pendulum was swinging in all different directions, with noticeable fanfare. Within a five or six-year stretch, there were plenty of films about haunted houses or dark forces, with The Exorcist (1973), of course, leading the pack by a few country miles.
1977 featured The Sentinel, Suspiria and The Car.
1978 introduced the world to The Evil, The Fury and Magic.
1979 saw The Amityville Horror, Phantasm, Tourist Trap, Prophecy and The Brood come out. That lineup seems a bit more in line with what Burnt Offerings was doing. I would argue that had Burnt Offerings been released two or three years later, it may have garnered more attention on the big screen.
As the candles burn low on Burnt Offerings’ 50th birthday cake, I want to offer up one final salute to what may end up becoming a favorite guilty pleasure horror watch for you. Just stay away from the pool and windows…and don’t take rides from spooky chauffeurs!
