Burnt Offerings (film)
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| Burnt Offerings | |
|---|---|
 Promotional poster for Burnt Offerings |
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| Directed by | Dan Curtis |
| Produced by | Dan Curtis Robert Singer |
| Written by | Novel: Robert Marasco Screenplay: Dan Curtis William F. Nolan |
| Starring | Karen Black Oliver Reed Bette Davis |
| Music by | Bob Cobert |
| Cinematography | Jacques R. Marquette |
| Editing by | Dennis Virkler |
| Distributed by | MGM Studios |
| Release date(s) | October 18, 1976 |
| Running time | 116 min |
| Country |  USA |
| Language | English |
| Allmovie profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
Burnt Offerings is a 1976 horror film based on the 1973 novel of the same name by Robert Marasco. It is about a family who moves into a haunted house that rejuvenates itself with each death that occurs inside of it. The film stars Karen Black, Oliver Reed, and Bette Davis and was directed by Dan Curtis.
The movie won the 1977 Saturn Award for Best Horror Film.
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[edit] Synopsis
The Rolf family takes a vacation from the city (the specific city is not identified in the film) at a large Victorian mansion in the California countryside. The family consists of wife and husband Marian (Karen Black) and Ben (Oliver Reed), their young son David (Lee Montgomery), and their elderly aunt Elizabeth (Bette Davis). The owners of the house are the Allardyce siblings, brother Arnold and sister Roz, played by actors Burgess Meredith and Eileen Heckart, respectively. The Allardyces only appear at the beginning of the film, when they inform their new tenants of a particularly odd requirement for their rental: the Allardyce's elderly mother continues to live in her upstairs room and the Rolfs are required to provide her with food during their stay. The siblings explain that the old woman is obsessed with privacy and will probably not interact with them, so the food is to be left outside her door.
As it turns out, this task falls to the mother who quickly succumbs to the allure of the ornate Victorian house and its period decor. Various "accidents" occur during the summer, including the suspicious death of the renters' Aunt Elizabeth. As the film progresses, Ben becomes increasingly depressed and anxious while Marian becomes increasingly obsessed with the house, the old woman in the attic, and all of the Victorian artifacts. It gradually becomes clear that Marian is somehow being possessed or controlled by the house and that a malevolent force is slowly consuming the whole family. Eventually the house kills Ben and David, Marian "becomes" the old woman in the attic, and the film ends with the house fully rejuvenated and glistening like new. We also notice that pictures of the family have been added to a large table covered with portrait-photographs going back centuries, implying that the house's regeneration process is as old as the house itself and that the Rolfs were simply the latest victims.
[edit] Filming details
- Filming took place at Dunsmuir House and Gardens in Oakland, CA[1]
[edit] Variations from the novel
- The novel's vacationing family are from Queens and the fictional Allardyce mansion is located somewhere in the Peconic Bay area of Long Island, New York, whereas in the film the family is from California and the Allardyce mansion is in California as well.
- The rusty tricycle shown briefly in the film's graveyard sequence is described in the novel as being splattered with blood.
[edit] Awards
- Burnt Offerings won 3 awards at the 1977 Saturn Awards: Best Horror Film, Best Director (Dan Curtis) and Best Supporting Actress (Bette Davis).
- At the Sitges Film Festival of 1977, Burnt Offerings won Best Director (Dan Curtis), Best Actor (Burgess Meredith) and Best Actress (Karen Black).
