The haunted house subgenre of horror films has a storied history. For horror fans in the mid-1970s, the haunted house movie had become passé, with grotesque offerings such as The Exorcist (1972) and The Legend of Hell House (1973) pushing the envelope for horror at large. In various ways, Dan Curtis’ Burnt Offerings, based on Robert Marasco’s novel of the same name, feels like a throwback for a ‘70s movie. This is slow-burn horror, and that did not appeal to most moviegoers then or in our hyperactive present day. Burnt Offerings’ commercial failure upon release means it remains overshadowed by some other haunted house movies of its decade, including The Amityville Horror (1979). Yet for those who allow the film’s atmosphere to wash over their nerves, Burnt Offerings is a somewhat flawed, but worthy addition to the subgenre.
The Rolf family – father Ben (Oliver Reed), mother Marian (Karen Black), 12-year-old son Davey (Lee H. Montgomery) – are visiting a nineteenth century neoclassical mansion. Ben and Marian, who saw a picture of the home advertised as a summer rental in a newspaper, are surprised to find it in decrepit shape. However, the aging owners, siblings Arnold (Burgess Meredith) and Rosalyn Allardyce (Eileen Heckart) are willing to rent the house for $900 (just over $4,000 in 2021’s USD) from July 1 to Labor Day (first Monday in September). There is one other condition: that their 85-year-old mother be allowed to stay in the upstairs room and that the Rolfs do not interact with her other than leaving a tray of food outside her door. The Rolfs consent to the agreement and arrive July 1 with Ben’s Aunt Elizabeth (Bette Davis in a surprisingly non-cantankerous late career role). A series of curious incidents without any foreshadowing color the Rolf family’s stay in the early day and weeks of the summer, as the temporary residents realize that something – or someone – sinister is taking hold of their time there.
Based on the novel of the same name by Robert Marasco, the film’s title alludes to sacrifices, perhaps of a religious nature. A burnt offering in the Abrahamic religions, Hinduism, and various other religions is a primeval practice, connecting these faiths to times when superstition and fear of the unknown ran rampant. However, Burnt Offerings, as a title, is meant to be metaphorical, not literal. As such, there are no burning incidents to any degree or ritual sacrifices over the course of the film. Whatever or whoever is haunting this house demands sacrifices from the Rolf family, and these demands become harder to ignore as the summer wears on. For one family member, tending to the malevolent force’s appetite for sacrifices takes on ceremonial, reflexive dimensions. It is as if they are a lonely attendant, receiving direction from an intangible source, and dotes on the house because they know little else in life. This family member capitulates to the house’s genius loci incrementally – by film’s end, igniting this summer home’s true horror.
Burnt Offerings, even for the 1970s, reveals its secrets at a leisurely pace. Interested viewers must modulate their expectations, as contemporary jumpscares are all but nonexistent. Director Dan Curtis, working on an adapted screenplay that he co-wrote with William F. Nolan (primarily an author; 1976’s Logan Run) sets the tempo of the film to a slow, steamy summer. Narrative revelations unfold slowly, as do the film’s most horrific moments. One striking sequence early on in the film takes place at the mansion’s pool. The scene begins innocuously, only to descend into a disturbing moment that takes place without any musical, narrative, or visual foreshadowing. It is not the last time such a set-up occurs, as Burnt Offerings’ most effective horror scenes occur without much warning, gradually escalating – even if the scene’s ultimate result might become apparent midway through – into an explosion of visceral horror filmmaking. There is nothing groundbreaking here, especially with a screenplay disinterested in examining the family relationships, but it does manage to pull the viewer in to see what happens next.
Solid performances help sell the psychological terror that the Rolf family goes through. As the patriarch, Oliver Reed looks and sounds nothing like a suburban father. Ignoring the fact he retains his English accent, his body shape and the patrician air about him (director Carol Reed of 1949’s The Third Man and 1968’s Oliver! acclaim was Oliver’s uncle) makes an uneasy fit. The role requires more mental uncertainty and, going by his considerably masculine appearances and demeanor alone, he does not look the part. Oliver Reed, as Ben Rolf, performs best in moments requiring significant bodily movement. The aforementioned pool scene and most terrifying moments of the movie justify his casting. As Marian Rolf, Karen Black undergoes the most startling transformation over the course of Burnt Offerings. At the height of her career following appearances in Airport 1975 (1974) and Nashville (1975), her role here steadily sheds its sympathetic beginnings until she is barely recognizable from the movie’s opening. A lesser performance from Black or any other actress might tip audiences off to her character’s changes earlier. That Black instead reins in any expected histrionics is to the movie’s great benefit – and helps it earn its finale’s lunacy.
Lee H. Montgomery, as the young Davey Rolf, was best known at this time for being the lead in Ben (1972), and delivers a sufficient performance here. Bette Davis, in the final stages of her storied sixty-year career, provides one of her best bits of work for the late-career filmography. So often cast in crotchety, antisocial, misanthropic at this time, it is refreshing to see her as a significantly less crotchety, caring aunt. But on- and off-set, Davis voiced her displeasure with the screenplay and her adult co-stars – labeling Oliver Reed a drunkard and Karen Black a prima donna. There are no indications of this contentious working relationship that might be obvious on-camera. Her final scene in the movie – shared with Oliver Reed – has Davis appear bloated (with the assistance of makeup), sweating profusely, in a simultaneously touching and sad moment that their characters share together. Davis’ utterances in that scene, along with her physical acting, elevate the moment beyond what might easily have been kitsch.
Coming into Burnt Offerings, cinematographer Jacques R. Marquette (1957’s The Brain from Planet Arous, 1958’s Attack of the 50 Foot Woman) and editor Dennis Virkler (1990’s The Hunt for Red October, 2004’s The Chronicles of Riddick) both had little on their résumés that could inspire any excitement. Yet, in their collaboration, Burnt Offerings represent what might be, for both craftsmen, their finest work. Utilizing DeLuxe color and overexposing all of the exterior scenes, Marquette draws sharp contrasts between the exceptionally bright natural lighting against the slightly dim indoor scenes. Marquette’s decisions make Burnt Offerings’ daytime horrors all the more shocking when they happen. Virkler’s judicious editing allows for unfussed dialogue, and permits the film’s brief, but intense, spurts of violence a visual staccato that nevertheless retains a comprehensible, albeit gruesome, transition from more relaxed moments. When in tandem with Bob Cobert’s (the soap opera Dark Shadows that ran from 1966-1971) film score, that work is undermined in the film’s second half. Cobert tends to rely on horror music stereotypes – grating, chaotic strings and foreboding woodwinds and brass – that increasingly telegraphs the film’s shocking moments as the film progresses. Credit Cobert, however, for a memorable music box motif (yet another horror movie music fixture) that will stay in one’s head as the end credits roll.
Filmed at the Dunsmuir House, in Oakland, California, Burnt Offerings is the beginning of that location’s cinematic history. Dunsmuir House, a neoclassical-revival mansion, would later appear in movies such as Phantasm (1979) and A View to a Kill (1985). For Burnt Offerings, the walls of Dunsmuir House were repapered and its swimming pool – damaged in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake – repaired. The house, already in some state of disrepair when shooting began, was restored to its original condition by the end of production – a development and an expense that makes more sense when you have completed viewing Burnt Offerings. With Dunsmuir House, production designer Eugène Lourié (1939’s The Rules of the Game, 1953’s The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms) has a gorgeous canvas to work with, and returns to his roots in 1930s French cinema (oftentimes in films starring middle- and upper-class characters) to evoke the house’s former and, eventually, restored elegance. Burnt Offerings, through its production design alone, would not look out of place in 1930s French moviemaking – an incongruent, but nevertheless fascinating decision for a movie set in the United States.
Mixed reviews upon its release and the film’s deliberate pacing ensured Burnt Offerings’ underwhelming commercial returns for United Artists (I, for one, do not mind deliberately-paced horror cinema as long as long as the decisions deliberately pace the movie are executed with artistic intelligence). For director Dan Curtis, this was his first foray into feature filmmaking that did not involve the Dark Shadows television series. As a director, producer, and writer on the original Dark Shadows soap opera as well as the director on House of Dark Shadows (1970) and Night of Dark Shadows (1971), Burnt Offerings seems to be suitable to Curtis’ specialties. Curtis lamented the original novel’s ending, but nevertheless found himself up to the challenging in adapting the film. The film’s disappointing reception would make Burnt Offerings Curtis’ only involvement in a theatrical feature.
Burnt Offerings, in the shadows of later movies such as The Amityville Horror and Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining (1980), has struggled to gain much visibility in the decades after its theatrical run. A 2003 DVD release for Canada and the United States contained poor video quality and an inexcusable audio track for the voices. Stylistically, Burnt Offerings stands apart for the way it approaches its frights. As it cuts it way through the Rolf family’s summer vacation, it tends to laze about in the sun, with admiring shots of the Dunsmuir House even in the most perilous moments. If the viewer can appreciate Burnt Offerings’ decision to delay its soon-to-be-pervasive sense of dread, the film’s closing stages become much more rewarding.
^ Based on my personal imdb rating. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found in the “Ratings system” page on my blog (as of July 1, 2020, tumblr is not permitting certain posts with links to appear on tag pages, so I cannot provide the URL).
For more of my reviews tagged “My Movie Odyssey”, check out the tag of the same name on my blog.
