Burnt Offerings

Directed by Dan Curtis, Burnt Offerings follows the Rolf family (Oliver Reed’s Ben, Karen Black’s Marian, Lee H. Montgomery’s Davey, and Bette Davis’ Elizabeth) as they agree to spend the summer at a 19th century mansion and are eventually beset by a series of weird, spooky happenings. Filmmaker Curtis, working from a script written with William F. Nolan, delivers an egregiously (and aggressively) deliberate thriller that holds the viewer at arms length for almost the entirety of its overlong running time, as the picture suffers from a continuing absence of compelling, interesting elements or wholeheartedly sympathetic central characters – with the bulk of the tedious midsection devoted to repetitive sequences of the protagonists exploring and repairing their less-than-spotless new digs. The periodic inclusion of suspense-oriented interludes does little to alleviate the predominantly underwhelming and uninvolving atmosphere, as such moments have been infused with a lackluster and entirely horror-free sensibility that drains them of their potential impact. (It doesn’t help, either, that Curtis takes an often distractingly styleless approach to the material.) And although it concludes on an appealingly downbeat and bleak note, Burnt Offerings has long-since cemented its place as a mostly interminable effort that fares poorly even by the standards of an exceedingly hit-and-miss genre (ie haunted house movies).

*1/2 out of ****

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