Stometer Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Platicsco Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Abbigail Bush what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Billy Ollie Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

napchier I saw this film as part of a trail I'm plotting through old movies, in an effort to add a spark of movie history, such as it is, to my memory pool. I liked this film quite a lot. Wasn't overly sure in the beginning, but once it was all finished I was really quite pleased with it. Some great performances. The house itself, feeding on it's inhabitants to keep itself up and running, in effect, was used to great effect, a character in it's own right. A nice, alternative approach to a ghost story. Reminded me of some films prior to it, such as Psycho (I won't say why to avoid spoiling it to curious, similarly new viewers), and a number of films that may have been somewhat influenced by it, things like The Skeleton Key. If you've seen both of those, and wonder into this movie, you might know what I mean.

Claudio Carvalho Ben Rolf (Oliver Reed), his wife Marian (Karen Black) and their son David (Lee Montgomery) visit a country manor for renting to spend summer vacation. They are welcomed by the weird siblings Roz Allardyce (Eileen Heckart) and Arnold Allardyce (Burgess Meredith) that offer the mansion for nine hundred-dollar only for the whole summer. The only condition is to feed their mother Ms. Allardyce that lives recluse in the attic three times a day. They move to the house with Ben's Aunt Elizabeth (Bette Davis) and soon Marian becomes obsessed for Ms. Allardyce and the house. Meanwhile evil things happen to the Rolf family and Ben feels that the house is absorbing their life forces. After the death of Ms. Allardyce, Ben decides to live the manor but he realizes they are trapped in the real estate. What is happening to the family? "Burnt Offerings" is a horror film with an original storyline of haunted house. Instead of ghosts, the house is an evil force that drains human life to renew. There are curiosities on the Brazilian DVD, such as Bette Davis hatted Oliver Reed; or the director's daughter had used PCP (angel dust) and jumped off the highest LA building to fly a couple of days before the shooting of the last scene. My vote is seven.Title (Brazil): "A Mansão Macabra" ("The Macabre Manor")

icaptainchaos Not the best film ever made (not that it was meant to be), but Oliver Reed was very good, Karen Black was a bit strange ....But the Chauffeur took the whole film to a creepy level beyond creepy.I remember seeing this when I was quite young, and that chauffeur caused endless nightmares.Certainly worth a watch for the whole atmosphere.

meddlecore Burnt Offerings is a pretty typical haunted house flick- albeit one where the supernatural manifests itself in a wholly psychologically way.When a young couple & their son are offered an incredible deal, renting an old isolated mansion that comes fully furnished...they simply can't pass it up. There is only one caveat: that an old woman- whom they never see- resides in an upstairs room. She isn't a bother. But the family is required to offer her a plate of food 3 times a day.The family moves into the house with their elderly aunt...and things start off well enough. However, the wife and husband soon seem to exhibit irrational outbursts of anger. He starts to suffer from haunting nightmares; while she seems to have become extremely overly-attached to the house. All while odd incidents begin to occur at an increasingly alarming rate.Something sinister is targeting the old aunt and young boy; while the wife and husband begin to grow distant from one another. He wants to get the hell out of the house and back to their old life; while nothing can convince her that the house is worth giving up. She's adopted as her own...or so it seems, at least.Only after their aunt is killed and their son nearly dies, does the husband take it upon himself to escape...without his wife. Though he failed to realize that once you occupy this house....there is no escape. Your fate is sealed.While it is engaging, there is nothing particularly spectacular about this film. It does have some creepy moments of tension, but (until the end) they tend to manifest themselves in very subtle ways- with almost all the hauntings affecting the psychological well being of the characters.That being said, the film does wrap up with a bit of a triple twist. While two thirds does come off a bit cliché and predictable, they manage to redeem it with an ending that is both extreme and absurd.It's a long film that plods along slowly, but it's worth a watch if you are into that.Can someone please explain to me why it's called Burnt Offerings though!? Because that explanation eludes me...6 out of 10.