| Burnt Offerings | |
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| Date of Release: | October 18, 1976 |
Burnt Offerings is a 1976 American supernatural horror film co-written and directed by Dan Curtis and starring Karen Black, Oliver Reed and Bette Davis, and Lee H. Montgomery, with Eileen Heckart, Burgess Meredith and Anthony James in smaller roles. It is based on the 1973 novel of the same name by Robert Marasco. The plot follows a family who begins to interpersonally dissolve under supernatural forces in a large estate they have rented for the summer.
While the film received mixed reviews from critics, it won several awards in 1977. Originally set on Long Island, New York, the movie moves the action to California and was the first movie to be filmed at Dunsmuir House in Oakland, California.
Plot[]
Writer Ben Rolf, his wife Marian, and their 12-year-old son Davey tour a large, shabby, remote neo-classical 19th-century mansion to rent for the summer. The home's eccentric owners, elderly siblings Arnold and Rosalyn Allardyce, offer them a bargain price of $900 for the entire summer, with one odd request: Their elderly mother, who they claim is 85 but could pass for 60, will continue to live in her upstairs suite, and the Rolfs are to provide her with meals during their stay. The old woman is obsessed with privacy and will not interact with them, so meals are to be left in her sitting room outside her locked bedroom.
The family arrives at the house on July 1 along with Ben's elderly Aunt Elizabeth. Marian becomes obsessed with caring for the home, and eventually wears the Victorian era garments she finds in Mrs. Allardyce's suite, while distancing herself from her family. Of particular interest to her is Mrs. Allardyce's sitting room, which contains a collection of framed portraits of people from different eras, presumably former occupants of the house. Mrs. Allardyce's meals go mostly untouched, according to the concerned Marian. Various unusual circumstances occur during the summer: After Davey falls and hurts his knee playing in the garden, a dead plant starts to grow again; Ben cuts his hand on a champagne bottle, and a dead light bulb is mysteriously repaired; while playing in the pool; Ben is haunted by a vision of an eerie, malevolently grinning hearse driver whom Ben first saw at his mother's funeral years earlier. With each "accident," the house further restores itself.
Marian is becoming possessed by the spirit of the house. When Aunt Elizabeth suddenly becomes ill and dies, Marian does not attend the funeral. Ben angrily confronts Marian about her obsession with the house. When she denies it, he reveals his intention to leave the next day.
Ben later sees old shingles and siding falling away, replaced by new ones as the house rejuvenates itself. Now convinced that the house is alive, Ben attempts to escape with Davey but a tree blocks the road. When Marian drives them back to the house, Ben accuses her of being a part of what is going on, then sees her as the chauffeur and becomes catatonic. The next day, while Davey is swimming and a still-catatonic Ben is watching him, the pool water turns into vicious waves, pulling the boy under as Ben is unable to move. Marian rescues her son; the incident awakens Ben from his catatonia. Marian agrees that it's time to leave but insists on going back inside to inform Mrs. Allardyce. When Marian fails to return to the car, Ben goes inside to find her, but cannot. He decides to confront Mrs. Allardyce, whom he has never seen. He is horrified when he discovers that Marian is Mrs. Allardyce, wizened by age, but clearly Marian. "I've been waiting for you, Ben!" she says, scowling at him. Ben recoils in horror from the thing that had once been his wife rises from her wheelchair, and moves towards him. Waiting in the car, Davey is shocked to see his father fall from attic window, landing landing on the car's windshield. In shock, Davey runs toward the house and is killed when one of the chimneys falls on him.
In the final shot of the film, The voices of the Allardyce siblings are heard marveling at the restored beauty of their home and rejoicing over the return of their "mother". With the house and grounds now apparently rejuvenated, camera pans on pictures arrayed in the house, previous guests, presumably also victims of the house. The photo collection now includes photos of Ben, Davey and Aunt Elizabeth.