The film is about a family who comes to live at a creepy mansion for two months. However, throughout the film, there is tons of foreboding music and you know SOMETHING bad is going to happen as the personalities of everyone (but the boy) seems to change the longer they live in the house. Unfortunately, it only really heats up in the last half hour of the movie.
I usually like long movies and can't complain if a film merits a three hour running time or longer. However, at the same time, I hate films that go on too long given that the story is actually very, very simple and just doesn't merit the lengthy running time--like this film. BURNT OFFERINGS is only about two hours long, though it seems like a three hour film because it moves at a snail's pace. At least 45 minutes could have been edited out and the film would have improved as a result of tightening up the script--especially if they'd taken it from the first 2/3 of the movie. For so much of the film, nothing particularly scary or important happens and the tension doesn't exactly build--it slogs along. Now I understand that some of this slower pacing is good for a horror film--you need some build-up--but not THIS much! This was especially bad because the ending was almost exactly what I'd expected about 15 minutes into the film (though the level of blood did surprise me a bit).
Oliver Reed and Karen Black play husband and wife and this casting just seemed odd. Why the English Reed with Ms. Black--especially when their chemistry seemed, at best, awkward? And why did much of Reed's performance (especially late in the film) consist of him shaking convulsively and looking very red-faced (like he was really constipated)? And, why would they include Bette Davis in this film when her role was really rather bland and unimportant? In other words, why is such a great actress given a role that could have been as easily played by any supporting actress or perhaps even a parrot?! As for Lee Montgomery as the boy, he was probably the best in this film. While I hated this child actor in films such as BEN (yuck!!!), here he was decent--and the most credible member of this family--mostly because he didn't seem stupid like his parents!
Overall, this film is creepy and atmospheric but too much emphasis was placed on this. The "bang" at the end just didn't provide enough thrills to merit sitting through the previous 90 minutes of bland "action". Worth seeing as a time-passer or if you must see everything Miss Davis ever did (even her poorer films of the 1970s), otherwise this one is easy to skip.
I usually like long movies and can't complain if a film merits a three hour running time or longer. However, at the same time, I hate films that go on too long given that the story is actually very, very simple and just doesn't merit the lengthy running time--like this film. BURNT OFFERINGS is only about two hours long, though it seems like a three hour film because it moves at a snail's pace. At least 45 minutes could have been edited out and the film would have improved as a result of tightening up the script--especially if they'd taken it from the first 2/3 of the movie. For so much of the film, nothing particularly scary or important happens and the tension doesn't exactly build--it slogs along. Now I understand that some of this slower pacing is good for a horror film--you need some build-up--but not THIS much! This was especially bad because the ending was almost exactly what I'd expected about 15 minutes into the film (though the level of blood did surprise me a bit).
Oliver Reed and Karen Black play husband and wife and this casting just seemed odd. Why the English Reed with Ms. Black--especially when their chemistry seemed, at best, awkward? And why did much of Reed's performance (especially late in the film) consist of him shaking convulsively and looking very red-faced (like he was really constipated)? And, why would they include Bette Davis in this film when her role was really rather bland and unimportant? In other words, why is such a great actress given a role that could have been as easily played by any supporting actress or perhaps even a parrot?! As for Lee Montgomery as the boy, he was probably the best in this film. While I hated this child actor in films such as BEN (yuck!!!), here he was decent--and the most credible member of this family--mostly because he didn't seem stupid like his parents!
Overall, this film is creepy and atmospheric but too much emphasis was placed on this. The "bang" at the end just didn't provide enough thrills to merit sitting through the previous 90 minutes of bland "action". Worth seeing as a time-passer or if you must see everything Miss Davis ever did (even her poorer films of the 1970s), otherwise this one is easy to skip.