BURNT OFFERINGS (1976)

 

(Director/co-screenwriter: Dan Curtis. Co-screenwriter: William F. Nolan, their script based on Robert Marasco’s 1973 novel.)

Review

Ben and Marian Rolf, a middle-aged couple, along with their twelve-year-old son (David) and Ben’s elderly aunt (Elizabeth), rent an ornate, hundred-year-old-plus summer manse for the “entire summer” for $900. Its quirkily intense owners, Roz Alladyce (Ellen Heckart, THE BAD SEED, 1956) and her brother Arnold (Burgess Meredith, THE SENTINEL, 1977), clearly in love with the house, rent it at an amazingly good price— remember, this is 1976—on the condition that they look in on and feed their off-camera “Mother” (Mrs. Alladyce) who lives in the attic. Marian, also enchanted by the sprawling abode, volunteers to take care of Mrs. Alladyce, unseen and dead quiet.

All is good when the Rolfs move in. The house, located near a spooky, overgrown graveyard (all of its tombstones bear the surname Alladyce, none of them earlier than the 1890s). Within days, however, something sickly begins creeping into their psyches. Ben, a good and playful father, tries to drown David while rough housing in the pool; meanwhile, Marian is enraptured by an old music bo outside Mrs. Alladyce’s attic room.

The next night, Ben begins having nightmares about a grinning, creepy chauffeur (played by Anthony James, NIGHTMARES, 1983), a haunting figure last seen by Ben in his childhood at his mother’s funeral. While all this takes place, the house starts looking impossibly new again, some of it due to Marian’s manic cleaning. Something else, something supernatural, is going on—something that means to tear the Rolfs apart, in spirit and flesh, all except for Marian, whose personality changes in unsettling ways.

This steady ratcheting of unease is reflected in Robert Cobert’s shivery soundtrack. (Cobert scored many of Dan Curtis’s projects, including DEAD OF NIGHT, 1977.) The setting and its shifting mood (well-lensed and -paced by Jacques R.Marquette’s light-to-dark-toned cinematography and Dennis Virkler’s effective editing) are equally affecting. As terrifying and strange events mount in more overt ways, and the house continues to thrive (e.g., previously dead plants bloom overnight), it’s evident that the Rolfs must leave the house if they wish to survive.

BURNT, with its steady build-up and traumatizing finish, wouldn’t work as well as it does without strong acting. Ellen Heckart and Burgess Meredith are fun and borderline spooky as the Alladyces. Dub Taylor (THEM!, 1954) is hilarious as Walker, their take-no-crap groundskeeper.

Oliver Reed (THE BROOD, 1979) is great as the under-pressure Ben, who’s trying to maintain his family’s previous-to-house happiness. Karen Black (TRILOGY OF TERROR, 1975) is equally so as Marian, a high-energy woman whose affections eerily shift from her family to their rented house. Bette Davis (WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE?, 1962) is dead-on as the independent, affectionately spiky Elizabeth. Lee Montgomery, billed as Lee H. Montgomery, is convincing as the oft-screaming David.

BURNT is one of my all-time favorite spook house movies, a distinctly 1970s, steadily mounting PG rated horror flick with some crazy fun, briefly bloody flourishes to spice up its underlying unease. Highly recommended, this.

 

Deep(er) filmic dive

According to IMDb, BURNT was shot entirely on location at the historic Dunsmuir House in Oakland, California. The first movie to be shot there, the house would later be used in PHANTASM (1979), A VIEW TO A KILL (1985), THE VINEYARD (1989) and SO I MARRIED AN AXE MURDERER (1993).

According to BURNT OFFERING's Wikipedia page, the filmic ending is different than that of Robert Marasco’s 1973 novel—Dan Curtis wasn’t a fan of its open-ended conclusion.