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.

DEAD OF NIGHT (1977)

 

(TV/NBC movie, original air date: 3/29/77. Director/producer: Dan Curtis. Screenwriter: Richard Matheson. One of the segments, “Second Chance,” is based on Jack Finney’s story.)

Review

DEAD, a macabre, tripartite American television anthology, is a PG rated work, with a minimal amount of plot-necessary blood. It aired on the NBC network on March 29, 1977.

In its opening, an unseen narrator (John Dehner) speaks while an up shot shows a dark-night storm lashing a spooky-looking house. With Tales from the Crypt gravitas, he compares the “dead of night” to a “state of mind”─one that the events of DEAD largely bring to the screen.

 

“Second Chance” is narrated by a young man, Frank (Ed Begley Jr., ADDAMS FAMILY REUNION, 1988), as he recounts how he bought and restored a vintage 1926 roadster (a Jordan Playboy), took it for a drive, and discovers that’s he’d traveled fifty years into the past.

Based on Jack Finney’s published-in-1956 story of the same name, this is an idyllic, brightly shot, dreamlike segment, with little visual or thematic darkness (relative to the DEAD’s other microfilms), a whimsical fantasy, not a scary story.

Orin Cannon (TRILOGY OF TERROR, 1975, and BURNT OFFERINGS, 1976) played the “Old Man” who sells Frank the car. Ann Doran (IT! THE TERROR FROM BEYOND SPACE, 1958) played Mrs. McCauley. Dick McGarvin (SCROOGED, 1988) played Mr. Dorset.  

 

“No Such Things as Vampires” tells of a woman (Alexis Gheria) being stalked by a mysterious vampire that no one can find despite her husband’s best efforts. This clever, mostly well-lit, and hard-reality entry is an onscreen lesson in how lean dialogue need not limit multilayered characters and story crafting.

Patrick Macnee (WAXWORK II: LOST IN TIME, 1992) played Dr. Gheria, Alexis’s husband. Elisha Cook Jr. (HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL, 1959) played Karel, the Gherias’ superstitious and frightened manservant. Horst Bucholz (THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN, 1960) played Michael, the Gherias’ friend.

 

“Bobby,” a variation of W.W. Jacobs’s 1902 terror tale, “The Monkey’s Paw,” is about a grieving mother who uses black magick to resurrect her recently drowned son (Bobby). Of course, things don’t go as she plans, in this dark, stormy, and terrifying night-slice of reanimated life, clever like the previous segment.

Joan Hackett (THE POSSESSED, 1977) played the titular boy’s unstable, near-hysterical “Mother.” Lee Montgomery (BURNT OFFERINGS, 1976) played the temperamental Bobby.

“Bobby” would later be reused in another Dan Curtis compendium film, TRILOGY OF TERROR II (1996).

Among the behind-the-scenes talent for this modest, multitoned, excellent telepic: composer Robert Cobert (HOUSE OF DARK SHADOWS, 1970), whose often-striking score matches the variable moods of DEAD, its darker elements and notes familiar to many Dan Curtis fans; Ric Waite, the cinematographer, whose work─like Cobert’s─matches the shifting tone of its stories, whether its gauzy romanticism or flee-through-a-night-dark-house panic; Dennis Virkler, whose tight editing keeps DEAD sharp and flowing at an entertaining pace; and Dennis W. Peeples (DARK NIGHT OF THE SCARECROW, 1981), set designer, his setwork making the most of what was likely a small budget (given its television; and, of course, Dan Curtis, who maintained a mood-effective, consistent oeuvre feel and look.

DEAD is a fun, mood-variable and tightly shot hour-and-sixteen-minute film with a trickle of blood here and there, for those who care about that sort of thing. It’s worth seeking out, especially if you’re a fan of Dan Curtis or fantastic/spooky mid-1970s television fare.