Burnt Offerings (1976)

From the prolific mind of Dan Curtis who’s given us everything from Dark Shadows, Trilogy of Terror to Kolchak: The Night Stalker.

In this Haunted House story, Marian and Ben Rolf (the electrifying Karen Black and the highly volatile Oliver Reed) accept the job as caretakers to the Allardyce estate, with their son Davey (70s omnipresent child actor Lee H. Montgomery) and Aunt Elizabeth played by immortal icon – Bette Davis who meets a very campy death at the hands of a demonic chauffer.

While not Davis’ most memorable role, her presence adds a touch of class to the environment of alienation and the suffocating imminent ruin that hovers over the Rolf family and this ‘dead place’ like a cloud of toxic dust.

Just to add to this already incredible cast, is Eileen Heckart and the impishly droll Burgess Meredith  as the cheeky Arnold and Roz Allardyce who tells the Rolfs, “The house takes care of itself.”

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In fact, the ‘house’ does take care of itself, primarily by human sacrifice in order to rejuvenate its once appearance of Grandeur. The film works as a ‘Bad House’ trope like Robert Wise/ Shirley Hill’s ‘Hill House.’ Burnt Offerings is a supernatural tale as well as a psychological thriller that is able to take root due to the conflict that already existed in the Rolf’s marriage and Oliver Reed’s raging bull like persona that drives away his sensitive son Davey.

Here’s to a truly memorable ‘things that go bump in the night…and day‘ with this tale of horror from the master of the macabre and clichéd Dan Curtis!

Actor Anthony James as The Chauffeur was a quirky character who often played villains – you can see him as sleazy Ralph In the Heat of the Night 1967, and High Plains Drifter 1973.

“The perfect summer rental for the last vacation you’ll ever take.”

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