Review of Burnt Offerings (1976) by Justin A — 18 Oct 2015

It predates The Amityville Horror, but I still did not care for this movie. A lot of these haunted house movies where the characters are going insane and you don't actually see the ghosts really bores me.

Might work great as a novel (and I'm sure Burnt Offerings is a great horror novel), but as a movie, I'm usually struggling to stay awake. The only exception to this would be The Haunting, but that was a different class of movie altogether.

Burnt Offerings is just a tedious movie that doesn't do anything special or memorable. The performances are fine, and there is some decent imagery (like the mortician with the casket), but most of the movie just felt dull and lifeless.

There's supposed to be an old woman upstairs the entire movie, and three of the characters never see or hear her. I actually forgot there was supposed to be someone up there because the movie practically ignores that part.

It's fine if you like these kinds of haunted house movies, but it's not my thing. At least it was better than The Amityville Horror, but that's not really saying much anyway.