Burnt Offerings

The Rolf family consisting of Marian (Karen Black), Ben (Oliver Reed), Davey  (L.H. Montgomery)  and Aunt Elizabeth (Bette Davis), decide to rent a  house in the country for the summer.  The house is a massive Victorian and the rent is unbelievably cheap.  Ben (Oliver Reed) tries to dissuade his wife Marian from taking the house due to it’s size and the necessary maintenance and upkeep. But Marianne is immediately entranced with the house after their initial visit and speaking with the two siblings renting the house. 

Roy Alllardcye is played by Burgess Meredith and Meredith Allardyce is played by Eileen Heckart.  They assure the Rolf's that “the house takes care of itself,” as they quote them the $900 price for the entire season.  Their only unusual request is that the Rolf's take care of their aging mother by bringing her food to her room  every day.  The movie allows the fact that Mrs. Allardyce’s adjoining room holds many photographs and an unusual jewelry box.

The family celebrates their get-away with good food, champagne, and cigarettes.  But at the same time Marian appears to have and odd attachment to the house and blocks of Mrs. Allardyce’s room to anyone else at the house.  She begins to refer the woman as “her responsibility.”
As the family settles in, creepy things almost immediately begin to happen.  Mrs. Allardyce does not respond to Marian when she brings her her trays.  Ben dreams of a chauffeur in a hearse who was present at his own mother’s funeral.  The chauffeur.,a dark and macabre image, clearly represents death itself and is frightening and foreboding.  His smile frightened me the most in this film.  Nothing goes right for the Rolf's in their summer refuge.

Maryanne becomes more and more preoccupied with  Mrs. Allardyce’s belongings, Ben attacks and almost drowns. Davey in the pool while Marian listens to the beloved music box and grins, Ben begins slowly coming apart at the seams, and a heater is suspiciously left off in Davey’s room and almost kills him.

This film is not about blood and gore.  It is an intense psychological thriller that keeps you on the edge of your seat.  And one wonders if the Rolf's will leave the house in time to save themselves - despite Marian’s perverse attachment to it’s lure.  Watch this play out and beware.