31 Films for Halloween, #20: Burnt Offerings (1976)
Was yesterday's film, Popcorn , too much fun for you? Today's film, Burnt Offerings , is here to fix that for you. It's the least "fun" you can imagine. It's just a essentially house story. But there are no ghosts, really, in the house; it is the house itself that is doing the haunting. A pair of elderly siblings rent out their large, elegant but decrepit mansion to a family of four who have rented it sight unseen (because that's a thing that happens in old movies). In fact. the Dunsmuir Hellman Historic Estate. currently far from decrepit. Although the renters have an ameliorative effect on the house, which seems to be sprucing up under their stewardship, the house has a deleterious effect on the renters. Which is not easy when one of them is Bette Davis. As the summer goes on, the house has increasingly negative affects on the bodies and souls of the renters. The aunt becomes weak, the mother obsessive, and the father choleric. Well, it's Oliver R...