I like this a lot. Admittedly there is something of the 'made for TV' look about some of it but then the same as everyone appears to be over acting at first, both these factors seem to work in the film's favour as we progress. The mundanity and flatness of some or the early shots and the performances of Karen Black and Oliver Reed seem stilted initially but as the film proceeds we find that we have been misled, things are much worse than we thought. Even the early appearance of Bette Davis is not good but when trouble hits her, oh my does she perform! Others have spoken about the likely influence upon The Shining but I will just say, simple 'haunted house movie' or not, this is well worth watching. There are several amazing sequences but, for me, that terrible pool sequence with Reed and the boy dramatically tilts the picture and turns this into something very special.

Ben Rolf (Oliver Reed), his wife Marian (Karen Black) and their son David (Lee Montgomery) visit a country manor for renting to spend summer vacation. They are welcomed by the weird siblings Roz Allardyce (Eileen Heckart) and Arnold Allardyce (Burgess Meredith) that offer the mansion for nine hundred-dollar only for the whole summer. The only condition is to feed their mother Ms. Allardyce that lives recluse in the attic three times a day. They move to the house with Ben's Aunt Elizabeth (Bette Davis) and soon Marian becomes obsessed for Ms. Allardyce and the house. Meanwhile evil things happen to the Rolf family and Ben feels that the house is absorbing their life forces. After the death of Ms. Allardyce, Ben decides to live the manor but he realizes they are trapped in the real estate. What is happening to the family? "Burnt Offerings" is a horror film with an original storyline of haunted house. Instead of ghosts, the house is an evil force that drains human life to renew. There are curiosities on the Brazilian DVD, such as Bette Davis hatted Oliver Reed; or the director's daughter had used PCP (angel dust) and jumped off the highest LA building to fly a couple of days before the shooting of the last scene. My vote is seven.Title (Brazil): "A Mansão Macabra" ("The Macabre Manor")

Not the best film ever made (not that it was meant to be), but Oliver Reed was very good, Karen Black was a bit strange ....But the Chauffeur took the whole film to a creepy level beyond creepy.I remember seeing this when I was quite young, and that chauffeur caused endless nightmares.Certainly worth a watch for the whole atmosphere.

This movie was so bizarre, but it held my attention to the very end. I loved the home - it was gorgeous, especially after it kept regenerating itself. I loved Eileen Heckart and Burgess Meredith. They were so delightfully charming, eccentric, yet creepy at the same time. I found the premise of the movie very interesting: A house slowly steals someone's vitality, causing that person to become at the very least injured and at the most, it makes them weak enough that they die.I loved how Karen Black's character became slowly obsessed and consumed by the old Victorian home. Her descent into obsession was so subtle and only really became obvious when she started dressing like a Victorian woman and flipped out about the idea of someone being in Mrs. Allardyce's sitting room. I rather guessed her eventual fate. The scene that tipped me off was when she was seen eating the food she had brought up for the old woman that was in the bedroom.Oliver Reed's character was very interesting. He was the reasonable one who instinctively knew something was "off" about the house. His scene with his son Danny in the pool was very scary. At first I was confused why Bette Davis seemed so upset with his horseplay with Danny until he started holding his head down under the water. I didn't really get what was up with the car and the creepy chauffeur, only that it seemed to be some traumatic childhood memory Reed's character had. That chauffeur would give anyone nightmares though. Then poor Reed's fate at the end of the film... Wow! How gruesome. I did not expect it at all. And his poor son.I loved Bette Davis' character. Even though she was a minor character, she imbued her part with such panache. She would be a fun aunt to have. Then my god, what the makeup department did to her when she was having the life sucked from her body.This was a great film with a very surprising and gruesome ending. I can't help but feel that this film would make a great double feature with the 1975 version of The Stepford Wives. If you think that this film has much in common with "The Shining", be aware that Stephen King was inspired by the original novel before he wrote his own.