October Horror Challenge 2022 #79: "Burnt Offerings (1976)"

The first time I ever watched this movie, it was on a ratty old VHS tape that I bought used from a video store in town that was going out of business so it sold off all its movies. For most of the running time of the movie I was bored, waiting for something to happen. It builds its world so slowly that for a long time it seems like nothing is happening, and I wasn't impressed. Then I got to the end of the movie and it was so freaky that it made me re-think everything that came before, so I turned around and watched the whole movie again, and this time I got it, how everything that happens is a slow burn leading up to that virtuoso ending, and after that, I liked the movie and I've seen it several times since then.

The movie is about Ben and Marian, a married couple who think $900 is a steal to live in a huge Victorian mansion for the summer. After they move in, however, they notice strange things start happening. Marian becomes strangely obsessed with keeping house, and Ben becomes prone to strange fits of anger, and his elderly aunt who lives with them who has always been so full of life becomes increasingly withdrawn and feeble. As Ben and Marian try to figure out what's going on, they begin to wonder if the house itself is to blame.

$900 is a steal to live in an old Victorian mansion for three months, so I guess I can't fault Ben and Marian for wanting to live there, but I wish they had thought more about the catch that was obviously going to come. it just seems weird to me that no one questions how an elderly lady of 85 years is just supposed to be living by herself in an upstairs room, without anyone needing to care for her beyond bringing food three times a day. That sounds mighty suspicious to me. I also think it takes the family way too long to notice that something's wrong with the house, after it changes their personalities so drastically, but that's the nature of the beast and without the characters being somewhat clueless, the movie would be five minutes long, so I understand where that's necessary for the plot to develop. Overall this movie is a horrifying slow-burn haunted house masterpiece, and it's one I recommend.