Review of Burnt Offerings

Introduction

The back of this DVD`s case proudly claims `Nominated for the Best Horror Film of 1976`, all that comes to mind is 1976 must not have been that great a year for horror films.

Although the film does a reasonable job of presenting the gist of Robert Marasco`s novel of the same name (a novel that really unsettled me when I read it years ago) it manages to make the whole experience much to drawn out and unconcentrated as to render the film little more then some 2 hour TV episode.

The acting from the likes of Oliver Read and Bette Davis is reasonably solid throughout but the cinematography does little to enhance the fearful, foreboding mood of the book.

Video

The film is presented in pan and scan and it looks like it was encoded straight from the VHS release.

The picture is full of flaws, both caused by the original source and encoding. There is lot`s of blooming and artifacting all over the picture.

Not very impressive at all on the picture front.

Audio

The Audio is mono. The box claims it`s stereo but I am also fairly sure that the only stereo panning going on was the hiss moving from one speaker to the other.

It is of a very low quality with very noticeable distracting background hiss on anything more then the lowest volumes.

Again, not very impressive.

Features

The menus are static and dull and we get absolutely nothing in the way of extras.

It is a shame but everything about the DVD release shouts `very low budget`.

Conclusion

Don`t touch with a 5 foot pole, that`s my advise.

The film is watchable, the DVD however is atrocious by any reckoning and offers audio and video quality that are straight from the VHS.