A Street of Haunted Houses

Project: Get Through The Backlog continues! Today, I’m going to hype up some haunted house movies I enjoyed.

Burnt Offerings

The Allardyce house is a sprawling Colonial-style mansion with extensive forested grounds; the Rolf family, on discovering that they can rent it for the summer from the Allardyce family for an absolute steal, decide to go for it, and soon Ben (Oliver Reed) and Marian (Karen Black) settle in for the holiday with their son Davey (Lee H. Montgomery) and Ben’s feisty old aunt Elizabeth (Bette Davis).

But it’s apparent from quite early on that there’s something odd about the house. The Allardyce siblings Roz (Eileen Heckart) and Arnold (Burgess Meredith) are obviously a bit eccentric, as the Rolfs note when they come ahead of time to negotiate renting the house. The agreement includes the condition that meals are provided for their mother, who they assure the Rolfs will stick to her upstairs room and will probably never be seen by them. We in the audience get to see a more sinister side of the Allardyces during the visit; Roz and Arnold watch Davey get hurt whilst playing outside, and not only do they seem pleased by that, but they go out of their way to try and stop Ben and Marian noticing. On top of all that, when the Rolfs arrive Arnold, Roz, and their aged handy man Walker (Dub Taylor) are nowhere to be found – though given the state of the house and grounds, it’s clear that the aged Walker wasn’t up to a job which even a younger and more diligent worker would struggle to keep up with.