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Sick Of The Same Old Halloween Reviews This Time Of The Year? Offerings Review (1989)



You know, I don’t mind seeing a movie that’s a blatant rip off of another movie.

I mean, being a horror fan, especially a slasher fan, I’ve come to accept that in the horror genre originality is something not to be expected.

Actually in 2012, originality is Hollywood isn’t overly present in any genre.

But sometimes even blatant rip offs, if handled correctly, can sometimes match or even exceed the film that’s the obvious influence.

Offerings is not one of these films.

Let’s begin.

Offerings is a 1989 slasher movie written and directed by Christopher Reynolds.

Reynolds directed 2 movies and edited 4 in three years and then seems to have disappeared from the film making world.

I’m guesng his less than thrilling copycat movies failed to make much of a splash with any audience.

Although I fondly remember the original artwork in video stores as a kid, I can’t find much else noteworthy in this Halloween (1978) rip off.

A quick scan of IMDB notes that the genre this film falls in first is Comedy followed by Horror.

I could swallow that bit of horseshit if there was anything funny in this movie.

Sadly, I’m guesng Reynolds is trying to pull a James Bryan (Don’t Go In The Woods) and say that he knew he was trying to make a comedy first and foremost.

Maybe not.

Maybe he had nothing to do with the listing of genre but if he did, I don’t believe a word of the Comedy angle.

To make a comedy/ horror movie (a genre I find very hard to accept) you have to walk a very fine line.

You can’t make it too funny and stupid and you almost have to up the gore and horror elements just to prove the movie isn’t a complete joke.

Shaun of the Dead did this perfectly in my opinion.

The humor wasn’t humor that a 10 year old would come up with like most horror/comedies of recent memory.

It was sharp and original.

And the gore in the movie rivals any other zombie movie you’ve ever seen.

Edgar Wright and mon Pegg dared to walk that line and succeeded almost to perfection.

Shaun of the Dead is the benchmark comedy / horror for me.



Unfortunately, as I said earlier, I failed to see the humor in Offerings.

There wasn’t really even a trace of that 10 year old humor I was mentioning.

There’s two characters that were humorous but more in an unbelievably weird sense of humor over the “ha ha” kind of humor.

I’ll get to those guys later though.So the movie starts out with the most ridiculous rip off of John Carpenter’s Halloween theme you’ve ever heard.

There’s literally a few notes different maybe or maybe it’s played backwards or something.

Come the fuck on.

You can’t be that obvious about ripping someone off.

At least try for chist sakes.

You know, change the sound of the keyboard or something.

Keyboards have more effects than any other instrument.

There must have been some echo, reverb anything that could have made his riff different than that of Carpenter’s.

Fuck.

So we see an angry looking, hair curler and shower cap wearing lady cooking supper and randomly putting down her son who seems troubled by his mothers abuse. Well I guess abuse from parents in any form with do that to ya.

The mother goes on about how his IQ tests came back and he was a genius but she berates him for not being able to speak and for his disgusting treatment of animals.

I guess that was obvious clue to the disturbed nature of the boy.

Abung animals is a clasc trait of a serial killer.

Reynolds could have went for something less obvious but anyway.

Even as the boy slinks away after the verbal assault from his mother, she flicks her cigarette ashes into his eggs.

That fucking pissed me off.

I associate that kind of disrespect to that of spitting on someone.

There’s nothing dirtier.

Spit on me then expect to be violently attacked.

Anyway.

His mother obviously knows he’s disturbed.

She could have tried to help out.

I’m getting too fucking deep in trying to figure this movie out.

It’s not a “think piece”.

Just review this piece of shit, Carl, don’t try to decipher it.

Oh yeah, kids name is Johnny.

So a young girl comes calling for Johnny.

After embarrasng him some more, his mother lets him go and hang out with the girl.

She talks and talks as most little girls do and along comes the gang of asshole kids.

The taunt and insult Johnny until he leaves.

The gang chases him on their bikes until they come along a well.

Johnny tries to proves something (fuck knows what) by walking around the edge of the well.

Last second one of the boys startles Johnny and he falls into the well.

Also noted is the terrible acting of the little girl, Gretchen, who gives the worst fake cry segment ever burned to celluloid.

Cut to 10 years later.

Why is it always a nice round number?

It’s never 12 years later or 23 and a half years later.Johnny has been holed up in a mental institution.

I couldn’t figure out why as falling in a well shouldn’t deem you mentally insane or anything.

Apparently though, he killed his mother and ate parts of her.

Yep, he’s fucked.

He needs institutionalization.Anyway, a doctor giving Johnny a shot explain to the nurse that Johnny is kept sedated now a days.

The nurse tries to sound intelligent and breaks out some random comment about full moons and the earth’s gravitational pull and so on.

All true and of course nurses are intelligent but this actress, not so much.

She talked like a Romy and Michelle clone.

Don’t know Romy and Michelle?

Go do your homework and figure it out.

I love me some random scenes but there’s scene in the hospital where a disturbed midget is walking with an orderly and it doesn’t make a fucking lick of sense.

Watch it and you’ll know what I mean.

Anyway, back to the nurse, she’s left with Johnny and she’s attacked and killed.

Johnny then pretty much walks straight out the door with little to no security present.

Sure.

Why not.

I’m guesng they couldn’t afford security uniforms?

Naw, they just didn’t think about what they were making.

Lazy film making.

I have to say, Johnny could be more menacing.

He looks pretty schlubb-ish.

I know even Michael Myers wasn’t much in the original but come on, this guy looks really doughy and pasty.

Not scary at all.

But whatever, lots of fat guys are killers.

The buness of killing knows no prejudices.

Also of note, Johnny grabs an electric fence and shorts it out before leaving the grounds. Ok…fuck it…that was pretty badass.

Johnny’s cool with me.



We now cut to a professor giving a lecture on something.

I can’t tell you what as, just like when I was actually in school myself, I couldn’t focus on him long enough to hear what he was saying.

When I get into a classroom setting I instantly have to fight with everything I got to stay awake. I like to learn and all that but I can’t listen to someone just blabber on.

I need one on one.

I’m a sped like that I suppose.

Of note, there’s one awesome fro and stache on this ginger guy in the audience. I was hoping we’d see more of that lush lip worm but alas, no.I come to realize the guy giving the lecture is this movies Dr. Loomis.

Tell me you know that reference?

If not, go watch Halloween and stop reading this review as it’ll be pointless.

So cut to Gretchen and her parents, notably her mother in the fucking most ridiculous red jump suit I’ve ever seen.

Gretchen, we realize, isn’t any better than her acting counterpart earlier in the film and although she’s supposed to be in high school, without make up, she’d look 30.

She’s so fucking wooden I got splinters in my eyes almost immediately.

Yeah…that was a lame comparison I know.

Bare with me, I missed my morning crack.

Anyway, Gretchen’s parents are leaving for holiday and almost immediately after leaving Gretchen starts getting weird calls.

Is it Johnny on the hunt for the his true love?

I hope so or this movie is about to take a left turn.

No such luck though.

I’m forced to keep watching this derivative shit.

So the cops come across a bunch of dead ducks that are half eaten and the speculation begins.

Cut to some dude that Gretchen’s friend, Kacy, stops by on her way to Gretchen’s place.

She asks him for help with notes and his retort to himself is “All these chicks want me for is my notes.

They can note this” followed by a vigorous cock grab.

Yeah man…. tough stuff.So still focuses on this guy we see Johnny has broke into this guy’s shed and is playing with a vice.

Pretty obvious what’s coming.

Johnny gets the guy, head goes in vice and the guy does some terrible acting that somehow starts to feel normal in this shitheap of a movie.

I’m guesng he’s one of the kids that picked on Johnny.

Maybe even the guy that scared him into the well?

Too bad they never bothered to explain.

After trying a few different ways to kill him, Johnny just cranks the vice and out comes the brains.

Off camera of course.Thus begins the gore-less bore that’s all the kills in this movie.

I have so many notes for this movie.

I could literally go on for another 2 or 3 pages.

I must trim the fat here.

I’ll try to wrap it up a bit but it’s going to be hard with so much ammo for the Ridiculous Cannon.

We now focus back on Gretchen as she’s coming home from school.

A local dog runs by and nabs a severed finger that’s left on her doorstep.

Thus begins Johnny’s cat like leaving of ts for the only girl that was nice to him.

Another scene we have Johnny hiding in a friend of Gretchen’s car.

He snaps her neck from behind in more bloodless fashion.

Cut back to Gretchen in the most awesome pants in history.

They aren’t acid washed but for some reason look like wet the whole time.

Weirdest thing.

Being a child of the 80’s I thought I knew it all but I guess not.

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Later Gretchen, Kacy and their respective fellas order a pizza, it shows up randomly with a whole mess of sausage on it.

They eat it even though they didn’t have to pay for it and no one was there to drop it off.

I’m no vegetarian but there’s no way I’m eating stray meat that I didn’t order. Next kill involves one of the guys who has left and went home.

He pops an alka-seltzer for his human flesh stomach ache and is met with a noose from the roof.

Good guess by Johnny that the guy was just going to pop his head outde of the window during the night.

Snake eyes for Johnny.

Another bloodless kill ensues.

I’m getting pretty bored at this point.

If you are going to make a shit movie like this at least have the decency to do some good gore effects.

This movie could have probably been shown on TV as it’s totally lacking gore or even suspense.

As the movie goes the body parts keep showing up at Gretchen’s place.

I found it odd that neither her nor Kacy ever take it upon themselves to leave the house.

They just call the lone, overweight, red shoe with heels wearing cop that tells them bacally that “They’ll look into it”.

Seriously, he doesn’t ever really care and neither do the girls.

They are grossed out but never think much of it.

The cop even dismisses it as a joke.

Really??

Ears and noses show up and it’s just funny?

I’m sure whoever lost those ears and nose don’t see the humor in it.

I love the part where the cop searches a house and after his lackluster attempt to clear the rooms, he randomly opens a closet.

Of all the doors he walked by he opens up a closet and pulls out a turtle.

So random.

At some point the Loomis-esque character shows back up and talks about how the body parts must be offerings.

Fucking *ding ding*.

Give this man the award.

Award for what?

Doesn’t matter.

Just give him one.

Preferably one with a guy throwing a bowling ball mounted on top.

They work for all occaons.Loomis The Second Coming meets his demise quickly. I thought for sure he’d last longer but Johnny gets him out of the way quick.

Good riddance.

He was terrible from the get go.

Also of note, another bloodless kill.

We cut back again to the girls in the house.

Even when the power goes out, they think it best to stay.

I hope they die.

I know Gretchen won’t but a guy can hope can’t he?

Kacy ends up dead off screen and now we’re down to the usual ‘final girl’ scenario.

Thank god because that also gnals the end of this shitfest.

Another gnal, replaying the Halloween theme rip off.

YES!

I can feel the end near. Please end with a wallop so I can justify searching this movie out.

See I threw away my VHS copy a couple of years ago and for some reason regretted it.

I think I was in love with the boxart not the movie itself.Anyway, Gretchen finally realizes outde might be good where she comes across a dead Deputy Buddy, one of the comic reliefs in the movie and she takes his gun and shoots the approaching Johnny.

Like Michael Myers, he springs back from the shots and takes several more shots.

Gretchen runs and is met with the high heel wearing cop.

Apparently he’s the only cop in town.

What follows is the lamest finale I’ve ever seen.

Johnny walks towards the cop and Gretchen and the cop open fires on him.

Johnny holds his hand out and up as if about to spew out some Shakespeare lines and falls miserably to the ground in slow motion no less.

Johnny lifts his head one last time and utters his first and final word “Love”

Ugh… fucking please.

Wrap Up: There’s nothing of interest here but I thought it would be at the very least different to review something instead of the normal Halloween reviews every one does.

In hindght, I should have just watched Halloween and did my review on that.

I’m a masochist I guess.

Direction: 1/10 – There’s no suspense, gore, scares or thought provocation.

Nothing.

Script:

1/10 – I should give it higher nce it’s pretty much just Halloween (1978).

No depth to any characters and no intelligence to be found either.

Effects:

2/10 – What effects?

Performances:

2/10 - Bereft of talent or bac understanding of acting.

I’m wearing “big words” pants today.

Pacing: 3/10 -

It moved forward and didn’t veer much I guess.

That’s good?

Overall:

2 / 10 – Jesus, it’s not as bad as say The St. Francisville Massacre but it’s pretty close.

This is the second and last time I will view Offerings.

Alternate Artwork:



Asmodeus Wednesday 10/24/2012 at 03:32 PM | 97378