I first saw this film on television as a kid. A doomed family rents a summer home which turns out to be a vampire house – the house itself feeds off of the life force of its occupants and regenerates as its victims die. There is this phantom hearse driver with dark sunglasses and a creepy smile that shows up whenever someone is about to die. Scary stuff.
Great movie. It is based Robert Morasco’s book by the same name. The book is better. It’s a rather obscure work and yet it is very influential. Like its predecessor The Haunting of Hill House, Burnt Offerings continues the trend of “a house as an entity” theme. The book gives a very detailed account of the house’s slow-building but inevitable power it has on the occupants. The film does its best with this but the book does it better.
The Books of Daniel 