Offerings

When I first saw OFFERINGS three years ago I absolutely despised it for being a complete rip-off of one of my favorite horror movies Halloween. I recently got bored and decided to rent it from my local video store. I was looking forward to ripping it a new one Mystery Science Theatre 3000 style with my buddies. They all had a good laugh at it (they had never even heard of the damn thing). I was somewhat taken back by it. It is a rip-off movie, yes, but you know what It is a pretty slick rip-off movie. You could do a whole lot worse when it comes to low budget slasher films. I actually have come to appreciate the style it creates in some of its scenes. Don't get me wrong its still packed with laugh out loud bad acting and things of that nature but what the hell? Not even close to being as bad as I once thought it was. I say give Offerings a view. In my book it deserves at least a 4.

A young boy gets pushed down a well by some brats, kills his mother, gets sent to an asylum, breaks out as a teen, and returns home to get his revenge on all the kids who tormented him. In the meantime, he leaves little presents for the one girl who was kind to him.

We all love John Carpenter's Halloween, but Offerings loves it a little too much. The music is almost identical, every night time scene is bathed with that same blue light, and some of the story beats are the same, but that's sort of it's charm. If anything, this goes to show you that you can't recreate something no matter how hard you try.

This movie does have some good moments. It didn't scare me, at all. I should've known there'd be a goofy police officer. There was also a few predictable scenes of when someone was going to die.

I won't be in denial, but I admit I liked this movie a little bit. It is obvious it isn't an award worthy movie. There are much worse movies and horror movies out there, compared to Offerings.

The one soundtrack song, in this movie, is really from Haloween's theme. There's no doubt about it.



Notice: This is my very first review, on IMDb, so I'm still new to typing reviews. My first one was on Yahoo, years ago.

You'll know right from the very first minutes of Offerings that the director is a huge Halloween fan. The basic story of a little boy returning home after a stay in a mental hospital and terrorizing young women is Halloween to a T. The music is so similar to John Carpenter's seminal classic that one wonders how the filmmakers of Offerings weren't sued.

There isn't really a scary or suspenseful bone in Offerings' body, but there's tons of downhome charm, quirky performances, and entertaining set pieces to keep it from being an unwatchable rip off. All the girls seem to have some dazed expression on their face for most of the film and a few of them speak in a strange southern meets valley girl accent that's a real hoot.

A few of the murder scenes are fairly well staged and done with a bit of panache as well.

This one won't reinvent the wheel, but it's a fun time killer.

Pity poor young Johnny and his miserable existence. His abusive, gap-tooth grinding mother ridicules him and gleefully ashes in his scrambled eggs. Dad isn't around and the neighborhood banana bike brigade teases him because he's too shy to talk. What's worse, he becomes disfigured and comatose after being knocked into a well by his prepubescent peers. After spending years in a coma, he awakens, escapes and heads home for revenge, leaving body part "offerings" from his victims to the one girl who was his childhood friend (Loretta Leigh Bowman).

Entertainment value is not hard to find in a cheap, stupid regional concoction like this. You'll be amazed by the bizarre accents mixing twang, valley talk and congested stoner slang spoken to monotone perfection by teenage Oklahoma trailer trash! Or laugh at the brain dead cops on the case, who might remind you of Barney Fife on an especially bad day and seem to have nothing better to do than chew out little boys for hanging out in condemned buildings looking at spank magazines. Or count the endless clichés and head to toe fashion no-nos (including the lovely star tie and stonewashed jean jacket ensemble). Or decide which is more derivative of HALLOWEEN - the characters, plot or music score. And how bout that mysterious pizza with large chunks of a sausage-like topping? This is actually one of the most unintentionally funny ripoffs from the 80s, so it's worth a look if you're a schlock fan.

Score: 3 out of 10.