The Offering

I was not impressed. The premise has potential (an ancient Jewish-kabbalistic demon is on the loose within an orthodox Jewish community in Brooklyn and turns on innocent people), and the setting in an old town-house with in the basement a mortuary is atmospheric and pleasantly creepy, but that's about it. The as horrific intended effects only come from several noise-burst-induced jump-scares and creaking doors, it's not enough to make this into a satisfying horror-flick.

The story is complicated, for instance the nature and intentions of the demon are unfathomable (it was apparently summoned to bring a dead loved-one back to life, but for some reason it now kills people and even feeds on children), and the CGI of the demon itself is hardly scary, it has the surprising form of a giant moose or deer with big antlers. The constant apparition of a ghost in the form of a little girl is rather cliché, and towards the end, when the main characters have some kind of climactic show-down with te demon, things get rather repetitive and in spite of all the turmoil even tiresome. The acting of Emily Wiseman is fine, but Nick Blood goes way over the top, with his constant wide-eyed horror-filled gazes or sinking into baffled stupors.

"The Offering" offers a not-so-original but effective script told from a Jewish perspective. The cast gives well accomplished performances and the director's job is well done. One of the great merits of this production is its cinematography that generates a gloomy atmosphere by making the most of the filming locations. One notorious flaw is the CGI special effects that turn out to be fake in several scenes. The demon's design is very good, although in some scenes it ends up being distorted with digital touch-ups. "The Offering" is not a masterpiece, nor is it a lousy production, it is a decent film that achieves its purpose of entertaining.

Arthur takes his wife Claire back to his family home, to meet his somewhat estranged father, Saul. Saul, an undertaker by profession has a new client to work on, a client that hides a nasty, terrifying secret.

I really wanted to like it, I tried my best to ignore the negative reviews and low rating, but it's not the easiest movie to get through.

I'll start off with the positives, it's nicely made and well acted, it doesn't lack in terms of atmosphere, there is a certain sense of claustrophobia throughout. Nick Blood and Allan Corduner are good as the troubled father and son.

My main issue was the pacing, if it were an animal in a race, it would be a sloth, it's very slow moving and laboured, every action makes you yawn and long for your pillow.

There's nothing here that we haven't seen before, maybe that accounts for the film's relative anonymity.

5/10.

This really was your average, run of the mill horror flick. Reminded me of a mix between "The Vigil" and "The Autopsy of Jane Doe". Not as good as either of those... but still successful to a degree in its own right.

I would say where this lacked the most would be in originality. The movie looked great - beautiful shots, lighting and atmosphere...the script was good, the acting was solid, the pacing was decent/kept you engaged, and yet still... it just wasn't all that enthralling.

Entertaining? Yes. It just didn't excite me all too much. Not to mention it relied a lot on jump scares. I think if they had chilled on those and focused on making it authentically creepier, finessed the storyline a bit by attempting to infuse some originality into it with less cliche horror tropes I think that would have helped immensely.

But again, this was still entertaining, just don't go into it expecting to see a modern day cinematic horror masterpiece. It's a fun, casual watch. I give this a 5.5 rounding up to a 6. Would recommend.

Saw this film at an early screening, was really surprised to find en emotionally charged studio horror film w a lot of heart wrapped in barbed wire. This film makes you scream out loud, cry at certain moments, and even laugh. The end packs a sick twist and I'm very curious to see how horror fans dissect it. There were a couple moments that perhaps leaned a bit too hard on jumpscares but overall you can really feel the genuine love and care from its filmmakers. I wasn't going to leave a review but after the q&a I realized this film is much deeper than i realized and so wanted to pay my respects. Special mention to Game of Throne's Paul Kaye who just killed it!