Offerings

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.

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.

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.

Offerings is of course a very blatant ripoff of the core idea of John Carpenter's classic Halloween, almost scene by scene at times. However, it is not without some merit when held on it's own accord.

It's major shortcoming falls with some of the acting performances. Some are really great while others are just really amateurish. This is probably due to the fact that the movie was made in Oklahoma, I think, somewhere in the Midwest anyways. There are two performances in the movie that really stand out as memorable. The cemetery caretaker (or gravedigger was it?) is the first one. A really funny offbeat performance that is meant to be funny and succeeds, and the actor is only in a scene for a minute or less. The 2nd performance was the Deputy Sheriff, which was overacted to the point that it worked perfectly that way. Again, it was a very small performance that lasted only a minute or so. The guy who played the Sheriff also deserves an honorable mention.

Offerings is a pretty fun slasher movie to watch just for a good laugh. It's not really what most people would call scary, but I like it just for the cheese factor.

For those interested, Offerings is now available on a budget DVD from Madacy Entertainment. Very professionally done, it even includes animated menus and the theatrical trailer...wooooo!

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.