Caroline Phillips
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.
Leofwine_draca
OFFERINGS is a cheap and low budget rip-off of HALLOWEEN, featuring a tinkly score that openly rips off John Carpenter's music throughout and a plot which is very similar. Not only that, but the events of the story take place over a single dark night and there's a prologue back story setting up the main tale. Basically, you couldn't get closer to HALLOWEEN if you tried.Invariably this is the lesser of the two films, as this is just too cheesy and low budget to be effective. The acting is as typically poor as you'd expect from a B-movie, with lots of stilted dialogue from the guys and endless screaming from the girls. There's some mild gore here and there but most of the icky stuff takes the form of severed body parts that are left for the main character to discover. As for scariness, don't expect any; this is by rote throughout, and laughable instead of frightening.
lost-in-limbo
Even though it came out over a decade later, "Offerings" is a generic, but decent little low-rent, shot-on-video slasher offering which resembles the influential John Carpenter slasher "Halloween". It might be a blatant rip-off; from it's music score, camera positioning, set-pieces, suburbia setting and silent, unstoppable killer. I expected much worse and came away rather enjoying (even if it was for a good laugh), but nonetheless it was efficiently executed for such a trim, low-scale production.A young, slightly disturb boy John Radley accidentally falls down a well, which was caused by some bullying. Ten year later we find out he's hospitalised in a coma state, after killing his mother and bearing the bump on his head from the fall. One night he suddenly awakes, goes back to his hometown and kills those who bullied him. While the only girl that was nice to him, he leaves special gifts for Gretchen (one involves a pizza topping).The threadbare plot is twisted with its psychotic angle (as there are some unpleasant, if not particularly graphic deaths), but some plot details are rather vague, mainly between the time he falls in the well and when it moves to the present time when he's in the coma. Then it moves to the set-pieces, where the body count rises and some random, offbeat inclusions (a humorous interaction between the town sheriff and prevent kid) find their way in. Got to say the sheriff is rather slow off the blocks to putting the pieces together. Radley is the typical Myer's clone (robust, deformed and silent) and even the way they use him in shots has you thinking of "Halloween"
don't forget the heavy breathing. Some atmospheric moments, are mainly broken up by its ominously cheap jolts and tatty, but minor blood splatter. The acting might be somewhat lousy, but Loretta Leigh Bowman was capable enough in lead.Imitatively cheesy, but its copy and paste simplicity amusingly works.
Cristopher_Jeorge
I hope John Carpenter saw this and has his lawyer on speed dial. Not only is his score lifted note for note in this groan fest but so is the basic premises of Halloween. The story has a troubled little mute boy with an egg ashing mommy having only one true friend in his neighborhood. In the early goings he's harassed by some kids on really cheap BMX bikes and bullied into walking around the edge of a well, to prove what I'm not sure. Well he falls in and upon his rescue is committed to a sanitarium that he (surprise, surprise) escapes from ten years later. Emerging with a head that looks like a canned ham, an odd immunity to electrified fences, and a vengeance for those who bullied him it's not long before John Radley is eating duck guts, putting heads in vices, and delivering pizza with mystery sausage on it to his old friend from the neighborhood. This movie contains some truly annoying performances and some of the best bad dialogue ever. Sample: "This is Gretchen Peters and I called like a looong time ago for some pizza." Oh my goodness. There's a Sam Loomis character of course who confronts murderous John Radley and in true bonehead fashion hands him his flashlight so he can be bludgeoned to death with it. Way to go doc. There's also a great sheriff who looks more than a little like Tool Times Al Borland. Sheriff Borland (I forget his name) likes busting little kids reading porn in abandoned houses and asking for leftovers at crime scenes. Ultimately John Radley has a final showdown with his lost friend Gretchen and goes out in a slo-mo fizzle of glory. "Love!" It's painful to watch folks. Not poor Johns demise..the whole freaking movie!!
AD
