Rogue Cinema - Offerings (1989)

Offerings (1989) - By Charles Rector
Posted on Saturday, March 01 @ Mountain Standard Time by Duane

During the Post-Halloween Era (1978-present), there have been numerous ripoffs of John Carpenter's classic original horror movie. Hardly any of these movies ever rose anywhere near the level of Halloween, including the Halloween sequels. One of these ripoffs is the 1989 flick Offerings.

As in Halloween, an evil dude escapes from the local insane asylum intent on wreaking homicidal havoc upon his old hometown. You see, as a youngster John was often subjected to cruel bullying as was his girlfriend, Gretchen. Some of the worst bullying was done by his evil gap toothed mother who, among other fiendish cruelties, delighted in mixing cigarette ashes into his breakfst. He is subjected to relentless bullying, especially by the local bicycle gang. His father is hardly ever around. John is communicating these horrors to others because he is mute. Upon a dare, John walked on the edge of a well and ultimately fell into it. Subsequently, although it was never shown on screen, John killed his mother. This act led to his being committed to the asylum. Now ten years after that ordeal, John has returned to both inflict his revenge on the bullies and gain the love of Gretchen.

Much has changed during John's absence from the community. The bullies have all grown up and prospered. Gretchen (Loretta Leigh Bowman) has grown up to be quite a wholesome young lady. This leads us to John's plan for both revenge upon the bullies and winning Gretchen's love at the same time. John intends to kill the bullies off and then leave their body parts at Gretchen's house as presents, or if you will offerings.

For reasons that you can understand, Gretchen is horrified by the human remains that are popping up at the doorway to her house. She contacts the local sheriff who is both alarmed and frighteningly incompetent. He resolves to put an end to John's depredations despite the fact that he hardly has a clue.

Basically, the best thing that you can say about Offerings is that at 95 minutes, it is not a terribly long flick to endure. Endure is the right word here since Offerings is a poor excuse for a horror movie. Offerings takes the Halloween plot and turns it into a hardly scary mishmash. This movie even rips off the Halloween music. There are even some scenes in this flick that are just about identical to scenes in Halloween. This is one uncreative offering from Hollywood. Offerings is one movie that you need to avoid at the video store.