Offerings (1989) User Reviews

Comical and slightly romantic version of Halloween (1978)

[terminator-mjc · 5/10 · 13 June 2018]

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.

It's like valley girls getting hacked up or something.

[capkronos · 3/10 · 20 August 2002]

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.

Amusing Halloween Rip Off

[matthurst-60645 · 5/10 · 8 October 2020]

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.

I was there

[gentle_dissident · 2/10 · 6 November 2005]

I was on the crew. I worked special effects and mic placement. I was also "tall guy". This film was just an excuse to party. There was nothing serious about it. It was meant to be a bad spoof.And yes, Halloween similarities were discussed. There were a ton of people working on this thing just to have fun. Several crew members are in the classroom scene. I made sure I had something else to do that day. After it went to video, I got a small check. BTW, the director plays the doctor in the asylum.

There were 2 needles. The one that drew fluid wouldn't behave for a close up, so the camera didn't show the forehead. The chunky fluid came in from the top. The sparks on the fence were from a squib box I built. The exploding head shadow was a watermelon with a nose. A push rod gave it the extra splatter. My friend and I drove around all night looking for dead ducks. As the night went on, everything looked like a dead duck. When the sun came up, we just went to a farm and got some chickens. Luckily there was a dead duck at the pond for the shoot. I can't remember what was on the pizza. It was something strange from a meat department. I remember frying it up. I also made the dog food that got sampled.

Working and playing with that crew was one of the best times in my life.

Halloween clone with a comedic edge.

[Katatonia · 11 August 2003]

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!

Time has been kind to this movie.

[sethputnam69 · 4/10 · 5 January 2001]

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 doesn't look like sausage, it's good though." Ugh no it's not!

[Cristopher_Jeorge · 2/10 · 11 November 2005]

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!!

Routine Halloween copy lacks menace and class

[Leofwine_draca · 4/10 · 15 January 2017]

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.

Offerings..

[anxietyresister · 4/10 · 20 March 2006]

You're a kid, right? You go to all the trouble of befriending the town weirdo who is a loner and a mute. Everybody else hates him, and yet you still stand by the guy, even in the face of public ridicule. One day, a gang of them push him down a well. He receives a nasty head injury which stops him from developing a conscience. After he is rescued and returns home, he then proceeds to murder, and then eat his own mother. The men in white coats arrive, and he spends the next decade in a mental asylum. He escapes after a nurse forgetting to give him his tranquiliser is impaled through the head with it herself. He returns to his old neighbourhood, and how does he repay you for all those times you supported him years ago when no-one else would? Why, he kills all your best mates of course.. and delivers their severed body parts to your door! AND he bakes you a nice pizza with a new topping.. cooked human flesh! Ever get the feeling that winning his friendship wasn't worth the effort??

This is a standard slasher flick with the usual assortment of dumb teenagers who just wanna make out, an overweight sheriff who becomes slowly more exasperated about what is happening in his formerly peaceful town and the remorseless killer who has just one line of dialogue at the end. The murder scenes are directed reasonably well, but in a predictable, stale fashion which leaves no room for surprises. There is a strange moment in a cemetery when a weird gravedigger is interviewed about what he saw.. his performance is so strange it's like something out of a different picture. But this is the only off-kilter moment in a film that could have done with a few more of them. Don't think you're a genius if you can guess the rest of the plot after 20 minutes. I did, and I'm certainly no member of MENSA.. 4/10

P.S What DID happen to Gretchen's dog?!

Spirited Halloween rip-off

[carolinephillips-47427 · 7/10 · 13 March 2017]

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.

Offers nothing new but it's not bad

[Stevieboy666 · 5/10 · 5 October 2019]

A young boy called John Radley, who is unable to speak, is persecuted by not just other children but his cruel mother too. One boy pushes him down a well. Fast forward 10 years and John escapes from a mental institution with bloody revenge on the agenda. This bears more than a similarity to Halloween, not just in plot but also the musical score, which sounds John Carpenterish, but I'm not knocking it for that. Offerings is a straight down the middle, average slasher movie, There is an adequate body count though none of the deaths are particularly gory. My favourite has a victim hung from his bedroom window whilst his parents are sat watching TV in the room directly beneath, totally unaware what is happening. John is a plump and facially disfigured maniac, and the fact that he is mute helps make him pretty creepy. If you are a slasher addict - like me - then Offerings is worth checking out, otherwise not much to recommend.

"What's all this I hear about an ear?!"

[FrightMeter · 8/10 · 14 March 2002]

It is dialogue like this which make "Offerings," an otherwise blatant "Halloween" rip-off, a worthy entry into the slasher genre. As far a plot goes, it has been done dozens of times before....a young boy is picked on as a child and a seemingly innocent child-hood prank ends it disaster when he falls into a well, becoming scarred for life. Like on the 15th anniversary of his accident, he escapes from the local mental ward to get revenge on those involved in his accident, and to prove his love for the one girl that was ever really truly nice to him. Apparently he thinks murdering her friends and using them as pizza topping will win her heart. The film is such a blatant "Halloween" rip-off, from everything to the music, to the plot elements, and even some scenes, it is surprising it ever got green-lighted in the first place. That is NOT, however, saying that it is a bad film that does not have it's own unique appeal. What exactly that appeal is is certainly hazey, but it is there. Maybe it is how the killer leaves various body parts on the steps of his lover interest and the main character, Gretchen. And then how the fat, dumpy sheriff shows up with lines like "What's all this I hear about an ear?" and "So now you found a nose?" or even "Let's take this pizza in and have the meat evaluated!" We even have the dedicated doctor who tries to put a stop to his patients murder spree, but unfortunately fails. *GASP* To top it off, "Offerings" also offers us the now abandoned, boarded up childhood home of the killer!! The killer is pretty relentless in his murder spree, killing his victims while their parents are downstairs scarfing down cake. He is a truly creepy looking fellow, and doesn't even need a mask to accomplish it! The ending is actually kinda sad as the heroine realizes that all of the madness throughout the film was because the killer loved her. Poor thing. If nothing else, this film will make you think twice about having an all meat pizza delivered, especially if you haven't heard from your friends for awhile. 5.5 out of 10.

Derivative but worth a watch

[p-gonzo · 6/10 · 3 December 2006]

Much of this movie from a genre perspective is slow and un-propelled. The killer is utterly dull as well. But there are incidental sections of it that are worthwhile. There are some fun perverse little moments such as a female feeding her friend dog food or a pizza with human meat. Also a section with the two females watching a horror movie by themselves and commenting on how the female in the movie acts. It predates Scream (1996) and indeed the movie more or less devolves into a parody of itself. There is also a lot of black humour in the dialogue and some of the killings are creative. If the pace had been different this could have been a lot more fun and memorable. Note: the trailer appears to have shots of an alternate version of the last killing.

I love you, Gretchen Here's a human ear to prove it!

[Coventry · 3/10 · 24 November 2014]

Although released more than a full decade and approximately five hundred other low-keyed slashers later, "Offerings" is a blatant and shameless rip-off of the 1978 genre classic "Halloween". I'm actually very surprised that John Carpenter didn't file a lawsuit against the makers of this flick because it so obviously steals essential characteristics of his landmark/pioneer slasher. The music, for instance, is almost identical to Carpenter's legendary and recognizable synthesizer score, but also the killer at large – John(ny) – is an exact clone of Michael Myers: silent, enormous and faceless. Apart from extremely derivative and unoriginal, "Offerings" is also very dull, bloodless and hopelessly amateurish! Poor Johnny Radley lives with nightmarish mother, who mixes cigarette ashes into his scrambled eggs and decorates the house with agonizing wallpaper. Since he doesn't speak, Johnny gets bullied by the neighborhood kids and the only one who's nice to him is cute blond Gretchen. When a little prank runs out of hand, Johnny falls down a well and the kiddie gang leaves without notifying any adults. Ten years later, and allegedly after eating (!) his mother, Johnny lies in a vegetative state in a mental hospital, but somehow he grew into a giant and muscular adult. Then he suddenly wakes up, kills a nurse and heads back to Haddonfield (or whatever the name of his hometown was). The bullies from ten years ago are getting slaughtered one by one, and Johnny leaves their amputated body parts as romantic little gifts on Gretchen's doorstep. Seriously, what girl wouldn't melt if she received a human finger, ear or nose? Gretchen is trapped inside her house, but the local Sheriff is a seriously overweight idiot and the replacement Sam Loomis character is a worthless college professor. "Offerings" is a passable late- 80's slasher that I wouldn't even recommend to genre fanatics. I only saw this movie yesterday and I already forgot most of it, including the finale, so it definitely wasn't spectacular or even remotely interesting. The murders are tame and mainly happening off- screen, and the only "horror" comes from brief images of cut off body parts. The cast members are all unprofessional and random people who – wisely – decided never to appear in movies after completing this dud.

A good horror flick!

[Titans9 · 22 April 2002]

Offerings is a good horror flick that is worth seeing! The film was put together nicely, and scary too! When you first watch Offerings, you notice that it relates to the Halloween film...right down to the story line and even the music. Even though this film practically ripped off the formula from Halloween (metal case escapes, goes to his hometown, seeks revenge), all-in-all, Offerings is a fun, yet cheesy film filled with cheesy killings.

--If you have friends over while watching this film, make sure your not eating pizza or at least give a quick glance at the toppings.

--Like many slasher films, this one has only one cop dedicated to the case, and he is so nerdy and dumbfounded, it makes it all the more hilarious. A funny scene is when he apprehends a kid from trespassing and the kid says his name is "Ben Dover." It takes the cop 2 minutes to finally realize the punchline. Lines like "What's all this I hear about an ear?" adds to his gumpy character.

--Only thing that was annoying about the film was that the two lead girls always stayed in the house even though body parts were showing up around the house for a few days. It was like they were confined into the house. The ending could have had more explanation too. It even makes you feel sorry for the killer (in a funny sort of way).

--Overall, Offerings is not that bad of a film, it's definetely worth your while.

6/10

Halloween inspired film

[secessia · 5/10 · 1 October 2020]

Low budget film. Filmed in Oklahoma in the late '80's. I enjoyed this film for what it is, although I was a little put off with the Halloween plagiarism. It's a straightforward slasher. No surprises here, but if you like 80's slashers why wouldn't you like this?

If You Are Going to Rip Off a Movie, Do It With Some Style

[NoDakTatum · 1/10 · 28 October 2023]

Here is the basic plot, with spoilers: a young boy is psychologically scarred and kills a family member. Years later, he escapes from a mental hospital after attacking a nurse, and heads back to his old hometown. A psychology professional and the local sheriff track him. Cut to the hometown, where the friends of a pretty student begin disappearing, all being murdered, with suspenseful keyboard music in the background. One of her friends is killed in the front seat of a car. The psych guy goes to the cemetery and finds out the killer's family member's grave has been vandalized. Meanwhile, the sheriff visits the killer's old house, now boarded up and abandoned. Eventually, the killer tracks pretty student to her house. Bullets cannot stop this guy, and he ends the film supposedly dead on the lawn. "Wait a minute, you big silly...this is the plot to 'Halloween,' why is it listed under this other movie called 'Offerings'?" Because this film rips off "Halloween" so much that writer/director Christopher Reynolds should've retained a lawyer. There are a few differences between the films, very few. The psych guy gets killed in this (after handing the killer a nice heavy metallic flashlight to be beaten with). The sheriff here weighs at least 300 pounds. He resembles me, except he has more hair, and I have a brain. Our ditzy heroine, Gretchen (Loretta Leigh Bowman), is so worried about her friends disappearing and spare body parts turning up in her front yard, it is all she can do to put on half-shirts and capri pants and wait for the police to arrive. The sheriff, not wanting to panic the girls, collects a severed ear and a severed nose by scooping them into a plastic baggie like he was picking up dog poop- or was it this script? Forget a crime scene, this guy has more important things to do- like bust a teen in the abandoned house for reading porn, as unnecessary a scene as there ever was.

The acting is terrible. This was filmed in Oklahoma, and half the time the cast sounds like they are trying to cover their accents and not succeeding. Reynolds rips off John Carpenter's superior film constantly, from the basic plot to assorted wide shots with hard-to-see action occurring at a suburban house. The gore is weak, and the onscreen action is pretty bad. The entire cast sits around and waits to get killed. The killer is taking revenge for a wrong done to him by his victims when they were kids. The problem is the kids are never identified (except Gretchen), and you have no idea who they grew up to be. Instead, we see a bunch of students getting killed, and you do not know if they were involved in the young killer falling down a well or not. The opening scenes, where the young killer is abused by his mother, is offensive to say the least. The mother is killed off camera, we must hear about it later from a minor character. The musical score is not just really similar to John Carpenter's score- it IS John Carpenter's score. There may be a few differences here and there, but not enough for "Offerings" to list an original score in its credits. On top of all the blatant copying of a superior film, this film does not stand up as even good bad horror. No scares, weak gore, unsympathetic characters, and at ninety six minutes, this film is ninety six minutes too long.

Entertaining with low expectations

[blumdeluxe · 5/10 · 2 February 2017]

"Offerings" isn't a Horror classic. It is a small film, that has a story the short description pretty much sums up already. Nevertheless I had some fun with it. It keeps you entertained, it doesn't get boring and provides everything that you can expect from a mid-budget 80's Horror film.

Some of the details are nonsense of course. I doubt that someone becomes a serial killer just because he fell on his head as a child as well as it is pretty cheesy how the movie ends. But to be honest, I didn't really expect else. Sure, you could have made it a better movie by providing a more emotional or detailed background story, you could have depicted the character in a more realistic and less plump way.

But if you are just looking for an entertaining one-time watch this will serve you well. All in all I don't feel like complaining.

So this is Halloween 7?

[BandSAboutMovies · 4/10 · 31 October 2021]

Talk about cognitive dissonance. As I watched this in the basement in the middle of the night, Becca had fallen asleep to a marathon of the other Halloween movies, so that this film - which copies the Carpenter format down to a song that is near-identical to the theme that he wrote - would play music or a scene, I could hear the original coming down through the vents.

John Radley was abused by every kid and his mother, all of his animals died on him, his daddy gave him a name and then he walked away and then he falls down a well after a prank and gets sent to Oakhurst State mental hospital. Scarred and not in our reality any longer, John can no longer feel empathy or pain.

Now, he's killing everyone who ever done him wrong, taking their body parts and offering them to the only person who ever treated him right, his childhood crush Gretchen. The fact that he's doing that as toppings on the many pizzas he delivers to her makes this even more disturbing.

Offerings is my favorite Halloween sequel after Halloween 2 and Absurd.

Sadly, director and writer Christopher Reynolds only made one other movie, Lethal Justice.

Ding dong bell, Johnny's in the well.

[BA_Harrison · 3/10 · 14 November 2014]

As a youngster, mute animal-torturing weirdo John Radley (Josh Coffman) is bullied by most of the other neighbourhood children, his only friend being pretty blonde girl Gretchen (Kerri Bechthold). After the local bullies cause him to fall down a well, disfiguring his face and damaging his brain in the process, John kills and eats his mother, resulting in his incarceration in a high security hospital, where he is heavily sedated. Ten years later, John (now played by Richard A. Buswell) escapes, intent on wreaking revenge on those responsible for his accident, making grisly offerings to the girl who was once his friend.

Over a decade after the success of seminal slasher Halloween, most aspiring horror film-makers had stopped looking to the seasonal classic for inspiration. Not so with director Christopher Reynolds: for Offerings (1989), his first movie, Reynolds does very little to disguise the fact that he is blatantly ripping off John Carpenter's '78 box office smash, the story, the characters, the events, and the music closely mimicking Halloween. The only (big) difference is that, where Carpenter's film is a flawless exercise in nerve-jangling terror, Offerings is a total mess, with uninspired direction, lousy performances and terrible dialogue.

Reynold's doesn't even do the decent thing and try to compensate for the lack of originality with an excess of gore or gratuitous nudity, his kill scenes being frustratingly free of splatter, and the actresses remaining full clothed throughout (a shame, because Loretta Leigh Bowman as the grown up Gretchen is a hottie, and her friend Kacy, played by Elizabeth Greene, ain't too bad either!). All in all, this is a largely forgettable Halloween clone, the only elements likely to stick in the mind being the morbidly obese town sheriff (G. Michael Smith), who struggles to squeeze behind the wheel of his police car, and the fact that the girls and their boyfriends unwittingly eat a pizza topped with human flesh instead of sausage (although quite how the killer managed to prepare such a dish is never adequately explained).

Watchable "Halloween" clone.

[HumanoidOfFlesh · 6/10 · 19 September 2012]

"Offerings" by Christopher Reynolds tells the story of mute serial killer John Radley who after killing nurse and escaping from mental asylum stalk and kill all those that tormented him when he was a kid.His bloody rampage is obviously Michael Myers influenced.John is no ordinary killer for example he killed and ate his own sadistic mother.He has only one friend from childhood:blonde girl named Gretchen."Offerings" is a blatant and unapologetic "Halloween" rip-off.Even its musical score clearly reminds John Carpenter's famous music.Black humor sprinkled death scenes are quite inventive but mostly goreless.Still fans of cheesy slasher movies will enjoy this low-budget horror.6 body parts out of 10.

Blatant 'Halloween' knock-off, yet has a certain charm to it

[acidburn-10 · 5/10 · 14 April 2022]

This somewhat obscure 1989 slasher movie shamelessly rips off John Carpenter's 1978 classic "Halloween" that he should have gotten a screen writers credit, but a lot of slashers that came out during the 80's has borrowed elements from that movie. 'Offerings' is probably the most blatant I've ever seen with similar characters, plot points and even the music score. This is what 'Halloween' might have looked like if someone with a fraction of John Carpenter's budget or talent.

Yet there is something rather charming about, despite not having a single original idea in it, but its so ridiculously earnest that I kinda like it anyway, it has a certain camp quality to it, despite the poor production quality, horrendous acting and sluggish pace.

The movie works better when it does its own thing and there are a few fun moments to be had and a decent body, but despite the inventive deaths, they're not shown which could have made this more enjoyable. Only seek this out if you're a fan of 80's slashers, other than that there's just not enough here to enjoy.

'Offerings' is a morbidly moreish, B-Movie gift that keeps on giving!

[Weirdling_Wolf · 8/10 · 20 December 2020]

'Remember him before he dismembers you!'

With surprising frequency those time-obscured horror films glibly dismissed by so many 'movie experts' usually prove to be the ones that I cherish the most dearly and writer/director Christopher Reynolds boisterously plasmatic, low budget, late 80s slasher 'Offerings' (1989) is sordidly slathered with all the adrenalizing abundance of cheerily cheap-jack, chunk-blowing, B-Horror carnage to satiate all serious splatter-movie misfits to gruesome excess! Right from the terrifically 'Tromatizing' scenes of our mute, chisel-eyed protagonist's uncomfortably brutal, brain-warpingly loveless childhood, relentlessly suffering the vile torments from his odiously malevolent mother and then being so cruelly set upon by goading, name-calling neighbourhood bullies, poor little David (Jay Ferguson) gruesomely earned his fast track diploma to Mike Myers Murder High and was summarily incarcerated for his myriad cannibal crimes most extreme. After coldly dispatching a psychiatric nurse in a splendidly skin-creeping manner, our fiendishly strong, super-resilient Goliath, David, (Tobe Sexton) returns to his far from beloved hometown in order to righteously wreak his entertainingly wrong-headed, supremely stomach churning revenge. Make no mistake the cranium-popping, enthusiastically eviscerating David is much more of a twisted, over-sized, aggressively autistic freak-master than Myers/Voorhees, since his deeply distressing, diabolically grisly modus operandi includes an additionally disturbing, carnivorously cannibalizing, gift-wrapped approach to his deliriously demented, appendage-lopping killing spree! While 'Offerings' offers penurious production values which are borderline B-Movie basic, the delightfully enthusiastic 'acting' has a pleasingly odoriferous quality of the ripest, unpasteurized cheese, but 'Offerings' true joy is the distinctly sinister synth score by 'Blood Lake' composer Russell D. Allen, invoking a eerily spare, angst-inducing, John Carpenter-esque, doomy delight! 'Offerings' is highly commendable late night fright-flick for gore-loving goblins of all ages and is certainly no less of a cut-price, slice n' dice creepy cult classic than the howlingly mad 'Microwave Massacre' or equally slash-happy 'Splatter University' and is a morbidly moreish, B-Movie gift that keeps on giving!

Stars a fat Michael Myers

[Tikkin · 7/10 · 23 February 2006]

As everyone has said, this is a Halloween rip-off. The killer is a guy who makes the same robotic gestures as Michael Myers and has a similar eerie glow to his face. The scene at the end shows this the most. Don't let the "Halloween rip-off" thing put you off. Personally I don't care that it rips off Halloween, if anything I see it more as a tribute.

The concept is good - a mute young boy is pushed into a well by local bullies, kills his abusive mom when he gets out, and ends up in mental hospital (he must have put a lot of weight on while in hospital, I might add). He escapes, and then the film descends into a stalk-and-slash formula. There isn't much gore, but we get several body parts (a finger, an ear, a nose, etc). The killer is giving these "offerings" to the now grown up girl who was kind to him as a kid. In the last scene before he dies, he utters his one and only word: "love". Which is sweet in a way.

This is a decent slasher film that has its own unique charm, I recommend all slasher fans give it at least the once over.

"I guess you're not going to kill me now?"

[lost-in-limbo · 5/10 · 20 March 2011]

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.