Sunday Viewing:: Offerings (1989)

What does OFFERINGS (1989) have against me? I was not even able to finish it the first time I tried to watch it back somewhere in that missing decade. I am forever searching for that elusive hidden classic and I doubt I was too far into OFFERINGS before I realized it wasn't classic and should probably stay hid. Its title evaporated in my head but it left all this stupid debris anyway. Sometimes I'd wonder to myself, "What was that movie with the terrifyingly hideous orange wallpaper?" or "What was that stupid movie that had that poorly executed bit about kids eating pizza with human flesh on it thinking it was sausage?" or "What the heck was that boring movie with the strange cake eating parents who laugh maniacally while watching cartoons?" In all cases the answer was the same; gosh darn OFFERINGS. This was before KT so it wasn't like I could write up a Name That Trauma and Googling "hideous orange wallpaper" would get me nowhere. Plus there was the fact that I had absolutely no desire to watch whatever movie it was again to consider. That really curtailed the search.

Then again, dipping my psychological pigtails in ink is a great way for a crap-tastic movie to endear itself to me and it's not as if my sensibilities have not nose-dived towards the bottom of the barrel lately. OFFERINGS is terrible and rather hypnotically so. It's like watching a dozen HALLOWEEN rip offs in one sitting because it goes on forever and whatever trance everybody in this movie is in, is highly contagious. Let's face it too that at the end of the day I'd rather see something atrociously flawed than something all Hollywood-sanitized and pruned of all character. It's my curse.

Here's an example of why OFFERINGS is maddeningly stuck in my craw. One scene finds our dazed heroine preparing dog food for the family pooch. Her front door bell rings and so she goes to answer it carrying a full spoon of dog food because who has time to put a spoon down? At the door is her friend who sees the spoon sporting an unidentified substance and then bends down and eats whatever it may be and is alarmed to find that she has just eaten dog food. Who does that? And more importantly why am I so fascinated by the idea that somebody out there at one point thought human beings might behave this way. I will give points for the line, "Serves you right!" which is the spoon girl's response to her friend's insane actions because truer words have never been spoken. There are dozens more inexplicable occurrences in this guesstimated 9-hour long movie but I should really just let them go and move on with what is left of my squandered existence.

Maybe you shouldn't watch it. Maybe you should just put it on and do something else while listening to its wonderfully shameless rip-off score. It's up to you. All I know is that I found it on YouTube with a better picture than I recall and spectacularly enhanced with spicy Spanish subtitles! Yay! It's called OFFERINGS because the killer leaves random body parts like ears and noses behind as gifts. If it was up to me though, I would have titled it THE HOUSE WITH THE SCREAMING WALLPAPER.