“Remember him before he dismembers you!” proclaims the tagline to release number thirty-six in 88 Films ‘Slasher Classics Collection’. That means, in raw and probably not entirely scientific terms, that 88 have passed over this small-town Oklahoma rampage of not-so-bloody revenge thirty-five times before getting around to it. Welcome to the bottom of the ‘80s slasher barrel. Memorable dismemberment? Afraid not.
The man doing the scraping in this late ‘80s end-of-the original slasher line effort is little-known producer/director/writer Christopher Reynolds (who also ‘acts’ in it) for whom this would be a penultimate assignment before the career-ending low of 1992’s Lethal Justice. Reynolds’ film is a daisy-chain of badly remixed slasher tropes, but with utter predictability comes a certain cosy familiarity. You’ll certainly recognise 10-year-old Johnny, a loner kid terrorised by his fag-chewing hag of a mother who has only one friend, his cute blonde neighbour Gretchen. When local bullies force him into a dare that ends with him tumbling down a deep well, Johnny survives but ends up spending the rest of his sorry youth in the local nut house. Cut to ten years later: Johnny escapes and begins stalking his now-teenage tormentors, slicing bits off them and sending them as love ‘offerings’ to Gretchen, who he still holds a candle for, the lardy mute idiot.
Offerings isn’t stylish enough to be considered a homage: whenever anything sinister is about to happen, the first seven notes of the Halloween theme are played to remind you whose porch Reynolds is pooping on. The grown-up kids, led by Loretta Leigh Bowman as Gretchen, generally do OK for what is a semi-amateur production. They are let down by a script that merely scats around slasher clichés (the psycho who just won’t die, the fat Sheriff, the virginal blonde) and makes no attempt at anything more idiosyncratic. Reynolds directs without finesse, unable to manufacture a soupçon of genuine tension or one decent jump-scare. There is zero depth of character established before each teen is bumped-off which means we have zero empathy for these lambs to the slaughter; the murders themselves are incredibly mild for the era and cry out for a wildcard Tom Savini-style injection of make-up talent which by 1988 (when this was thrown together) was in good supply but, alas, not in Oklahoma. Still, if you’d rather see a shadow on the wall of a pumpkin getting squashed in a vice instead of a dog-food-and-ketchup-packed latex exploding head, this film’s definitely for you, whoever you are.
88 Films’ 2K restoration of the 16mm original negative makes Offerings look like new, which only serves to underline how little it has to, er, offer. The main extra is a fact-filled commentary from The Hysteria Continues podcast, who are usually able to find genuine positives in even the most wretched old rope. Not this time: this one’s for connoisseurs only with caveats aplenty. Still, the guys are entertaining company as they spot each and every one of Offerings many steals from other, better slasher movies.
OFFERINGS / CERT: 18 / DIRECTOR & SCREENPLAY: CHRISTOPHER REYNOLDS / STARRING: LORETTA LEIGH BOWMAN, ELIZABETH GREENE, DOOBIE POTTER, JERRY BREWER / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW
