Advertisement
Part of the A Nightmare on Franklin Street 2026 series**********************************************************
Note: This film will be shown in the Taylor Screening Room.
1h 56m / PG / Horror, Mystery, Thriller
Writer Ben Rolf (Oliver Reed), his wife Marian (Karen Black), Ben’s aunt Elizabeth (Bette Davis) and their 12-year-old son Davey (young Lee Montgomery from Ben) rent a fascinating, somewhat run-down mansion for the summer at a real discount rate. The only catch: the sibling owners’ elderly mother will continue to live upstairs in her private bedroom. In short order, the evil energy of the house begins to claim the young family. How will they survive? Can they escape?
If you learned that there was a mid-‘70s scary-house supernatural horror starring Karen Black, Oliver Reed, ¾ EGOT Eileen Heckart, Burgess Meredith, the house from Phantasm, the most memorable chauffeur since Collateral and Bette dang Davis, you probably wouldn’t believe it was a flop, right? But Burnt Offerings didn’t find its audience until much later. Davis was always famously a challenge to work with (she called Oliver Reed “one of the most loathsome human beings I have ever had the misfortune of meeting” and she seems to have hated Karen Black even more than that), but the entire production was troubled and chaotic, and United Artists didn’t really know what to do with it. Still, it’s a fascinating summertime take on The Shining and it deserves a lot more attention than it got.
Before the screening, Film Historian Rob Kelly will provide a brief introduction to the film.
**********************************************************
A Nightmare on Franklin Street series is presented by Bank of America. View the full series at https://tampatheatre.org/nightmare
Advertisement
Event venue
Tampa Theatre, 707 N Franklin St, Tampa, FL 33602-4400, United States
Tickets
Concerts, fests, parties, meetups — all the happenings, one place.
Discover more events by tag
Filmmaking in TampaActing in TampaGhosts in TampaPerforming-arts in TampaEntertainment in TampaArt in TampaMeetups in TampaLiterary-art in TampaContests in Tampa