FILM · 1976 · USA
Burnt Offerings
23 archived facts 5 topics 1 source Last reviewed Oct 2026
All facts (23)
- #001
The house used in the film, known in real life as the historic Dunsmuir House, is located in Oakland, California. It also appeared in Little Girls Blue (1978), Phantasm (1979), A View to a Kill (1985), The Vineyard (1989), So I Married an Axe Murderer (1993) and True Crime (1999).
- #002
Bette Davis reportedly had conflicts with Karen Black, feeling that Black did not show her sufficient respect and that her behavior on set was unprofessional.
- #003
In a commentary with director Dan Curtis, he says that he had actually read the novel Burnt Offerings years before ever being offered the chance to direct the film. Curtis said he hated the novel's open-ended conclusion and thought at the time that he would pity anyone who tried to turn it into a film. Ironically, years later the offer to direct the film version came to him, and the first thing he did was write an ending he liked: the ending that appears in the film.
- #004
According to director Dan Curtis, no sets were built for the film. It was shot entirely on location.
- #005
While filming the movie's finale, in which Ben flies out of the attic window and falls, the film's stuntman had a near-catastrophic accident. He threw himself too far out of the window, and the crew waiting below had only seconds to move the safety padding into position for his landing. The stuntman nearly missed the padding, landing only about a meter from its edge.
- #006
Although it has been reported that Ben's haunting flashbacks involving the creepy chauffeur are not based on anything in Robert Marasco's original novel and were devised by Nolan or Curtis (in the latter case, based on a childhood experience Curtis remembered when he was disturbed to see the chauffeur laughing outside his mother's funeral), this is not true. The chauffeur and the funeral limousine feature prominently in the novel. They were probably referring to the film character's eerie grin, which does not appear in the novel.
- #007
The shot during the escape attempt in which the vines catch Oliver Reed's legs was actually filmed in reverse. The vines were initially unwound and pulled from his legs, but played backward they appear to be grabbing his legs.
- #008
This was the first film shot at the Dunsmuir House.
- #009
Karen Black was four months pregnant during filming, which explains why her stomach was concealed through some clever wardrobe tactics (though her pregnancy is more visible from certain angles).
- #010
This is one of Stephen King's favorite horror films.
- #011
Bette Davis's birdwatcher character always has binoculars in hand. According to Oliver Reed, she used them during breaks to watch young men playing tennis on the site's tennis court. When principal photography began, she gave them all signed tennis balls.
- #012
The house's $900 rent comes to more than $4,440 in 2021.
- #013
Bette Davis is shown sitting by the pool knitting. It was one of her favorite hobbies throughout her career. She was known for knitting on set to pass the time between scenes.
- #014
The Dunsmuir House in Oakland, California, where this film was shot, was built in 1899 at a cost of more than $350,000. Alexander Dunsmuir had the mansion built as a wedding gift for his wife, but neither of them enjoyed it for long. Dunsmuir died on their honeymoon, and his wife died of cancer in the house 18 months later. The house has been owned by the city of Oakland since 1962 and is open to the public as part of a park. Most of the rooms were re-carpeted for the film, and the swimming pool, damaged in the 1906 earthquake, was repaired and filled in for use in several scenes. After filming was completed, the house was returned to its original condition, except for a greenhouse that was donated to the city.
- #015
In the DVD commentary, director Dan Curtis explains that he cut an entire 15-minute opening with the family in New York, in which they see the newspaper advertisement for the house for rent and Ben gets a parking ticket because he finds it "boring."
- #016
According to the DVD commentary, the film was shot in 30 days in August 1975.
- #017
The film's cast includes two Oscar winners, Bette Davis and Eileen Heckart, and two Oscar nominees, Karen Black and Burgess Meredith.
- #018
This film and the previous year's high-rated ABC TV movie Trilogy of Terror (1975) shared much of the same key personnel, including lead actress Karen Black, director/producer Dan Curtis, writer William F. Nolan (who worked with Curtis on Burnt Offerings, based on Robert Marasco's novel, while on "Trilogy" Richard Matheson, the original author of the three featured stories, wrote the teleplay for the third story and Nolan wrote the screenplay for another), associate producer Robert Singer, composer Bob Cobert (in the case of "Trilogy," recycling music from the earlier Dan Curtis TV films The Night Stalker (1972) and The Night Strangler (1973)), and actor Orin Cannon, who played the minister in "Offerings" and the motel clerk in "Trilogy."
- #019
The family's car is a 1974 Ford LTD station wagon. Note the absence of faux-woodgrain trim, which makes this vehicle rarer than other Ford station wagons of the era, since tens of thousands of them were not sold with it.
- #020
Two years after Burnt Offerings (1976), Bette Davis and Anthony James also appeared together in Return from Witch Mountain (1978).
- #021
In the scene where Oliver Reed clears brush on the property and takes a break to cool off from the heat, he is drinking a Coors beer. This is somewhat incongruous with the setting, since the film is thought to take place in New York, and in the mid-1970s, when the film was shot, Coors beer was not marketed on the East Coast. So it is unlikely that someone in New York would be drinking a Coors. However, the film was shot in California, where Coors was available, which explains why Reed picked up a can of Coors.
- #022
When the film premiered in Brazil, the first title given to it, including for its television showings, was Trocas Macabras, which translates literally into English as Macabre Exchanges. Its more modern DVD and Blu-Ray releases carried the title A Mansão Macabra, which translates into English as The Macabre Mansion.
- #023
In the DVD commentary, Dan Curtis explains that the logic behind the fog machine was to be able to hit the "motes."
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