The Offering overall is a pretty decent movie, it's certainly the best film that deals with demonic influence from a jewish perspective. The film follows its two leads Arthur and Claire as they stay at Arthur's fathers house who is mortician by trade to reconcile the relationship between father and son before their baby is born, while staying at the house a body arrives and with it a demon using it as its vessel.
I go into most movies like this with really low expectations,
I generally never expect much from films focusing on the demonic,
It's all been done before, as mentioned previously in another review, all I'm looking for is that the tropes are well executed and that it is entertaining and that it at least attempts to do one thing at least slightly differently than I have seen previously. The acting and family drama is solid, Allan Corduner who plays the father is particularly good in the film and really sells you on the story it is telling. It has a few surprises and happily subverted a few of my expectations, however it is let down by a few major things.
Its main issues are an overuse of jump scares, which I feel you have to begrudgingly accept with many horror films now, so I try not to critique it too harshly on that but they weren't necessary, I find the "quiet, quiet, bang, loud music" approach to horror really tedious, but there you go, it doesn't destroy the film but it's a negative for sure.
The thing that really impacts the film in a negative way is the design of the demon, which is as horrifying when its first introduced in restrained glimpses as it is silly when shown fully out in the open, this is all due to it being CGI which to me always looks ridiculous in horror, I literally laughed out loud when its shown in one scene, though these are really the only massively glaring issues.
The ultimate question when reviewing and watching a film like this is, did I enjoy it compared to other films like it which share all of the same issues but still tell a relatively effective story, like say The Haunting Of Connecticut, yes, I had a good time with it for the style of film it was.
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