88 Films adds the regional slasher OFFERINGS to their Slasher Classics line.

Young, mute Johnny Radley (Josh Coffman) has always been a misfit even before he sustained a head injury after being goaded into a dare and sustaining an injury by falling into a well. His only friend was nice neighbor girl Gretchen (Kerri Bechthold) who defended him from bullying by the neighborhood unaware of his habit of killing his pets until he was found by the police eating the intestines of his hateful mother (Rayette Potts). Ten years later, a constantly-sedated Johnny (Richard A. Buswell) has been dismissed as harmless by institutional caregivers until the night he kills a nurse and escapes, easily bypassing the electrified fence and walking out into the night. News of his escape quickly reaches his hometown where Sheriff Chism (G. Michael Smith) and the psychology teacher Jim Paxton (Jerry Brewer, SHADOWHUNTER) who once consulted on Johnny's case are at the ready. With her parents away on vacation, grownup Gretchen (Loretta Leigh Bowman) is planning a sleepover with friends Kacy (Elizabeth Greene) and Linda (Heather Scott) while their boyfriends David (Tobe Sexton, FREDDY'S DEAD: THE FINAL NIGHTMARE), Greg (Patrick H. Berry), and Tim (Max Burnett) are planning on crashing the party. Two do not make it to the party, but Gretchen receives a pair of macabre tributes in a severed finger and an ear while their pizza arrives with a strange kind of sausage that they did not order. Not wanting to cause a panic, the sheriff collects the evidence while subsequent teenagers mysteriously vanish and none of Gretchen's friends may be left before she and all others concerned realize that Johnny is stalking her.

In the waning days of the slasher genre when the only ones making it to the theaters were the studio franchise entries, the genre saw a miniboom in regional filmmaking with OFFERINGS hailing from Oklahoma. While such films are often pleasant diversions, OFFERINGS is so slavish in its imitation of HALLOWEEN that its failings are that much more glaring from the sub-Dr. Loomis who believes that Johnny's madness is the result of his head injury, the fat sheriff who collects the grisly gifts left for Gretchen on two occasions but does not think to protect her until late, to the trio of girls who all sound like P.J. Soles' Linda including the ditzy final girl whose apparent gift of premonition serves her very little (does she really need precognition to feel that something bad is going to happen after receiving severed body parts on her doorstep and in the newspaper?) Also poorly done are a visit to a grave with a missing headstone thanks to some awful comic relief by a mortuary intern (Mark Massey from the SOV slasher THE RIPPER), a classroom lecture utilizing Shakespeare's Hamlet to ruminate on fate, and a visit to the dilapidated old Radley house. It's gorier than the Carpenter film but not by much. The synth score of Russell D. Allen (BLOOD LAKE) owes as much to the HALLOWEEN theme as RE-ANIMATOR's does to PSYCHO. Acting is flat but generally competent while the photography of Reb Braddock (CURDLED) is tries to evoke some atmosphere in the sunny but desolate suburban settings. OFFERINGS is perhaps better enjoyed as a video store dust-gatherer than with the expectation of a jewel in the rough.

Released direct to video by Southgate Entertainment, OFFERINGS first hit DVD from Madacy – a legitimate release licensed from Liberty International which later became current rights holder Multicom – in a fullscreen transfer with English and Spanish audio options. Mastered in a 2K scan of the original 16mm negative, 88 Films' 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.78:1 widescreen looks a bit rough with little damage but inconsistent sharpness and generally bland colors. Some daylight exteriors look neutral while others a touch too warm so that Burnett's skin and his blond hair almost look the same color in a handful of shots while the blue-tinged night scenes of the climax look a bit gray (with some mild ghosting apparent in one or two close-ups). The LPCM 2.0 mono track is clean enough for the score and the dialogue to come across even if the levels are uneven while English SDH subtitles are also provided.