The Offspring (1987)

Director:

Jeff Burr

Writers:

C. Courtney Joyner (written by) and
Darin Scott (written by) ...

Release Date:

25 September 1987 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Drama | Horror | Thriller

Tagline:

Fear......Times Four

Plot:

In a small Tennessee town, an historian relates four horror stories to a reporter.

Plot Keywords:

Tennessee | Razor Blade | Disfigurement | Murder | Nude Woman Murdered

Cast

Martine Beswick	...	Katherine White
Lawrence Tierney	...	Warden
Rick Cox	...	Doctor
Nicos Argentiogorgis	...	Priest
Susan Tyrrell	...	Beth Chandler
Vincent Price	...	Julian White
Clu Gulager	...	Stanley Burnside
Megan McFarland	...	Grace Scott
Terence Knox	...	Burt (as Terry Knox)
Miriam Byrd-Nethery	...	Eileen Burnside
Bob Hannah	...	Harry Essex
Frank Shaheen	...	Truck Loader
Paul Barberi	...	Truck Loader
Terry Kiser	...	Jesse Hardwick
Katherine Kaden	...	Mary Hardwick

Also Known As:

From a Whisper to a Scream (USA) (alternative title)

Runtime:

99 min | 92 min (video)

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Certification:

West Germany:18 (video) | Italy:VM14 (VHS rating) | Australia:R | UK:18 | USA:R | Germany:BPjM Restricted

Filming Locations:

Dalton, Georgia, USA

Company:

Conquest Productions

Trivia:

Shot in 1985 and 1986, not released until 1987.

Goofs:

Continuity: When Stanley pours the champagne for himself and Grace at the funeral home, he is seen draining his glass. The next shot of the glass shows it filled again, and he never refilled it.

Quotes:

Julian White: One thing I've learned, my dear, is that one is never too old for nightmares.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in The Saw Is Family: Making 'Leatherface' (2003) (V)

Sort of entertaining, but there are much better anthologies out there.

When people say that this anthology of stories has twist endings, it's not really true. These stories have more bloody, stupid endings than anything else. Here's my story by story review.

Segment 1: Starring Clu Galagher. I always felt that this was an odd way to start a film like this, but thinking back on it, this is actually a pretty good story. It's about Stanley, a weird bespectacled man, that gives his sister a bath every day, and who has a fixation for a co-worker of his. Stanley kills her, and makes out with her dead body. I'm not going to give away the ending, but it's a bit silly in my opinion. I also found the fact that Stanley's sister wants Stanley is quite disturbing, but it just adds to the strangeness of this solid segment. My rating: *** out of ****.

Segment 2: Starring Terry Kiser. Jesse has just escaped death, and is now living with a 200 year old voodoo master that can help him live forever. Unfortunately living forever, means through thick and thin. This was a really slow story, despite a great opening that really sets up what could be an excellent story. The ending, instead of a funny twist, just seemed depressing. My rating: ** 1/2 out of ****.

Segment 3: A glass eating Carny has fallen in love but can't leave the carnival because of the mean snake woman that owns him and the other freaks. This was a step down from the last segment. The acting was really terrible and the dialogue was really corny. The ending was confusing, and really stupid, and I just found this to be a lifeless story with a good premise. My rating: * 1/2 out of ****.

Segment 4: 3 soldiers in WW1 get attacked and trapped by wounded children. It's pretty much just a bad rip-off of Children of the Corn set 60 years earlier. Again, the ending was lame and added nothing to the story. My rating: * 1/2 out of ****.

Wraparound story: Starring Vincent Price and Susan Tyrell. Cameo by Lawerence Tierney. The wraparound story starts promising with a ghostly flashback opening and a woman being given the lethal injection, but it gets worse. Vincent Price is telling tales of the town, and the dialogue just seems forced and it doesn't make sense that he would be telling these stories, which have literally nothing to do with what he's talking about. I love Price's performance, but unfortunately he had no say so over what he's saying. As for the ending, it was really bad. Even the stories had better twists than the really stupid wraparound. My rating: * out of ****.

My final rating: ** out of ****. 95 mins. Rated R for Strong Gory Violence, Nudity and Strong Sexual Innuendos.