Oliver Park’s “The Offering”

The Offering (2023)

With standout performances from Paul Kaye and Allan Corduner, this is a decent horror that should have been great let down by an over-reliance on ineffective jump scares and bland cinematography

With some fun concepts and excellent production design, this New York set supernatural horror has a lot going for it while being let down by an increasingly ridiculous series of ineffective jump scares and lifeless cinematography. The opening does well to introduce the concepts and characters with particularly great performances by Paul Kaye and Allan Corduner who unfortunately aren’t the leads. In fact, I’d watch a whole series of films featuring the character played by Paul Kaye, but here we get two unengaging, generic leads playing expecting parents.

For fans of the horror genre, this has hints of The Autopsy of Jane Doe with a few dashes of Poltergeist. It doesn’t bring anything new to the table though approaching the subject by way of Jewish mysticism is interesting. There’s also a dramatic secondary story which is compelling until it isn’t.

In terms of the visuals, shooting in Bulgaria in place of its New York setting looks good on the whole and the production design is nice and conveys a lot of the mood, but the effects work in the film is let down by some poor cgi. Still, that’s easier to ignore than some of the poor cinematography and lighting in several scenes.

Another issue is around the pacing. Being a relatively short film at around 90 minutes, it could have spent more time building suspense without jump scares, kept its threats in the periphery and maintained a more consistent pace throughout its runtime.

A flawed but interesting supernatural horror that doesn’t live up to its potential.