Critics reviews

Whether or not Fuller’s movie was taken seriously by critics when it came out, the filmmaker’s foray into psychological horror after a series of Westerns and combat pictures was very much of its moment. It looks now like the most resonant exploitation movie of its era.

It's at least free of the cant and hypocrisy of a pseudoconstructive tract like The Caretakers. Far from assuming a responsible tone, Fuller's surface plot bears the earmarks of the transparent trashiness that characterizes the last Hollywood films of Orson Welles (Touch of Evil) and Fritz Lang (Beyond a Reasonable Doubt).