Is it the finest, smartest, most visually savvy horror film ever made by a big studio? ...Clayton's filmmaking, mustering frisson by both candle and blazing daylight, could serve as an object lesson in its genre. Only Robert Wise's The Haunting, out two years later, came close to its edge-of-sight menace, repressed gothic angst, and all-suggestion creep-outs.
Michael Atkinson
August 30, 2005