The serious Catholic themes that made the original film genuinely disturbing have been flattened out into a cartoonish backstory pitting Merrin against Nazi storm troopers.
– J. R. Jones,
Chicago Reader,
27 Feb 2007
rotten:
Blood, flies, maggots, ravenous hyenas, power failures, grave-digging and much ineffectual voodoo ensue.
– Ron Stringer,
L.A. Weekly,
26 Aug 2004
rotten:
As shocking as an Dokken album cover and, finally, as pious as The Passion of the Christ.
– Michael Atkinson,
Village Voice,
24 Aug 2004
rotten:
Never feels like anything other than generic, brain-dead, Dolby-jolt, multiplex hackwork -- I kept expecting Skarsgard's habitually catacomb-prowling Merrin to bump flashlights with Lara Croft.
– Geoff Pevere,
Toronto Star,
23 Aug 2004
fresh:
It rates fairly high on both the Scare-O-Meter and Gross-Out Scale, with an early hyena attack guaranteed to have you flinching in terror.