A hedonistic man finds a mysterious puzzle box that summons a group of gruesome beings known as the Cenobites. These otherworldly entities open the doors to a dominion where pain and pleasure are indivisible.
Minor grisly fun, but don't expect the movie to linger when it's over.
– Jonathan Rosenbaum,
Chicago Reader,
11 Jan 2008
fresh:
[Writer/Director Clive] Barker's dazzling debut as a director creates such an atmosphere of dread that the astonishing visual set pieces simply detonate in a chain reaction of cumulative intensity.
– Derek Adams,
Time Out,
9 Feb 2006
rotten:
It's a dark, frequently disturbing and occasionally terrifying film that suggests Barker's vision hasn't quite made the conversion from paper to celluloid.
– Richard Harrington,
Washington Post,
1 Jan 2000
rotten:
This is a movie without wit, style or reason, and the true horror is that actors were made to portray, and technicians to realize, its bankruptcy of imagination.