Case 39: Critic Reviews

An aggressively inept demon-seed chiller starring a bunch of grown-ups who should've known better.

By the time the killings start, it's clear that Ray Wright's screenplay is more interested in following formula than in breaking new ground.

Shlocky and ridiculous it may be, but this horror-thriller really is gleefully gruesome and undeniably entertaining: smart work from German director Christian Alvert.

It's a bummer when the audience is smarter than the protagonist.

This ludicrous outing from helmer Christian Alvart and scribe Ray Wright takes its psycho-satanic babble much too seriously, and should elicit more laughs than frights.

Zellweger, forced to play a character who lurches from rational to absurdly credulous, loses credibility by the minute.

The devil made them do it, but that doesn't mean you have to see it.

[Plays] like one more piece of multiplex in-box clutter, ready for the circular file in our moviegoing consciousness.

...a decent little horror flick...

Directed by Christian Alvart (Pandorum) with a less than giddy hand, Case 39 is truly terrible. But at least it scores a few 'so bad it's good' points.

Not only is Case 39 deplorable and morally off-center, the film is dull to boot.

What starts out as slight and fairly obvious turns into a frequently colorful horror tale.

...we get a couple of moments of genuine suspense combined with a whole lot of cheap thrills.

What do you do with a crummy horror movie that has been sitting on the shelf for a couple, or maybe three, years?

... before the movie is half over, the usual cliches take over ...

Its time to put the nail in the otherworldly evil child genre until someone comes up with something original. The only thing supernatural about Case 39 is its ungodly presence on this planet.

What do you do with a crummy horror movie that has been sitting on the shelf for a couple, or maybe three, years?

Neither so awful as to be enjoyable nor eerily artful enough to be anything other than a snoozy also-ran.

It's as lame as can be, and despite sitting on the shelf for four years, it's not even bad enough to be unintentionally funny.

in the meantime, director Christian Alvart went on to make the effectively moody "Pandorum," but this movie is a dud.

Unremarkable except for its subversive subtext.

As demonic children movies go, it?s really not bad -- and the acting makes it seem a little better than that.

From a bevy of cheesy jolt scares (alarm clock! barking dog!) to the embarrassing sight of Zellweger and Ian McShane treating this Orphan-style B-movie silliness with grave seriousness, the film proves to be one hokey-horror riot.