Surveillance: Critic Reviews

A grubby, disturbing serial-killer mystery, a kind of blood-simple Rashomon.

A would-be transgression that tries to squeeze dark laughs from the spectacle of human suffering.

A violent B-movie bamboozler that, while fun for a spell, is finally unconvincing.

Beneath the film's surface appeal as a twisty, morbidly funny freak-out lies a weightier theme on the resilience of children.

Every so often, you come upon a movie so jaw-droppingly wrong, you wonder if your eyes are deceiving you.

In this long-time-coming sophomore film, Lynch exercises powers of her own. She gets repellant, seductive, sympathetic performances from her actors. Ormond and Pullman are frightfully good at teasing intimacy.

For a time, Surveillance is sick, smart fun. But then things get weird: yes, there's a big surprise, but its playout is predictable, and nasty.

Horror fans are likely to guess the twist and feel bored; the more faint-of-heart may simply feel repulsed. And bored.

Ether a ludicrously bad movie or a parody of same. Either way, it's pretty funny.

Pullman's striking performance here is undermined by Lynch's overreliance on those same grisly shock tactics, as well as a script that fails to capitalize on a promising premise and then swiftly collapses upon the revelation of a not-so-shocking twist.

The film's a failure.

This strange thriller mixes a penchant for grittiness with the surreal and very very dark stylings of David Lynch, who happens to be the father of the director...

The characters do not stand out, the drama is not compelling, and the screenplay is light on even remotely interesting dialogue.

It is staggering to think that a film could be so horrifically nihilistic and so painfully boring at the same time, but Lynch has done it.

The pacing is so slow, you just want to yell out at the screen, "get on with it."

[S]low-boil sinister, delivering the kind of simmering menace that few films can bother to take the time for these days...

Jennifer is no David Lynch and her film, while inventive and quirky and at time quite devious, misses the organic alchemy of his films.

Some will be unable to appreciate the movie's savagery on any level. Others will find it affecting and uncompromising, the kind of movie that plunges you into a nightmare and ratchets up the intensity until you're grateful for a moment's respite.

A festival of carnage that's sometimes funny and sometimes waaay over the line.

Surveillance is a respectable murder mystery until its contrived 'big reveal' causes it to deflate faster than an inner tube that was just sat on by a morbidly obese person.

There are a couple of admittedly arresting images on display here and there--not enough to make this film worth watching but enough to make you hope that it doesn't take Lynch another 16 years to make another one.

Surveillance is a crafty crime film with an involving setup and a ridiculous payoff, but there's enough here to make it worth a viewing at least on DVD or cable.

A wholly engaging partial misfire, if that makes sense -- a spare yet stylish marginal recommendation that connects due to its provocative premise and ruminations on violence, and the considerations that spawns.

Surveillance suggests 'Jennifer Lynchian' should be used for films that aspire to David's moody, idiosyncratic genius and fall woefully short.

Its mad killers may wear masks. But the real and cheap disguise here is the film's own -- an exploitation shocker trying to pass itself off as art.