Wind Chill: Critic Reviews

A moody, spooky tale, rendered with laudable economy.

Ropey, derivative and very, very boring horror-thriller.

Elevates familiar fright motifs to levels of shivery dismay.

Wind Chill blows into increasingly nightmarish and ludicrous territory, introducing frostbitten ghouls, priestly apparitions, a nasty cop, and a cycle of hallucinations.

Almost always, you can expect the worst when a studio dumps a film without advance screenings. But the well-crafted thriller Wind Chill, with rising star Emily Blunt, is the very rare case where somebody (in this case, Sony) goofed.

Wind Chill, for all its flaws, is an often spooky and imaginative ghost story that contains a genuine creepiness.

Wind Chill doesn't advance the mechanics of the horror genre, but it gives audiences fed up with the Michael Bay School of Horror something of a breather.

...a refreshingly adult horror effort that boasts a pair of phenomenal lead performances.

Imagine a campfire story told by Jack London after downing a bottle of Jack Daniels. The chilly atmosphere would be in full force but the plotting might be a bit punch drunk.

After a great set-up, we're left stranded by the side of the road, wishing the filmmakers had come up with a conclusion at least somewhere close to as good.

At the very least, it's an old-fashioned ghost story with half a brain -- and that's got to be worth more than a casual glance.

Spooky, smart and subtle.

The passage to ex-rental DVD bins will be swift for this lethally pretentious bit of low-rent schlock.

As clunky as it is emotionally unconvincing.

Promising elements never quite bind.

Wind Chill suffers from an underdeveloped screenplay, which feels like a first draft, erroneously deemed ready for production.

Could have worked, if only I had given a damn.

Wind Chill deserves a merit badge for even trying to tell a horror story without resorting to tired and amateurish shock value. The picture's puzzle might not piece together properly, but the effort is appreciated.

Well before day breaks, it's the movie's plot (which would have made for an outstanding Outer Limits episode) that has come to seem stuck in an endless loop.

Despite its failings, Wind Chill represents a road rarely taken by 21st-century American horror films: Original (in the non-remake sense of the term), subtle and restrained.

A tidy little ghost story, with interesting characters, a captivating performance by up-and-comer Emily Blunt.

All surface and no depth, with an incongruous ending that makes for an unsatisfying ending to an indecisive movie.

Though the oblique and confused storytelling saps the heat out of Wind Chill, the picture still boasts a game performance from Emily Blunt

Obviously meant to chill us to the bone, but it barely registers on the cinematic thermometer.