Reviews

You've got a talented director (Bob Rafelson), an excellent cast (Jack Nicholson, Ellen Barkin, Beverly D'Angelo, Michael McKean, Harry Dean Stanton, Veronica Cartwright, Lauren Tom) and a good screenwriter (Carole Eastman)...

Since the movie has been pretty restrained up to this point, you don't expect Cliff to get so angry he will beat someone to the point where their face is disfigured.

And before she knows it, Walter starts acting cold and distant towards her, repeating over and over what a great home they've got and how everyone are nice here, no matter how many times she tells him she wants out of here.

His first thought should be to make his girlfriend feel safe, tell her everything is gonna be all right and cooperate the entire time to make sure they both come up with the best ways to try and drive the demon out.

This is probably the most meanspirited horror movie I've ever seen.

Usually if a movie contains great actors, you can forgive some of the more glaring script flaws, but some of the lines that come out of the characters' mouths just doesn't feel believable, at times even kinda embarrassing.

Standup for movies is very hard to write since a comedy script is different from a standup script.

In the scenes of terror, her facial expressions feel very genuine, yet they are kinda adorable at the same time.

When Hugo later tells her how awful Gannon feels about disguising his identity and how lowly he thinks of himself, she starts to feel some empathy...

Where the movie really excels however is the ominous night scenes where you see unsuspecting couples just hoping to spend some quality time with each other, only to get stalked by a sadistic masked killer.