Stigmata

TNT RoughCut Matt Kelsey

Ranks with the best of the bunch, given its spooky storyline that fuses religion with down-to-earth characters.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

Less and less a skillfully creepy B-movie and more and more a plea for ecumenical reform.

Boston Globe Jay Carr

Could have been a classy thriller. But all the Aramaic in the world can't save it from its own pounding slickness.

TV Guide Ken Fox

Filled with short, rapid-fire takes, edited to a pulsating beat and punctuated with blasts of noise...the style suits the often violent material, as well as Arquette's remarkable physical performance.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

Essentially a late-'90s MTV version of "The Exorcist," a half-serious, half-silly piece of business that keeps us involved despite (or maybe because of) being more than a little overdone.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Possibly the funniest movie ever made about Catholicism. It confuses the phenomenon of stigmata with satanic possession.

Miami Herald Curtis Morgan

A garish clashing of sacred images and bloody semihorror, this is a movie that defines the category: interesting failure.

Philadelphia Inquirer Desmond Ryan

Begins with a scene of mass repentance, but the real sin here is a profligate waste of talent.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

There's not an authentically scary moment in it.

Chicago Reader Lisa Alspector

This serious if assaultively stylish meditation on faith uses traditional elements of religion-based horror in a way that's more innocent than calculating.

Variety David Rooney

A fiery, convoluted finale fails to deliver any satisfying payoff.

USA Today Andy Seiler

The scariest thing about this appalling and seemingly endless movie is that you paid for your ticket and now have to sit through it.

New York Post Rod Dreher

What a bloody disappointment Stigmata is!

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

By the time the credits roll and a disclaimer informs us that there may, in fact, be a lost gospel of Jesus and that it is being suppressed by the Church, all we can think to say is, "Ah, shaudup!"

Baltimore Sun Ann Hornaday

Busy, over-stylized mess of a movie.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

Repeated lapses in continuity and common sense.

Film.com Tom Keogh

Can anyone but a lapsed Catholic possibly be interested in this unpleasant, anti-Papist creepshow?

Village Voice Michael Atkinson

Despite exposition delivered so redundantly and witlessly you think you're in a Kaplan class, Stigmata manages to be incoherent.

Salon.com Mary Elizabeth Williams

A leaden exercise in what can go wrong when movies attempt to explore mysterious forces with dated special effects and easy symbolism...a soggy mess.

Dallas Observer Andy Klein

If a movie is going to be so totally derivative, it should at least do a better job of it.

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

A vicious anti-Catholic diatribe disguised as an audition tape for MTV.

Chicago Tribune Barbara Shulgasser

Tom Lazarus and Rick Ramage should be ashamed to have written such nonsense.

LA Weekly Paul Malcolm

A better title for this flick might have been Astigmatism: Nothing ever comes into focus long enough ... to deliver even the faintest sense of fright.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

There should be a place in hell for hacks who turn out derivative terror trash and then pretend they're doing an important investigative piece on Vatican corruption.

Newsweek Jane Hogan

Save yourself from this mess.

The New York Times Stephen Holden

(Patricia Arquette's) irritated reactions to her dire situation have all the force of a pet owner's whiny complaints when her feline refuses to use the cat box.

Film.com Moira Macdonald

Lurches on for the better part of two hours with a ludicrous plot and even worse dialogue, interspersed with what look like excerpts from a music video made by some naughty Catholic-school graduates.

Mr. Showbiz Justine Elias

An incomprehensible mess.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

A crude, silly supernatural thriller.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

The only question audiences are likely to be asking their higher power in the wake of viewing the film is, "What the fuck?"

San Francisco Chronicle Bob Graham

What is bloody and full of holes?