Stuck

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

It's a righteously nasty piece of work, and a rare example of a movie that traffics in B-movie grime without a trace of "Grindhouse"-style self-consciousness.

Film Threat Matthew Sorrento

A fresh and rewarding take on cinematic terror.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

Stuart Gordon, the mostly under-the-radar director of "Re-Animator," pops back into view with this amusing trifle -- a piece of scuzzy tabloid noir.

TV Guide Ken Fox

A drum-tight, extremely grisly thriller. And odd as it may sound given the subject matter, it's also surprisingly funny.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

Rea, with his hangdog looks and Jimmy Stewart line readings, spends a good deal of his time writhing in fake blood and broken shards - not what you'd call glamorous work, but he does it with conviction.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Bill White

Unlike the worthless torture porn that is destroying the genre, Stuck is a horror movie with a reason for being.

Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir

These people can behave well or poorly, but they were already bugs on the windshield of life before their unhappy collision.

The New York Times Stephen Holden

Stuck, while not strictly a horror film, is steeped in gore and carries a seam of mocking gallows humor as relentless as that of "Sweeney Todd."

Los Angeles Times Robert Abele

Suvari's increasingly loopy and cruel selfishness is its own nifty moral suspense, while Rea's sad sack vibe -- he already looks like a collision victim in the pre-accident scenes -- is a bleakly amusing counterpoint to his gritty refusal to go quietly.

Variety Joe Leydon

Ingeniously nasty and often shockingly funny as it incrementally worsens a very bad situation, then provides a potent payoff with the forced feeding of just desserts.

Village Voice Robert Wilonsky

Stuck is both darkly comic and disgusting; the name alone reduces the crime to a sick joke.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

Laugh? Cry? I thought I'd die, but then that's the genius of Gordon.

NPR Bob Mondello

Stuart Gordon's inventions -- vivid, gruesome and occasionally quite funny -- offer a just-deserts ending and make both characters surprisingly active participants in their fates.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

Mena Suvari has her best role since "American Beauty" as Brandi, a self-centered nursing home employee distinctly lacking in sympathy for anyone.

USA Today Claudia Puig

This is not enjoyable entertainment, but it is brutally watchable.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

There are times when it is bitingly funny and times when its bloodiness can cause a wince and a shudder - but director Stuart Gordon is not adept at blending the two extremes into a cohesive whole.

New York Daily News Joe Neumaier

A taut drama that manages to be thoughtful without forgetting it's a creep-out.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

Thanks to Suvari, audiences laugh nervously at the mortification of soul and flesh, but she doesn't really do them much of a favor. She simply keeps them watching as a would-be gross-out comedy turns into would-be gross-out tragedy.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey

History repeats itself, the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce, Karl Marx said. That might explain the possibility of even making a movie such as Stuck.

San Francisco Chronicle Walter Addiego

At its best, Gordon's work is bracing and pointed, though it's not for the queasy.

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

Gordon made similar lurches all over the map in his previous exercise in grotesquerie, "Edmond," which was based on a David Mamet play and starred William H. Macy as, of all things, a racist misogynist on a grisly bender. Stuck could have used some of that outrageousness.

Portland Oregonian M. E. Russell

Unfortunately, the film loses its merciless rage toward the end, devolving into a stock and broadly comic thriller about unpleasant people you never quite get to know.

New York Magazine David Edelstein

The film becomes an aria of agony--but with a rousingly yucko finish!

Washington Post Ann Hornaday

The question is why the time, talent and treasure of such energetic and even gifted artists have been marshaled in such a disgusting and trivial genre exercise and what viewers are supposed to get out of it. Isn't life hard enough?

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

As the title of this splatter comedy by writer-director Stuart Gordon (Re-Animator) indicates, he's like a bug stuck to her windshield, and that's about the level of humanity and insight one can expect here.