Tideland

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

It's crazy, dangerous and sometimes gorgeous: a feast of nuttiness that takes you, for a while, over the edge.

LA Weekly Tom Charity

This Southern Gothic Alice in Wonderland is not for the faint-hearted, to be sure, yet amid the swaying chaff there are moments of piercing grace and beauty when we'e reminded of the lost, lonely child at the heart of this tale. If nothing else, it's liberating to see one of cinema's unrepentant fantasists going out on a limb like this and cutting loose.

TV Guide Ken Fox

By turns fascinating and intolerable.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Noel Murray

It's no "trip through the dark to appreciate the light." It's a nightmare from start to finish.

Los Angeles Times Sam Adams

Tideland is equally evocative of the pastoral mystery of an Andrew Wyeth painting and the looming menace of "Psycho." The disparity is fitting, because as Tideland unfolds, it's difficult to tell if you're watching a fantasy or a horror movie, or one superimposed on the other.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Jennie Punter

Tideland is the easiest of Gilliam's films to follow, yet the most disturbing to watch.

Village Voice J. Hoberman

Gilliam has suffered more than his share of butchered projects, but with this exercise in kamikaze auteurism, he appears to have made exactly the mess he wanted.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Tideland is, by turns, a complete bore and a creepy experience. And I don't mean "creepy" in a positive sense.

New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman

A murky swamp of a movie, Terry Gilliam's defiantly surreal Tideland finds every good idea drowning in an excess of indulgence.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

A mix of "Alice in Wonderland" and William S. Burroughs, "Psycho" and the psychotic. It's pretty much a squirmy experience all around.

The Hollywood Reporter Michael Rechtshaffen

A misconceived washout of a darkly gothic story of madness, addiction and child abuse made all the more unpleasant by Gilliam's trademark intense visual style.

Variety Leslie Felperin

Dragged down by a sputtering script and torpid pacing. Way too disturbing for kids and too weird for most grown-ups.

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

Borderline unwatchable, although, as is true of all Gilliam movies, it certainly is different.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

The results are dull, of all things. The movie itself feels like an overstuffed burrito,

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Bill White

When the little girl tells her decapititated doll, "It's not just a bad dream," she is right. It's just a bad movie.

The New York Times A.O. Scott

The worst that can be said of the first two-thirds of Tideland is that it is tiresome. Toward the end it becomes creepy, and not in a good way.

Austin Chronicle Josh Rosenblatt

When they’re used to tell a story as dreary, unfocused, and exhausting as Tideland, the director’s trademark dreamscapes and disorienting camera angles feel like so much artless window dressing.

Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir

The misanthropic nadir of the director's crash-and-burn career.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

Enter this diseased Lewis Carroll universe at your own risk.

Washington Post Ann Hornaday

Rarely has an act of such cinematic cruelty as Tideland been perpetrated on filmgoers.

San Francisco Chronicle Ruthe Stein

Immediately shoots to the top of the list of the year's worst movies.

New York Post Kyle Smith

It's trashy and disgusting - and those are the best parts. Mostly it's just an endless, pointless drone with characters like bacteria and dialogue like an untuned radio.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

Dour, absurdist, gruesomely awful.