Time of the Wolf, The

Variety Scott Foundas

Haneke demonstrates profound insight into the essence of human behavior when all humility is pared away, raw panic and despair are the order of the day, and man becomes more like wolf than man.

Village Voice Michael Atkinson

In today's digital bog of empty light and marketing deceptions, this is what early-millennium Euro art-film masterpieces feel like--lean, qualmish, abstracted to the point of parable but as grounded as a gravedigging.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

There are no zombies out of ''28 Days Later'' to alleviate the slow creep of realistic doom in this chilly, tense corker.

Los Angeles Times Manohla Dargis

One of the most harrowing and plausible visions of apocalypse since George A. Romero's 1968 zombie shocker, "Night of the Living Dead."

Boston Globe Ty Burr

Haneke has become known as a dour modern master of cinematic pain, and in this movie he scrubs civilization down to the root level.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

Haneke is still a masterful director, and his authority carries this well-acted and attractively shot account of a family from an unnamed city trying to survive in the sticks after an unspecified catastrophe.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

At its best, the film sustains the heightened tension of great science fiction, dropping in on a frightening new world that's just this side of familiar.

LA Weekly Scott Foundas

Time of the Wolf is tough medicine, to be sure. Yet, the movie builds to a note of cautious optimism that is as stirring as it is unexpected.

San Francisco Chronicle Ruthe Stein

Nightmare-inducing.

New York Daily News Jami Bernard

Time of the Wolf is grounded so deeply in the reality of society gone awry that the anxiety faced by Isabelle Huppert's character as she struggles to keep her family together transfers onto the audience and never leaves.

New York Post V.A. Musetto

Haneke's images are so bold and riveting and the characters' emotions are so raw that the lack of a few details doesn't matter.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

This is one of Haneke's least powerful films, although the excellent cast is interesting to watch.

The New York Times Dana Stevens

You can feel frightened and disturbed by this movie without being especially moved by it.

TV Guide Ken Fox

Moviegoers expecting a conventional sci-fi fantasy will be disappointed; Haneke never explains the vague disaster, nor does he offer any definitive solution.

Dallas Observer Staff (Not credited)

While it's sometimes tedious viewing, the film proves the perfect complement to this year's hyper-explained "The Day After Tomorrow;" it's utterly free of cheap melodrama and visual razzle-dazzle, concentrating instead on the souls of plausibly human sufferers.

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

More than watchable, if less than compelling.

Film Threat Chris Wiegand

In the somewhat muted lead role, Huppert really is a marvel.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

It's a much more interesting and engrossing film than its somewhat nefarious reputation may indicate -- though, granted, elements of it are very hard to take, and it finally leaves you feeling pretty down and out.

The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann

Haneke leaves the future of the human race ambiguous. Or would have left it so if his allegory had worked. But the film is such a pat construction, so dingily shot in heavy light, so dependent on our cooperation without earning it, that we are more aware of the exercise than affected by it

Washington Post Desson Thomson

I would rather have a more interesting group of desperate people to spend my post-apocalyptic time with.