The Wretched

"Despite technically being a box office success story, joining the ranks of Titanic, Black Panther and The Sixth Sense with a six week run atop the US box office, The Wretched looks set to be relegated to footnotes and movie quiz questions as something of a trivia-friendly outlier. Having opened during the Covid-19 pandemic, the film has yet to break the $2 million mark Stateside, and you’re not going to find anything approaching “I see dead people” pop culture resonance in this functional if largely forgettable horror pic."

"Smart, affectionate, likeable and well-made movie, with a couple of extremely well-wrought scares to commend it."

"The narrative focus is frustratingly split between Ben’s family and Abbie’s, and the result is a non-frightening muddle."

"Rarely resorting to a cheap jump scare, the [directors] possess a casually tight grip on the fundamentals of horror."

"The film looks and sounds polished in every department, but special mention must go to the first-rate makeup effects that generate lots of bone-crunching, limb-popping body horror and decaying flesh, subtly enhanced with CGI."

"If originality isn’t a strong suit here, the film’s conviction and polish make that a minor sin."

"Blessed with shivery setups and freaky effects — here, skin-crawling is literal — The Wretched transforms common familial anxieties into flesh, albeit crepey and creeping."

"The Wretched's endeavor to meld a junior mystery with some pretty extreme horror works more than it doesn't, but ultimately neither side of this narrative coin gets explored as much as it should."

"“The Wretched” doesn’t reinvent the rules, but it has a timeliness to it that’s hard to shake."