A Cure for Wellness
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation | Release Date: February 17, 2017 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
47
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 40 Critic Reviews
Positive:
14
Mixed:
19
Negative:
7
Watch Now
Buy on
Stream On
Stream On

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
60
EmpirePhil de SemlyenFeb 20, 2017
A high-altitude horror – think a Bram Stoker reworking of *The Shining* or Shutter Highland – of real craft. Ultimately, though, the plot turns out to be thinner than the air. Read full review
60
ScreenCrushE. Oliver WhitneyFeb 16, 2017
It’s Verbinski’s eye that makes A Cure for Wellness such a wild, nightmarish treat. Read full review
60
We Got This CoveredMatt DonatoFeb 7, 2017
In its braggadocios final form, genre fans have a unicorn watch that surely won’t be replicated anytime soon. Points for creativity, points for ambition, and points for a studio showing the balls to back provocative genre cinema. Read full review
60
The GuardianPeter BradshawFeb 7, 2017
The movie’s operatic claustrophobia makes its mark. Cult status beckons. Read full review
58
The Film StageBrian RoanFeb 7, 2017
It is all of the harrowing horror of an asylum film with none of the deeper, more disconcerting subtext or mind-bending logic puzzles — a film not entirely devoid of merit, but nonetheless hobbled by poor storytelling. Read full review
50
Los Angeles TimesJustin ChangFeb 16, 2017
The terrors we see in A Cure for Wellness are never as scary as they are beautiful, but they are never so beautiful as they are arbitrary. Read full review
50
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliFeb 16, 2017
There’s no rule that main characters have to be likable, and DeHaan’s Lockhart isn’t, but they at least have to be interesting. He fails that litmus test. Read full review
50
Rolling StoneDavid FearFeb 16, 2017
This is not so much a horror movie as a lookbook for one – an assemblage of scary-flick odds and ends slotted next to each other with the thinnest of connective tissue. Read full review
50
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzFeb 16, 2017
Verbinski manages some squirm-worthy moments, and cinematographer Bojan Bazelli creates a creepy look throughout. But the story doesn’t make sense as it goes along and then devolves into absurdity. Read full review
50
RogerEbert.comMatt Zoller SeitzFeb 15, 2017
I keep forgetting the title of A Cure for Wellness and calling it “The Color of Despair.” It’s an accurate mistake. Read full review
50
The Seattle TimesMoira MacdonaldFeb 15, 2017
If Verbinski could have trimmed about an hour from the film (which weighs in at a portly 146 minutes), he might have had something. Read full review
50
Village VoiceApril WolfeFeb 10, 2017
The director conjures some chills with a cold plunge into an enchanting and frightful world — the imagery’s straight out of a Kubrick and Lynch nightmare — but the story unravels as he tries to overexplain his evil doctor’s devilish plot. Read full review
50
Screen DailyFionnuala HalliganFeb 7, 2017
The film is visually arresting, but narratively stale. Read full review
50
VarietyPeter DebrugeFeb 7, 2017
The movie deprives us of either a tragic villain or a sympathetic lead, hoping that its grab bag of squirm-inducing details — dental drills, stillborn livestock, flesh-eating eels — will suffice, when in fact, they reveal how a shorter, tighter treatment ought to have done the trick. Read full review
42
Entertainment WeeklyChris NashawatyFeb 16, 2017
Narratively preposterous and probably an hour too long, it’s the year’s first big howler. It could have been DeHaan’s "Shutter Island," but instead it’s just Gore Verbinski’s latest self-indulgent mess following "The Lone Ranger." Read full review
42
The PlaylistKevin JagernauthFeb 7, 2017
A Cure For Wellness is an exercise in watching a film continually stifle itself at its most compelling moments. Read full review
40
The TelegraphTim RobeyFeb 23, 2017
When A Cure for Wellness goes full wacko, it certainly doesn’t worry about questions of taste. But it hasn’t worried about questions of logic, duration, or novelty, either. Read full review
40
New York Daily NewsJoe DziemianowiczFeb 15, 2017
The story submerges and drowns in preposterous gothic nonsense. Read full review
40
The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyFeb 7, 2017
Over-produced and under-thought-out, this unconscionably elaborate attempt at an old-fashioned Gothic thriller looks great but is beyond silly. Read full review
More From This Movie

47 Critic Reviews

8.1 User Reviews

Details & Credits|Trailers

Current Movie Releases
By MetascoreBy User Score
1 77 Project Hail Mary
2 75 Send Help
3 73 Hoppers
4 72 The Sheep Detectives
5 68 Crime 101
SEE ALL
Essential Links
New on Amazon Prime Video
New on Netflix
Coming Soon to DVD/Blu-ray
SEE ALL