Dead of Winter

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) | Release Date: February 6, 1987

CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION

55	METASCORE Mixed or average reviews based on 12 Critic Reviews

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Critic Reviews

Critic score Publication By date

Dave Kehr

There is no visible conviction in Penn's staging, but he does have a good time prowling through the cluttered decor (which comes complete with menacing stuffed animals and secret passageways), while coaxing some gaudily entertaining, highly theatrical ham-work from Rubes and McDowell. [06 Feb 1987, p.N]

Bill Cosford

Penn makes all this fun. He doesn't camp, though he's not above borrowings and homages, and you can count the Hitchcocks. Penn's approach is almost elegant, even though this is little more than a bauble. We're not supposed actually to believe any of it, but merely to come along for the ride. [11 Feb 1987, p.D7]

Janet Maslin

The screenplay is inelegant but lively, and the direction gives the material a wicked edge. Read full review

Staff (Not Credited)

Mary Steenburgen is first-rate as the struggling actress. Read full review

Roger Ebert

It's easy to pick holes in movies like this, to find the inconsistencies and the oversights and say the movie's no good because we're smarter than it is. But maybe that's exactly the point. Maybe the actual pleasure comes from the fun of being frustrated and full of free advice while the character marches to her doom. Read full review

Paul Attanasio

An hour's worth of exposition is a long wait, and if the payoff isn't quite worth it, it is fun. After nine yards of soggy oatmeal, you're reintroduced to the pleasures of an old-fashioned haunted house. Read full review

Salem Alaton

True, this film is a suspense exercise with a frightened woman trapped in a house where she stands to lose her life. Some people would not call this kind of thing entertainment, and no one can blame them. Some people would find this story entertaining no matter how shabbily it was produced. [07 Feb 1987]

Staff (Not Credited)

While beautifully shot, admirably old-fashioned (sexual violence and explicit gore are absent), and endowed with pleasing plot twists, the film is too formulaic and offers little opportunity for Penn to display his prodigious talents. Read full review

Kevin Thomas

There’s an elegant sheen and sophisticated tone to Dead of Winter, but since it’s neither witty nor ingenious enough to be either genuinely amusing or suspenseful, it seems a bit morbid by default. Read full review

David Ansen

Dead of Winter is played straight and not without style, but the material (by Marc Shmuger and Mark Malone) is such implausible, antique claptrap it's hard not to think of it as camp. [23 Feb 1987, p.79]

TV Guide MagazineStaff (Not Credited)

Director Arthur Penn uses every trick in the horror book to pull this one off, but nothing really works, including his accent on scary noises. Everything is forced, contrived, and not too neatly lifted from other classic doppelganger films. Read full review

Gene Siskel

Director Arthur Penn (Bonnnie and Clyde) may have intended this to be a campy homage to Hitchcock, but instead he gives us a boring, frustrating and stupid story. [06 Feb 1987, p.A]