I watched the film for the first time when it was released on video a couple of years ago and once again last week on DVD. I often enjoy Patricia Arquette's acting but this time something did not work out. It wasn't bad acting actually, the trouble is that her character is too shallow and not very well written (
or maybe she was miscast). However, Gabriel Byrne and Jonathan Pryce gave rather good performances and they somehow managed to make up a little bit for it but it did not fully succeed for me overall. The blood and gore scenes were for the most part quite tame, only few of them were really good and you're likely to enjoy them if you're into this sort of thing (they are far from being as good as in `the exorcist' anyway). As far as the score is concerned I rather enjoy this kind of pop-rock soundtrack but only for slasher teen flicks, here it does not blend at all and even sucked sometimes. I guess a classical score would have suited better in some scenes. One last thing, I lived ten years in Brazil and although I do speak the language fluently I could not understand the dialogues in the beginning of the movie
Why ? Because they chose Mexican actors to speak portuguese and it just does not work at all. In my opinion the film is somewhat overrated but still easy to watch despite its many flaws. 5/10 stars P.S. : Watch out for the goof scene when Patricia is in the bathtub, her wrists are already bleeding before the whole goddamn thing starts !
