Charles Champlin of the "Los Angeles Times" lambasted the film, writing that its message is "not anti-clerical—there's hardly enough clericalism to be anti anymore—it is anti-humanity. A rage against cruelty has become a celebration of it... you weep not for the evils and the ignorance of the past, but for the cleverness and sickness of the day." Ann Guarino of the "New York Daily News" noted that the film "could not be more anti-Catholic in tone or more sensationalized in treatment," but conceded that the performances in the film were competent. The "Ottawa Citizen"s Gordon Stoneham similarly felt the film had been over-sensationalized, noting that Russell focuses so much on the "baroque effects, and concentrates so much on the Grand Guignol aspects of the affair, the narrative is never firmly in focus."