"The Guardian" earned mostly negative reviews from critics, and holds a 30% rating on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes from 10 reviews. Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" gave the film one star out of four, and later named it as one of his "Most Hated Films". Janet Maslin of "The New York Times" gave the film a middling review, saying " never sustains the story's tension for very long, and even cuts off the scarier episodes before they have a chance to sink in. What's more, he never offers a consistent idea of what sort of evil is at work here."