A reviewer in the Italian newspaper "La Stampa" referred to the film as "not recommended for easily impressionable viewers" and that the film was a sign that Fulci had "reached expressive maturity", with a story that grew progressively to make an "expressive nightmarish atmosphere" and concluding that the film was a "grand guignol spectacle". Giovanna Grassi of "Corriere della Sera" found the film depended too much on gore, lacked atmosphere, and was "incoherent and stretched beyond measure". The review went on to praise actor Giovanni Lombardo Radice and Frizzi's score. A review by Pierre Gires of "" found that the film left viewers in a series of "bloody and hallucinatory events that leave little room to breathe" that was "very well edited, with a lively pace". The review concluded that the film was "definitive film after which it will be useless to revisit the same subject matter, and which it ranks Lucio Fulci amongst the best craftsmen of the certain branch of the "fantastique"".