Robert Cashill of "Newsweek" remarked that the film "should be in video store bins", and Jay Carr of "The Boston Globe" commented that it "starts by cheating death and ends by cheating us". Phoebe Flowers of "Miami Herald" felt the film "stoops well below substituting style for substance", whereas Lisa Alspector of the "Chicago Reader" described the film as "disturbing—if less sophisticated than the best SF (science fiction)-horror TV". Luke Thompson of the "Dallas Observer" found it "a waste of a decent premise"; Ernest Hardy of "LA Weekly" said that the film "fails because it takes itself both too seriously and not seriously enough". Although Barbara Shulgasser of the "Chicago Tribune" said that it "met the low standards of a mediocre TV movie", Desmond Ryan of the "Philadelphia Inquirer" commented that it was "as full of terrible acting as it is devoid of suspense". Both Susan Wloszczyna of "USA Today" and Walter Addiego of the "San Francisco Examiner" thought it was "stupid, silly and gory".