Janet Maslin of "The New York Times" was more enthusiastic, regarding it as "John Carpenter's best horror film in a long while". The remake was "mostly more sly than frightening ... restaging the original story with fresh enthusiasm and a nice modicum of new tricks." James Berardinelli also gave the film a lukewarm 3/4-star review, calling it "an enjoyable, if obviously-flawed, amalgamation of horror and science fiction...it starts strong and does a decent job at keeping its momentum until a climactic finale...not Carpenter's shining achievement, but he still shows his promise."