Thirst 2009

Ben Lyons, At the Movies: Funny at times, perhaps not purposefully so, it's never truly scary or even thrilling. Read more

David Edelstein, New York Magazine/Vulture: It's fun (if overlong), but for all the noisy slurping, there's no fresh blood. Read more

Mike D'Angelo, AV Club: The movie as a whole-which runs nearly two-and-a-quarter hours-has no sense of rhythm or flow whatsoever. Read more

Keith Phipps, AV Club: Its turgid pace creates a queasy fascination all its own, drawing viewers into an ever-darkening locus of sin and obsession where even the wish for redemption comes at a terrible cost. Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: Thirst keeps coming up against the limitations of its various inspirations like a bumper car on a crowded court. On almost every other level, the film's audaciously entertaining, at times even quite moving. You just have to have the stomach for it. Read more

Betsy Sharkey, Los Angeles Times: Park has created a rumination on morality and mortality that is not at all deadly, but funny and profound and at times intensely erotic. Read more

Cliff Doerksen, Chicago Reader: Park aficionados are assured their fix of lurid imagery and baroque plotting, though straight-up horror buffs may get restless during the sluggish and murky middle section; Twilight fans need not apply. Read more

Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly: A gaudy, daring, operatic, and bloody funny provocation of a melodrama from Park Chan-wook. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: At a time when so much of popular culture is turning the vampire into just another gently exotic, vulnerable lover, Park brings things back to bloody basics. Read more

V.A. Musetto, New York Post: Feeling anemic? Allow Dr. Musetto to prescribe large quantities of human blood. You'll find plenty of it in Thirst, from Park Chan-wook, one of South Korea's leading filmmakers. Read more

Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel: Thirst is a grim antidote to the sanitized, pale young things of Twilight, Supernatural and True Blood. Read more

Tirdad Derakhshani, Philadelphia Inquirer: Thirst begins with great intellectual and artistic promise, then devolves into a repetitious mess of teeth, blades, necks, bites, arterial sprays, sex, sex, sex and death. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: Movies exist to cloak our desires in disguises we can accept, and there is an undeniable appeal to Thirst. Read more

Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com: Thirst is a brilliant and gruesome work of cinematic invention as well as a passionate and painful human love story. Read more

Walter V. Addiego, San Francisco Chronicle: Thirst's excesses will entertain some viewers, but if you want coherence, look elsewhere. Read more

Jennie Punter, Globe and Mail: Thirst is juicy filmmaking -- psychologically rich, cathartic, kinky, visually engaging and almost free of vampire-movie cliches. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: Too bad the film never quite gets the blood pumping in the viewer, which may be a failure of Park's to define his audience. Read more

Hank Sartin, Time Out: Read more

Tom Huddlestone, Time Out: A rollicking, hysterical splatter-sex-comedy only confirms 'Thirst' as one of the year's more extreme, enjoyable entertainments. Read more

Christopher Orr, The New Republic: [U]nlike most exercises in hematic excess--Richard Rodriguez's Planet Terror, for instance, or Tarantino's Kill Bill--Thirst offers not the consolations of camp but the intensity of opera. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: Thirst is at least a half-hour too long. The story goes off course with pointless distractions and feeds on non-stop grisliness. Read more

Derek Elley, Variety: An overlong stygian comedy that badly needs a transfusion of genuine inspiration. Read more

Jim Ridley, Village Voice: Park's voluptuous style fits a genre that is all appetite -- or should be. Read more