Separation: reviews

What the critics say average 3.6 from 25 outlets

• 7.5 The Movie CricketSean P. Means Bell [...] knows how to pull dread out of the air, and he orchestrates the oppressive atmosphere and the periodic scares with masterful precision. Read
• 6.0 No es cine todo lo que reluceDaniel Farriol Despite all the plot absurdities and a disastrous ending, there is something inexplicable about Separation that makes it a guilty pleasure and a far more appealing genre film than others released this year with great fanfare. Read
• 6.0 CinemagaviaGuillermo Sánchez Ferrer Separation is not a clever film. It is the natural path a certain kind of mainstream horror takes when it cannot create new forms, and all it does is push the old ones to the most extreme paroxysm. And yet, for some strange reason, this "accident" has something fascinating about it that keeps us from taking our eyes off the screen. Read
• 5.8 Dennis Schwartz Movie ReviewsDennis Schwartz Promising horror pic that can't deliver the goods. Read
• 5.0 The Victoria AdvocateJoe Friar "Separation" suffers from a senseless storyline and a set of unlikable characters with no redeeming qualities. The special effects are quite menacing but wasted as the film fails to connect with the audience. Read
• 5.0 Dread CentralChad Collins A pale pastiche of better movies, Separation might not be good, but its marionette mayhem emerges as curiously entertaining. Read
• 4.0 The Hollywood ReporterFrank Scheck But the film squanders its intriguing setup and terrific performances by devolving into familiar genre tropes. Read
• 4.0 Next Best PictureJosh Parham The characters are flat, the themes shallow, and the emotional catharsis is stilted in every scene. Read
• 4.0 CBRCaitlin Chappell Separation could have either gone for a nuanced family drama that happened to have ghosts or it could've been an over the top haunted house film with a plethora of unique ghouls and wild twist, but instead it shoots for the middle. Read
• 4.0 Common Sense MediaJeffrey M. Anderson This "imaginary friend" horror movie takes its time and tries hard to focus on relationships and emotions, but the characters still feel somehow stiff and flat, as if they were only half-finished. Read
• 4.0 MoriaRichard Scheib Separation is another William Brent Bell film that treads a middle of the road path the entire way. Read
• 3.8 OurQuadCitiesLinda Cook Driven largely by contrivances and typical tropes you'd see in any given horror movie, it's a waste of some brilliant ideas tacked onto a shaky plot that finally collapses. Read
• 3.8 Third Coast ReviewSteven Prokopy The deeper he gets into his mythology and the reasons scary things are happening, the more hollow and confusing things become. Read
• 3.5 CinemalogueTodd Jorgenson A solid cast and some stylish visual flourishes from director William Brent Bell (The Boy) can't save a screenplay that mostly jettisons its more high-minded ambitions for some formulaic child-in-peril nonsense. Read
• 3.0 Bloody DisgustingMeagan Navarro Despite an imaginative setup, Separation can’t divorce itself from a lack of scares, tension, and underbaked storytelling that prevents emotional resonance. Read
• 3.0 IONCINEMA.comNicholas Bell Unfortunately, this first narrative features from scribes Nick Amadeus and Josh Braun gluts itself on phantom red herrings atop the shoulders of a formidably insipid protagonist in Rupert Friend. Read
• 3.0 The Young FolksNguyên Lê That on top of the overall emptiness, stemming from both the themes and in the way they are expressed, means there's only one proper way to settle with the film: split from it. Read
• 2.5 The A.V. ClubA.A. Dowd The film’s lone value may be setting up the perfect answer to that “improve a movie with one letter” challenge: Add an indefinite article to the front of its title, and you’re left with one of the great films of the new millennium—and, incidentally, a much more unnerving portrait of a marriage on the rocks. Read
• 2.5 Rue MorgueMichael Gingold The basic nature of Separation's supernatural evil isn't even clear in one seriously confused movie. Read
• 2.5 Arkansas Democrat-GazetteDan Lybarger Thanks to computer imagery that betrays its digital origins, the things that go bump in the night are more irritating than frightening. Read
• 2.0 In Review OnlineSteven Warner In truth, the only separation that exists here is the vast one between good and bad filmmaking, and Separation falls decidedly on the side of the latter. Read
• 2.0 JoBloAlex Maidy While a few performances and visuals give this movie some credibility, it is nowhere near enough to save this production. This is not just a bad horror movie, it is a bad movie overall. Read
• 1.0 VarietyNick Schager Despite having characters incessantly explain key plot points, “Separation” lacks basic logic. Read
• 1.0 eFilmCritic.comPeter Sobczynski A lazy rehash of cliches that has been assembled in such a haphazard and disinterested manner that it suggests nothing but contempt for anyone foolish enough to actually spend a few bucks and two precious hours on it. Read
• 0.0 Roger EbertBrian Tallerico William Brent Bell’s “Separation” is an atrocious piece of work, a movie that fails as both a domestic drama and as a horror flick, and really feels like the kind of thing that everyone involved is going to have to discuss in therapy someday to get to the bottom of why it was even made in the first place. Read