The Addiction (1995)

All Critics (26) | Top Critics (6) | Fresh (19) | Rotten (7)

No matter, without exactly transcending the awful material, Ferrara puts it across with astonishing poetry and conviction.

October 20, 2009 Full Review

Jonathan Rosenbaum

Chicago Reader

Top Critic

Scary, funny, magnificently risible, this could be the most pretentious B-movie ever -- and I mean that as a compliment.

June 24, 2006 Full Review

Time Out

Top Critic

Love him or hate him, Mr. Ferrara is one of the few directors who can turn genre movies into something deeper.

May 20, 2003 Full Review

Caryn James

New York Times

Top Critic

Abel Ferrara, working from a rabidly ambitious script by Nicholas St. John, gives the genre a provocative and perversely funny snap that Anne Rice might envy.

May 12, 2001

Peter Travers

Rolling Stone

Top Critic

Unfortunately, it's so dark -- and impenetrable -- that it shuts us out.

January 1, 2000 Full Review

Hal Hinson

Washington Post

Top Critic

Macabre and provocative, yet wonderfully restrained.

January 1, 2000 Full Review

Desson Thomson

Washington Post

Top Critic

One of Ferrara's most idiosyncratic yet popular slices of misanthropy.

October 20, 2009 Full Review

Film4

It's got a remarkable visual texture, integrity to burn, and almost -- but not quite -- enough intelligence to justify its lofty ambitions.

October 20, 2009 Full Review

TV Guide's Movie Guide

What we get is a slight, but entertaining movie, that's (dare I say it?) unintentionally funny at times.

May 26, 2006 Full Review

Jeffrey M. Anderson

Combustible Celluloid

Reflecting Ferrara's obsession with guilt and redemption, the film acknowledges the capacity for evil, urging viewers to take responsibility for their actions, or else there won't be a way to arrest evil's diffusion from one generation to the next.

June 20, 2005 Full Review

Emanuel Levy

EmanuelLevy.Com

The allegory wears thin fast, and we're just left with artifice.

July 8, 2004

Rob Thomas

Capital Times (Madison, WI)

Given all the talent involved, this should have been much more compelling.

May 19, 2004

Luke Y. Thompson

New Times

Christopher Walken, who always looks like one of the living dead, proves that he hasn't exhausted his capacity to make your skin crawl.

May 20, 2003

Susan Tavernetti

Palo Alto Weekly

Ferrara's film both impresses and terrifies sufficiently for most of its duration.

January 10, 2003 Full Review

Nick Davis

Nick's Flick Picks

Captain! The Pretense-O-Meter's gone off the scale!

August 13, 2002 | Comments (2)

Rob Vaux

Flipside Movie Emporium

A strange and diverting take on the old vampire tale.

July 26, 2002

Scott Weinberg

eFilmCritic.com

• 1. Kathleen Conklin: Our addiction is evil. The propensity for this evil lies in our weakness before it.
  – Submitted by Frances H (7 months ago)
• 1. Peina: The entire world's a graveyard. And we, the birds of prey, picking at the bones.
  – Submitted by Frances H (7 months ago)
• 1. Peina: You learn to control it. You learn, like the Tibetans , to survive on a little.
  – Submitted by Frances H (7 months ago)
• 1. Kathleen Conklin: You know, this obtuseness, it's disheartening, especially in a doctoral candidate.
  – Submitted by Frances H (7 months ago)
• 1. Kathleen Conklin: Dependency is a marvelous thing. It does more for the soul than any formulation of doctoral material.
  – Submitted by Frances H (7 months ago)
• 1. Kathleen Conklin: There is no history. Everything we are is eternally with us. Our question, therefore, is what can save us from our crazy insistence on spreading the blight in ever widening circles?
  – Submitted by Frances H (7 months ago)

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