Name : Sara Stewart / Alias : New York Post
The transparent title character from 2012's "The Woman in Black" is resurrected in this sequel, which abandons atmosphere for cheap scares.

Name : Ben Kenigsberg / Alias : New York Times
The director, Tom Harper, seems less interested in allegory than in monotonous, conventional goosing, the kind that involves flickering lights and a creaky rocking chair.

Name : Gary Goldstein / Alias : Los Angeles Times
The Woman in Black 2: Angel of Death is an improvement on its predecessor. That said, the new installment is, at best, a serviceable creep show, one with far more chills than thrills.

Name : Claudia Puig / Alias : USA Today
It's mostly deadly dull, and when it does liven up a tad, the haunted house tale offers only wan shock tactics.

Name : Kyle Anderson / Alias : Entertainment Weekly
The Woman may be back for another fright, but Angel of Death doesn't haunt like it should.

Name : Bruce Demara / Alias : Toronto Star
She's back, the Woman in Black, and it does give one pause to wonder if it's for no better reason than to scare up some more box office lucre.

Name : Alonso Duralde / Alias : TheWrap
Director Tom Harper and screenwriter Jon Croker offer up plenty of atmosphere, but every good idea this sequel has to offer winds up taking a backseat to the most obvious cat-in-the-closet "BOO!" moments imaginable.

Name : Bilge Ebiri / Alias : New York Magazine/Vulture
It's a dour, drab, dark movie, enlivened by some moderately effective chills in the first half but ultimately undone by its downbeat aimlessness.

Name : Simon Abrams / Alias : Village Voice
Flawed but genuinely creepy ghost story The Woman in Black 2: Angel of Death is disappointing, but only because it comes close to greatness.

Name : Justin Lowe / Alias : Hollywood Reporter
The material feels stale from nearly the first scene featuring the threatening old manse.

Name : Jesse Hassenger / Alias : AV Club
Redundancy is about all it offers, despite an entirely new set of characters and a story set 40 years after the early 20th-century original.

Name : Scott Foundas / Alias : Variety
A handsomely made but dramatically inert and not very scary sequel to 2012's surprise-hit ($127 million worldwide) Edwardian chiller.

Name : Jordan Hoffman / Alias : New York Daily News
The 1940s setting gives the film's first half some unearned gravity, but by the end the jump-scares and rote plot frightens away the good will.

Name : Tom Huddleston / Alias : Time Out
Predictable shock tactics, drippy wartime romance and scenes in which the characters leaf tremulously through Victorian photo albums and spout exposition.

Name : Barbara VanDenburgh / Alias : Arizona Republic
It's a confident thriller suffused with dread that builds suspense without breaking until it's too late to turn back - with a few jump scares thrown in for good measure.

Name : Jon Frosch / Alias : Hollywood Reporter
Joel Edgerton's feature-length directorial debut is a pleasant - or pleasantly unpleasant - surprise, hitting its genre marks in brisk, unfussy fashion and raising a few hairs on the back of your neck along the way.

Name : Wesley Morris / Alias : Grantland
Officially, this is a blank-from-hell movie. But Edgerton has remixed the formula.

Name : Brad Wheeler / Alias : Globe and Mail
Edgerton's touch as a director and writer is fluid - he eerily holds our attention, like Hitchcock holds a door for Tippi Hedren.

Name : Peter Howell / Alias : Toronto Star
This indie pulse-raiser is more of a stealth shocker than an overt one, even if the twisted payoff is telegraphed to anyone paying attention.

Name : J. R. Jones / Alias : Chicago Reader
Edgerton - who also wrote The Square and the story for The Rover - exploits Bateman's smarty-pants persona to chilling effect; he's the rare triple threat who's more valuable behind the camera than in front of it.

Name : Stephen Holden / Alias : New York Times
Underneath it all, "The Gift" is a merciless critique of an amoral corporate culture in which the ends justify the means, and lying and cheating are O.K., as long as they're not found out.

Name : Scott Foundas / Alias : Variety
A coolly unsettling thriller that begins as an unironic homage to late-'80s/early-'90s yuppies-in-peril dramas. before taking a turn toward the moral and existential minefield of Michael Haneke's Cache.

Name : Sandy Cohen / Alias : Associated Press
A satisfying directorial debut from writer, producer and actor Joel Edgerton.

Name : Richard Roeper / Alias : Chicago Sun-Times
Just when we think we know where The Gift is going, we're surprised. And then surprised again.

Name : Sara Stewart / Alias : New York Post
A dark and ultimately quite nasty psychological thriller from actor/writer/debut director Joel Edgerton, who manages to yank the carpet out from under his audience a couple of times.

Name : James Berardinelli / Alias : ReelViews
Clever and atmospheric, the film has enough twists to keep the average viewer guessing.

Name : Joe Morgenstern / Alias : Wall Street Journal
One of the many gifts conferred by The Gift is the unaccustomed pleasure of feeling like putty in the hands of a first-rate storyteller.

Name : Katharine Pushkar / Alias : New York Daily News
Edgerton seems to have pulled "The Gift" right out of a time capsule from 1992.

Name : Michael Phillips / Alias : Chicago Tribune
At heart this is a three-character chamber piece. And Bateman, Hall and Edgerton are three very interesting actors showcased in a confident directorial debut.

Name : James Rocchi / Alias : TheWrap
Nothing here feels cheap or hasty, which is why the horror, when it comes, is all the more chilling and grim. Slick, sharp and terrifying, "The Gift" is a truly brilliant thriller - and, one hopes, the first of many features from Edgerton to come.

Name : Kevin P. Sullivan / Alias : Entertainment Weekly
More than anything, Edgerton's script and direction demonstrate a keen understanding of tension and what puts an audience on edge.

Name : Gary Goldstein / Alias : Los Angeles Times
A disturbing drama that twists its outsider-from-hell story into something more unique and unexpected than its marketing campaign might imply.

Name : A.A. Dowd / Alias : AV Club
Edgerton isn't above a hoary jump scare or two, but he otherwise tackles his Cape Fear premise with a degree of technical and dramatic intelligence.

Name : Adam Graham / Alias : Detroit News
It touches on notions of trust, the male ego and forgiveness, but Edgerton doesn't overturn any new stones.

Name : Mick LaSalle / Alias : San Francisco Chronicle
"The Gift" stretches things a little too much for it to be a first-rate thriller. Still, among second-rate thrillers, it's one of the best.

Name : Bilge Ebiri / Alias : New York Magazine/Vulture
The Gift starts out like so many other thrillers before it - with an attractive, well-to-do couple purchasing a big new house - and then beats its own, uniquely tense and twisted path from there.

Name : Peter Keough / Alias : Boston Globe
[An] expertly crafted exercise in guilt, ambiguity and revenge.

Name : Daisy Bowie-Sell / Alias : Time Out
A darkly unnerving psychological thriller.