This overblown, yet strangely immersive Faustian tale takes the narrative foundations of a Shakespearean tragedy and forces them through a Gothic filter with erratic results.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 8, 2019

This is a fascinating character study about spirituality and religious responsibility that smartly doesn't take its more melodramatic elements very seriously.

| Mar 29, 2013

Dominik Moll never addresses Matthew Gregory Lewis's original groundbreaking ideas in The Monk, nor does he rework the material for a contemporary audience.

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | Mar 8, 2013

A work whose elegant atmospherics ultimately overwhelm the story, even with the terrific Vincent Cassel in the title role.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Mar 7, 2013

What repulsed Coleridge in the novel clearly amuses the French director Dominik Moll in his diverting if somewhat thin adaptation.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 7, 2013

By the end, "The Monk" has revealed itself to be a too- predictable potboiler, served piping hot.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Mar 7, 2013

Not to be mistaken for a serious treatment of religious fervor or clerical corruption, "The Monk" is instead a knowingly over-the-top bit of gothic nuttiness.

| Original Score: B | Mar 7, 2013

A beautiful-looking film that portends disaster. And disaster arrives, eventually. It just takes its time getting there.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Mar 7, 2013

Not bad for a robe-ripper along the lines of The Thorn Birds, but Diary of a Country Priest it ain't.

| Mar 7, 2013

It's garish and crazy (and in French), so it's probably not for everyone. But I can't imagine anyone getting bored.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Mar 7, 2013

"The Monk" is, first and foremost, a classy B-movie, keen to offer Gothic atmosphere, nudity, and mild shocks.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Mar 7, 2013

There's always room for another adaptation of Matthew Lewis's 1795 scandal-igniting ur-Gothic novel, and this lavish French turn positively seethes with the strain of Christian sex-dread and debauchery.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 5, 2013

The finale, in which godly rites are juxtaposed against the vilest of sins, builds to an unholy power.

| Mar 5, 2013

Adaptation of gothic classic pleases the eye but ultimately disappoints.

| Mar 4, 2013

Moll's careful direction ensures a balance of the supernatural and the temporal - Ambrosio could either be seen as a victim of demonic forces within his own monastery or the sole architect of his moral downfall.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 18, 2012

Vincent Cassel does his utmost to make his character intense and compelling, but negligible character development means he fails to hold our interest.

| Original Score: 2/5 | May 3, 2012

All talk, no action, The Monk looks good but is weighed down by the Catholic guilt it's trying to critique.

| Original Score: 2/5 | May 2, 2012

Studded with lovely painterly images, but ends up feeling cramped and stagey.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 30, 2012

The movie broods like nobody's business, setting us up for a temptingly black slab of cassocks-off ecclesiastical depravity.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 28, 2012

A rather dull offering - tasteful horror for the carriage trade.

| Apr 28, 2012