Jackson's, um, thrilling story often falls into the usual plot holes of classic horror tales... but the scare factor is often limited by the improbability of certain scenarios.

| Mar 10, 2020

Like his writing, Jackson's direction is sterile, delivering tame, slasher-lite kills and matter-of-fact "thrills" with the aesthetic of an after-school special.

| Original Score: 2.2/5 | Sep 17, 2019

It's nothing we haven't seen before, plot-wise, but there are enough interesting performances and plot contortions to keep things interesting until the late-arriving mayhem hits the screen.

| Jun 14, 2019

A worthy stab at the slasher genre, then, but with old-school slayers like Halloween's Michael Myers and Child's Play devil-doll Chucky still enjoying regular makeovers, the bogeyman bar remains too high for this underpowered effort.

| Original Score: 2/5 | May 17, 2019

A chintzy, laborious dud of a film.

| Original Score: D- | May 1, 2019

All in all, Thriller is a fun horror film with a unique locational and casting paradigm we need to see more of in horror films.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 26, 2019

Above all, I adored the actors in this film.

| Apr 26, 2019

A haphazard assemblage of recycled parts from other, better horror movies.

| Apr 25, 2019

Thriller at best qualifies as an interesting attempt at bringing additional perspectives to horror. Given the potential of this particular niche of the horror genre, that also makes it quite the wasted opportunity.

| Original Score: 4.7/5 | Apr 22, 2019

Jackson isn't reinventing the genre here (in fact, the story wears its influences like "Halloween" and "Prom Night" directly on its sleeve), but he provides a talented young cast and some genuine scares to make this a fun watch.

| Apr 21, 2019

There's a distinct, admirable uniqueness to Thriller, even if the film's aspirations are held back by the tropes and cliches of a well-worn genre.

| Apr 21, 2019

This amateurish film feels like a bunch of loose ends, which is a shame, since a version of I Know What You Did Last Summer with a non-white cast in South Central Los Angeles sounds like a great idea.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Apr 20, 2019

Fans of this horror subgenre who are looking for something a little different, and a bit deeper, while still maintaining the slasher aesthetic, will enjoy Thriller.

| Apr 17, 2019

Maybe if Thriller had leaned more into its pulpier aspects, it wouldn't be so weighed down by the imbalanced social concerns.

| Apr 17, 2019

Thriller re-imagines the slasher movie from a modern black perspective, envisioning the boogeyman as just another young black man in a hoodie.

| Apr 15, 2019

The acting throughout Thriller is distractingly bad. The actors each say their descriptive lines, wait a beat, and then their scene partner says the next descriptive line. There's no flow and no chemistry.

| Original Score: 1.5/5 | Apr 15, 2019

Thriller attempts to bring a new perspective to a tried and true horror sub-genre, but it ultimately feels as generic as its title. Those who are familiar with Prom Night will pick out the killer's identity straight away, and the plot beats drag.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Apr 15, 2019

The long stretches between murders are filled in with material that keeps promising to take advantage of its specific milieu, but never actually does.

| Apr 15, 2019

If you're looking for an evening of simple satisfying horror then check it out - but think high school rather than college league., as this horror doesn't quite graduate.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Apr 14, 2019

delivers all the cat-and-mouse death by numbers that we expect of a standard slasher - but it simultaneously uses the Reagan-era subgenre as a distorting prism through which we can also glimpse an actual community killing itself in the here and now

| Apr 14, 2019