Name : Ignatiy Vishnevetsky / Alias : AV Club
Still Alice is rarely anything short of compelling, in part because its sense of progression and scale offers such a distinctively unsentimental take on the terminal-countdown tearjerker.

Name : Rex Reed / Alias : New York Observer
Thanks to this brave and gutsy actress' overwhelming candor and sincerity, you go away feeling educated, enlightened and more compassionate than you can possibly imagine.

Name : Peter Rainer / Alias : Christian Science Monitor
Simultaneously rawly realistic and airbrushed.

Name : A.O. Scott / Alias : New York Times
Still Alice is a movie that addresses a nightmarish circumstance with calm, compassionate sensitivity.

Name : Kenneth Turan / Alias : Los Angeles Times
Losing your mind is a terrible thing to watch, but the splendid acting in "Still Alice" makes it worth the pain.

Name : Peter Debruge / Alias : Variety
Julianne Moore guides us through the tragic arc of how it must feel to disappear before one's own eyes, accomplishing one of her most powerful performances by underplaying the scenario .

Name : Christy Lemire / Alias : RogerEbert.com
With a combination of power and grace, Julianne Moore elevates "Still Alice" above its made-for-cable-television trappings, and delivers one of the more memorable performances of her career.

Name : Andrew O'Hehir / Alias : Salon.com
It's a way better movie than it ought to be, but not good enough to escape its pulpy, mendacious roots.

Name : Dana Stevens / Alias : Slate
Glatzer and Westmoreland don't need to stack the emotional deck on Alice's behalf . They just leave the camera on Moore's beautiful but increasingly faraway face, and our tears come on their own.

Name : Deborah Young / Alias : Hollywood Reporter
The toll the disease takes on the life of a brilliant linguistics professor is superbly detailed by Julianne Moore in a career-high performance, driving straight to the terror of the disease and its power to wipe out personal certainties and identity.

Name : Claudia Puig / Alias : USA Today
Moore's portrayal of 50-year-old Alice Howland, adapted from Lisa Genova's 2007 novel, is one of the best of her career.

Name : David Ehrlich / Alias : Time Out New York
The rare film possessed with the courage required to shine a light into that abyss knowing full well that down is the only way out.

Name : David Thomson / Alias : The New Republic
Julianne Moore is extraordinary at revealing the gradual loss of memory and confidence, and at showing the hulk of physical persistence that remains after intellect and reference have gone.

Name : Elizabeth Weitzman / Alias : New York Daily News
"Still Alice" is hampered by both an unimaginative script and ordinary direction, but it's a serious Oscar contender. Why? Because Julianne Moore is in the lead.

Name : Wesley Morris / Alias : Grantland
If only the movie were as good as [Moore] and Stewart are.

Name : Stephen Whitty / Alias : Newark Star-Ledger
Moore has been a fine actress for a long time and "Still Alice" gives her a remarkable role, and the space to truly live it.

Name : Michael O'Sullivan / Alias : Washington Post
An effective if flawed psychological thriller, a modest campfire story with a solid, genuinely startling twist that is likely to restore the faith of some of [Shyamalan's] critics.

Name : Alan Scherstuhl / Alias : Village Voice
The best studio horror flick in recent years, combining the but-what's-in-those-shadows? immersion of The Conjuring, James Wan's basement-wandering simulator, with the crack scripting and meta-cinematic surprises of Shyamalan's best early films.

Name : Richard Roeper / Alias : Chicago Sun-Times
Alas, it's a dopey, only mildly chilling, uneasy mix of horror and dark comedy, scoring few points in either category.

Name : Moira MacDonald / Alias : Seattle Times
It's creepy, sure, but not very enjoyable, basement or no.

Name : Richard Brody / Alias : New Yorker
For all its intelligence and craft, M. Night Shyamalan's foray into the genre of found-footage horror has the feeling of homework done well.

Name : James Rocchi / Alias : TheWrap
Startling but never terrifying, "The Visit" may make a little money, but it does not mark a return to long-lost greatness for Shyamalan. It's more of the same, presented on a smaller, cheaper canvas where you can see every flaw all the more clearly.

Name : Brad Wheeler / Alias : Globe and Mail
I hear Hollywood whispers. I feel something is amiss. I see dead directorial reputations. And I smell a comeback.

Name : Ignatiy Vishnevetsky / Alias : AV Club
Following a creative low period that found the director trying his hand at effects-driven fantasy and sci-fi, it can't help but come across as a comeback.

Name : Manohla Dargis / Alias : New York Times
The director M. Night Shyamalan has a fine eye and a nice, natural way with actors, and he has a talent for gently rap-rap-rapping on your nerves.

Name : Randy Myers / Alias : San Jose Mercury News
Frightfully fun, with Shyamalan relentless toying with us and cramming in horror genre references.

Name : Stephen Whitty / Alias : Newark Star-Ledger
While the production values are simple, the script is sneakily complex. Like the best horror merchants, Shyamalan exploits our secret fears - in this case, of old age, ill health and dementia.

Name : Wesley Morris / Alias : Grantland
It was fun watching this with a gasping and screaming audience. For horror-goers, the comparative competence must hit the spot. But there's nothing new here - and what I sensed for 94 minutes was compromise.

Name : Rene Rodriguez / Alias : Miami Herald
Here is a movie in which old people are scary because they're senile and icky and incontinent and do baffling things. And they're, you know, so old and wrinkly.

Name : Clark Collis / Alias : Entertainment Weekly
Suffice to say that the result is an effective scare machine and a semi-return to form for its creator.

Name : Cary Darling / Alias : Fort Worth Star-Telegram/DFW.com
The Visit is lightweight and doesn't have the emotional resonance of The Sixth Sense, but it's a welcome return to form for a director who seemed doomed to a future of remembering better days.

Name : Randy Cordova / Alias : Arizona Republic
A scary fun-house ride that expertly blends jittery tension and laugh-out-loud humor, it will make you forgive the filmmaker for such major time-wasters as "Lady in the Water," "After Earth" and "The Happening."

Name : David Edelstein / Alias : New York Magazine/Vulture
An unoriginal faux-doc horror picture that actually works like a demonic charm.

Name : Tom Huddleston / Alias : Time Out
The result is a bizarre, conflicted mess, horrifying when it's trying to be funny, oddly appealing when it turns the screws.

Name : Peter Hartlaub / Alias : San Francisco Chronicle
Much like Shyamalan's flawed/interesting films "Signs" and "The Village," the filmmaker promises more than he can deliver.

Name : Peter Travers / Alias : Rolling Stone
Not in the same league as The Sixth Sense, but Shyamalan ends a long dry spell with The Visit. No spoilers, except to say that cheap thrills can still be a blast.

Name : Steve Tilley / Alias : Toronto Sun
Fortunately, The Visit has a lot of (intentional!) laughs between the creepy bits and jump scares, and never takes itself too seriously.

Name : Sara Stewart / Alias : New York Post
Dunagan and McRobbie have a blast in their respective roles, alternating between everyday grandparent oddities and behavior that wouldn't be out of place at the Overlook Hotel. And overall, the young duo makes an affable pair of narrators.

Name : Colin Covert / Alias : Minneapolis Star Tribune
By remaining a smartly staged thriller rather than a formula shocker, it does quite well with precisely what it set out to do: play on all our fears like a Steinway grand piano.

Name : Steven Rea / Alias : Philadelphia Inquirer
Isn't the whole handheld "real-video" thing kind of old by now? Isn't the Shyamalanian-twist thing kind of old by now, too?

Name : Michael Sragow / Alias : Los Angeles Times
The honorable tradition of American moviemakers wringing laughs and gasps from bucolic lunatics dates back to "Murder, He Says" (1945). Unfortunately, "The Visit" isn't part of it.

Name : Brian Truitt / Alias : USA Today
The low-budget thriller deftly mixes horror-movie moments, pure strangeness and comedy like a family-friendly David Lynch effort as it takes audiences on one really oddball trip to grandma's house.

Name : Bruce Demara / Alias : Toronto Star
M. Night Shyamalan's latest film may well have been his last chance at redemption. Fortunately, he rises to the challenge and makes The Visit good, scary fun.

Name : Geoff Berkshire / Alias : Variety
Even if there's less chance the audience will burst out in fits of inappropriate chuckles, as was often the case in, say, "The Happening" or "Lady in the Water," Shyamalan still can't quite pull off the delicate tonal balance he's after.

Name : James Berardinelli / Alias : ReelViews
Despite a promising premise and effective "Shyamalan twist", this low-budget horror film still underwhelms.

Name : Christopher Orr / Alias : The Atlantic
It is with some surprise-and perhaps even a hint of disappointment-that I must report that The Visit is merely mediocre and not the breathtaking calamity that we've come to anticipate from its author.

Name : Ben Sachs / Alias : Chicago Reader
[Shyamalan's] manipulation of tone is impressive - he gets you to laugh at the grandparents' strange behavior, only to shift gears into horror when you least expect it.

Name : Tom Russo / Alias : Boston Globe
A relentlessly tense journey into the bizarre, with jolts that linger and some nicely played melancholy. What's more, the movie is often surprisingly, wickedly funny .

Name : Tom Long / Alias : Detroit News
There's undeniable fun in watching a couple of veteran actors get strange with two newcomers. "The Visit" may be worth one.

Name : Peter Hall / Alias : New York Daily News
A messed-up fairy tale that often nails the sweet spot between scaring us and letting us laugh at how scared we are. It's crowd-pleasing horror, the kind that can push moviegoers to the edge of their seats and send them to the water cooler the next day.