StokerMovie Reviews

Stoker Showtimes + Tickets

So-so

Avg. Critic Score: 58 out of 100 Mixed or average reviews Metascore^® based on all critic reviews

Information for Parents:

not for kids

Read Common Sense Media review

Critic scores range from 0 to 100, with higher scores indicating more favorable reviews.

88

Chicago Sun-Times |
The chilling and stylish and aggressively creepy Stoker begins at the end and takes us on a shocking and lurid journey before we land right where we started, now seeing every small detail through a different lens. It's disturbingly good. Read full review
80

NPR | Scott Tobias
For as long as Park and Wasikowska keep it burbling, it's an intoxicating brew. Read full review
80

The Hollywood Reporter | John DeFore
Park's unsettling visuals and his handling of the cast make the occasional holes in Wentworth Miller's script practically irrelevant. Read full review
75

Philadelphia Inquirer | Steven Rea
A beautifully twisted, slow-burning psychothriller that may or may not all be taking place inside India's head. Read full review
75

Rolling Stone | Peter Travers
Stoker is Park's darkly funny, deliciously depraved riff on Hitchcock's "Shadow of a Doubt." Read full review
75

Boston Globe | Ty Burr
The performances are excellent, but it’s the direction that lifts the movie up and spins it around. Like Hitchcock, Park storyboards everything ahead of time, and while that level of control might seem claustrophobic in theory, it ends up freeing Stoker to sail into zones of malevolent visual sensuality. Read full review
42

Entertainment Weekly | Owen Gleiberman
The movie wants to be Hitchcockian, but it's the flat-footed Hitchcock of "Marnie" that Park evokes. His filmmaking here is hermetic and lugubrious, with each physical movement meaninglessly heightened and every line hanging in the air with (empty) significance. Read full review
40

New York Daily News | Joe Neumaier
Stoker is like the baby David Lynch and Tim Burton had, then left on the doorstep of the Addams Family. Full of heavingly gorgeous images that envelop a viewer before smothering them, its maddening elements eventually become too much to bear. Read full review
40

Wall Street Journal | Joe Morgenstern
Spontaneity has been banished by rigid stylization, and the net effect is as lifeless as a severed head that turns up in a basement freezer. Read full review
25

San Francisco Chronicle | Mick LaSalle
The movie reveals itself as not merely dull, but pointless. Read full review

Metacritic link View more reviews for Stoker on Metacritic

Information for Parents

Common Sense Media says not for kids Stylish but gruesomely violent thriller riffs on Hitchcock.

What Parents Need to Know Parents need to know that Stoker is a dark thriller that riffs on Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt and has nothing to do with Dracula author Bram Stoker. The movie is filled with gruesome murders and lots of blood, including spraying, spattering, and dribbling down a wall. Characters are strangled; others are killed with hunting rifles, rocks to the head, and pruning shears to the neck. There's some strong, somewhat dark sexual innuendo. A teen girl masturbates in the shower (a nipple and buttocks are shown), and there are kissing scenes with both teens and adults. One adult character drinks wine regularly and perhaps overindulges a bit too often. A teen girl gulps a glass of wine. Language is sparse, with only a use of "bitch." The movie is very stylish and non-realistic, and teen movie buffs -- especially those familiar with director Park Chan-wook's Korean films -- will be interested in seeing it. But it's recommended only for the most mature viewers.

Families can talk about Stoker's violence. How does it work within the context of the story? Could it have been less gruesome?
What is India's relationship with her mother like? How do they communicate? How could they improve their communication?
Does India seem too young to be so sexualized? What message does her character send teens who might see the movie?

The good stuff

Positive messages: A teen girl learns to handle herself in tough situations, though her choices aren't always right -- or healthy.
Positive role models: The characters mostly indulge in illegal/immoral/base activities -- murder, sex, etc.

What to watch for

Violence: Several murders, each one seemingly more grisly and brutal than the one before it. A woman is strangled. A man receives a rifle blast to the head, with a huge, dripping blood smear on the wall (plus a puddle of blood underneath his body). A man is stabbed with pruning shears and sprays blood everywhere. A man is bashed in the head with a rock, with blood spatters. A bully picks on a teen girl; he feigns punching her in the face, and she stabs him with a pencil. A teen boy is strangled, and a teen girl repeatedly kicks him while he's down. A small boy is killed by being buried in the sand, though this isn't shown on screen. A dead body is found in a freezer.
Sexy stuff: A teen girl masturbates (implied) in the shower while fantasizing about a murder that has previously occurred. Her buttocks are shown during this sequence, and one nipple is briefly seen. Two adults kiss, and the man caresses the woman's breast through her clothing. Two teens kiss, and the girl bites the boy's tongue. An older man and his niece play piano together, and the scene is played for eroticism. The girl begins breathing heavily from excitement. In an art class, viewers see a drawing of a naked girl (shown from behind).
Language: A bully uses the word "bitch" in one scene. Another character calls him an "a-hole."
Consumerism: Not an issue
Drinking, drugs and smoking: A teen girl gulps a glass of wine. Her mother is shown to be drinking wine quite often and is perhaps a tiny bit tipsy in some scenes. It's possible that she could either be drowning her sorrows and frustrations -- or she could have a drinking problem.

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