Eleven reviews, all positive, and unusually united for a remake. Most critics say Kaufman’s 1978 version matches or improves on the 1956 original; a few call it as much a sequel as a rerun. The praise clusters on the move to San Francisco and what it lets the film say about post-Watergate distrust and Sixties idealism curdling into complacency. Denny Zeitlin’s layered score, the sound design, restrained effects and an ensemble led by Sutherland are all singled out, and several reviews rank it among the most frightening American films of its decade.
The spread is narrow; nobody dislikes it, and the cooler notices simply admire it a little less. The New York Times finds it dazzling but showy, closer to an affectionate joke on the material than straight horror, and Time Out reads it as a knowing Movie Brat exercise toying with psychology and ecology. The rest take the fear at face value.