A great premise poorly executed, and an absolute shame for fans of gothic horror.

Full Review | Original Score: D- | Jul 13, 2025

Lucile Hadžihalilović continues her streak of crafting nightmarish fever-dream-esque films with her latest, “Earwig,” which is a weird film that does take its time to settle down, but when it does, it’s pretty fascinating.

Full Review | Original Score: B- | Sep 8, 2024

The magic of Hadzihalilovic’s Earwig comes in the form of its suggestion that viewers abandon their expectations and preconceptions about what cinema should be and what a story can be.

Full Review | Jan 9, 2024

Earwig had the potential to be an interesting movie, with a mysterious concept, but it’s beyond conceivable for all the wrong reasons.

Full Review | Sep 8, 2023

Despite its oblique, even bizarre effect, Earwig is an unforgettably haunting film experience.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 15, 2023

Lucile Hadzihalilovic’s grim fairy tale is titled after a tiny, burrowing insect, and like its namesake it furiously digs its way into your consciousness.

Full Review | Dec 8, 2022

Hadzihalilovic is one of the very few filmmakers who actually qualifies as “Lynchian,” and I hope she comes back around more often.

Full Review | Nov 28, 2022

With her cabinet-of-curiosities sensibility somewhere between the Brothers Quay and Edward Gorey—albeit without much humor—Hadzihalilovic invariably casts a spell in immaculately realized aesthetic terms.

Full Review | Oct 21, 2022

... Mysterious, sinister and hypnotic. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Oct 4, 2022

Portending great things for the director, Earwig is somber and quiet, a canvas exquisitely painted with the talents of cinematographer Jonathan Ricquebourg, and with something undeniably effective about its creepiest moments.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 19, 2022

In Earwig, Hadžihalilović develops the limited but intense motifs, themes, and style that marked her previous features, such as Evolution and Innocence.

Full Review | Jul 29, 2022

“Earwig” teeters on the brink of ennui for most of its taxing two-hour running time, asking us to care about characters the film hasn’t really defined.

Full Review | Jul 19, 2022

There’s something essential missing from Earwig and it’s not for want of inspiration or creativity. Hadžihalilović's latest is both too hazy to make a great adaptation and too focused to be genuinely dream-like.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jul 15, 2022

Well-shot, but frustrating, tedious and shallow. Style over substance.

Full Review | Jul 15, 2022

Earwig is certainly a welcome return, but not a terribly memorable one, its more striking, unconventional images and narrative subversions disempowered in their servitude to vague and clichéd thematic material.

Full Review | Jul 14, 2022

There is something about human teeth in movies that is inherently creepy.

Full Review | Original Score: B+ | Jul 14, 2022

The experience of watching the film... can feel like being hypnotized by disturbingly palpable still lifes from the unconscious realm.

Full Review | Jul 14, 2022

While Earwig opens with an ear in close-up, this is a call to listen out for more than just language -- to Warren Ellis’ eldritch use of the ondes Martenot on the score, for instance, or for the sounds of smashing glass.

Full Review | Jun 23, 2022

A victory for cinematic ambience, then, if not actual storytelling.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 23, 2022

Modish homages aside, Earwig demands constant revisiting.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 13, 2022