90
Village Voice by Alan Scherstuhl
The film is fascinating, even if you're resistant to this dark star's gravity.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
50
The New York Times by Jeannette Catsoulis
This disordered portrait seems heavily influenced by its equally jumbled setting.
70
The Hollywood Reporter by John DeFore
Digging around in the crannies of his highly unusual home but never becoming intrusive, the doc feels like it was made by a friend, in a good way.
58
What’s perhaps most telling about the artist himself is a later-in-life project he builds in his cluttered backyard, a sort of funhouse ride through his own psyche.
60
Content to let his work speak for itself, Giger has little to add to the conversation, and while it’s intriguing to see him working in—or sometimes just ambling through—a house filled with his work and sources of inspiration, Sallin too often lets these scenes crowd out the story she’s trying to tell.
63
Slant Magazine by Kenji Fujishima
It weaves through past and present, memories and reality, analysis and history, like a mercurial mind reminiscing seemingly at random.
60
Los Angeles Times by Martin Tsai
Dark Star might have been more fascinating had Sallin delved deeper into his place as an artist.
63
The film fails to represent how singular and influential the late Giger is in popular culture.
75
RogerEbert.com by Simon Abrams
It's also genuinely warm and involving because of the participation of everyone from Carmen Vega, Giger's widow, to Sandra Berretta, Giger's former assistant and self-described "life partner." The film is, in that sense, an effective memorial, one filmed after Giger himself admitted that he had said all he wanted to say in his art.
50
San Francisco Chronicle by Walter Addiego
By showing so many examples of his art, the film attests to Giger’s real gift for startling images. But it’s hard not to see, in addition, elements of repetitive adolescent provocation.