38
As titillating novelty turns into tired cliche, the dyke-psycho-killer genre may soon burn itself out, but in the meantime, we have the grim Brit art-film variation on the gruesome genre, Butterfly Kiss.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
90
From its opening shots, Butterfly Kiss exudes a confidence and distinctive feel that promises something rather special. Unlike its characters, the pic knows where it's going.
88
San Francisco Chronicle by Edward Guthmann
Plummer gives her strangest, most uninhibited screen performance to date. Playing Eunice, a wildly psychotic killer with a working-class British accent and a mysterious past, Plummer draws a streak of white-hot rage across the screen.
75
There's a layer of grim comedy in Butterfly Kiss. But what's exciting about it is its gritty way of remaining so uncompromisingly bleak in its psychopathology. [7 Jun 1996, p.58]
83
The final effect is less haunting than was probably intended, but Butterfly Kiss is worth a look.
80
Los Angeles Times by Kevin Thomas
The filmmakers set themselves to the daunting task of involving us in two people they couldn't remotely ask us to like or care about. But Plummer and Reeves create two profoundly damaged and dangerous people with such wit, insight and comprehension that if you're so disposed you can actually see in them your own frustrations, anger and capacity for denial and easy rationalization.
67
Austin Chronicle by Marjorie Baumgarten
For the first time in her film career, Plummer really owns the movie. Plummer's habitation of the character of Eunice in Butterfly Kiss is a creation that sears itself permanently into the viewer's consciousness, though it's possible that, ultimately, you may wish the memory to be quite otherwise.
88
Chicago Sun-Times by Roger Ebert
The performances have a gravity about them that is unusual in the movies. How you respond to Butterfly Kiss depends on what you bring to it, and how much empathy you are willing to extend to these sad and horrifying women.
70
The New York Times by Stephen Holden
Where most movies portraying sociopathic behavior make some attempt at psychological explanation, Butterfly Kiss offers no background to Eunice's craziness. As she throws herself furiously through a bleak highway landscape of anonymous gas stations and convenience stores, she appears to be a self-created avenging demon radiating a powerful but loopy charisma.