Slant Magazine by Carson Lund

Its utter indulgence in esoterica paradoxically leaves it most vulnerable to the beating heart of this great artist of self-therapy.

The Telegraph by Tim Robey

In emulating the two-strip Technicolor process, it creates a look that’s scratchy and primitive, but also, through the peculiar alchemy of Maddin’s craft, eerily rich and dreamlike, with the depth of an oceanic abyss.

The A.V. Club by Mike D'Angelo

For those attuned to Maddin’s goofy sense of humor, it’s easily the funniest movie he’s ever made—a series of several dozen comic shorts strung together on a ludicrous clothesline. The only downside is that the experience, at just shy of two hours, can be a trifle exhausting.

The Playlist by Rodrigo Pérez

The Forbidden Room is a cinephile’s delight, another Maddin dream fantasia that’s visually distressed, suffused in feverish melodrama, and strangely poetic. Surrender yourself to its demented genius. The Forbidden Room will trap you in its bewitching spell, and you’ll be better for it.

Screen Daily

The Forbidden Room is a tour de force that takes Maddin’s ambition through a maze of magical melodrama.

Screen International

The Forbidden Room is a tour de force that takes Maddin’s ambition through a maze of magical melodrama.

Screen Daily by David D'Arcy

The Forbidden Room is a tour de force that takes Maddin’s ambition through a maze of magical melodrama.

Los Angeles Times by Sheri Linden

This exercise in beauty, derangement and memory can be contemplative or silly. Often it's both, in just the right proportions.

New York Post by Lou Lumenick

Charlotte Rampling, Geraldine Chaplin and Mathieu Amalric contribute cameo appearances in the The Forbidden Room, a visual feast that may be a bit overwhelming for those unfamiliar with Maddin’s work.

RogerEbert.com by Peter Sobczynski

Even by Maddin's standards, it is a pretty wild ride in all aspects, starting with its very concept.

Village Voice by Scott Tobias

The experience is two-thirds thrilling to one-third enervating, a winning ratio for what's essentially a tightly curated anthology film.

The Hollywood Reporter by Todd McCarthy

With no through-story or strong continuity to hold it together, the film does go on a bit and becomes repetitive; it's hard to remain stimulated by the same techniques, however imaginative, at such length without some connective dramatic tissue.... Still, for cinephiles and aficionados of the singular, The Forbidden Room represents a very particular kind of feast.

The Guardian by Jordan Hoffman

Maddin’s zeal for old cameras and stocks is matched only by his revelry in evoking an entire genre with a single image. The film’s apogee literally opens up The Book of Climax in a sequence of pure, knowing cinematic joy. Film-lovers, this ludicrous movie is for you.

CineVue by Patrick Gamble

The Forbidden Room (2015) is Maddin's aesthetic nearing critical mass, a whimsical, genre-spanning opus that demonstrates the totality of his enigmatic style.

The New York Times by Stephen Holden

On one viewing, at least, it is a typically impenetrable Maddin film: zany one minute, pompous the next. Ardent Maddin admirers, of whom I am not one, might discern a grand design of what often feels like a post-Freudian horror comedy.

Variety by Dennis Harvey

Delightful and ingenious as much of this is on a moment-to-moment basis, it becomes somewhat wearying over the long haul.