Detention isn't exactly a great movie, but it's the only video game adaptation to set its sights on greatness.

Full Review | Aug 10, 2023

For the movie relays the important message of how we cannot afford to forget mankind's worst moments because they make us uncomfortable. Doing so only causes history to repeat itself.

Full Review | Original Score: 9/10 | Jul 20, 2023

The film mixes elements of monsters and haunted house scares with a political thriller to engage audiences. There are some odd narrative shifts and tonal changes but if you stick through to the end it all makes sense and is actually quite clever.

Full Review | Dec 17, 2021

In sidelining this sort of haughty regard for legalistic or precisely objective forms of truth, Procession sprints ahead of most nonfiction filmmaking -- and most journalism, too -- by actually contending with what counts.

Full Review | Dec 17, 2021

Looks fantastic, but ... never quite comes together in its conflicted impulses.

Full Review | Nov 1, 2021

For all the game's attention to the ways fear can become rooted in personal and collective psyches, this adaptation feels curiously depersonalized.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Oct 15, 2021

Interestingly enough, it is the film's very dedication in exploring character backstories and motivations that sets it apart from the original source material, that is Detention works better as a melodrama than as a horror movie.

Full Review | Original Score: B- | Oct 14, 2021

In gaming terms, this movie's characters find themselves on a screen where every move leads to a bottomless pit. The nightmare they're in is as existential as it is visceral.

Full Review | Oct 13, 2021

The horror of Detention resonates.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Oct 7, 2021

Cinematographer Li Hsien-chou deserves praise for the immersive way that he has recreated the atmosphere of the game, working with sparsely decorated sets.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Oct 7, 2021

The film is gripping, a nightmare to watch-literally almost the entire movie is a nightmare-with moving acting, directing and a powerful story.

Full Review | Sep 25, 2021

Detention delivers a stirring history lesson and an incisive commentary on the evils of authoritarianism, but its fractured and ride-the-rails ghost story does it no favors

Full Review | Original Score: C+ | Jan 29, 2021

This game adaptation may be no fun for the characters forced to face each additional horror, but it offers viewers a supernatural thrill facing off against the most menacing ghosts of history.

Full Review | Dec 27, 2020

At its best, Detention feels like a great throwback to the Tartan era of extreme Asian horror imports from the '00s. When it really shines it feels like an exciting reinvention of iconic ghost stories that came before.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 10, 2020

Where most video-game adaptations lean too heavily on the source material, Detention strays too far away, opting for a moody, non-captivating relationship drama over any sustained scares.

Full Review | Oct 23, 2020

Forgiveness and remembrance are intertwined in this powerful story. An apt heir to [Guillermo] del Toro at his most analytical, it's a stirring political fable dressed in the ghoulish weaves of a creepy monster flick.

Full Review | Oct 23, 2020

Adds up to a relatively enjoyable adaptation still miles above most other entries in the genre.

Full Review | Original Score: 6/10 | Oct 21, 2020

...the movie barely gets off the ground, because even the most casual horror fan can tell exactly what is happening here within the first 20 minutes, and Hsu's nonlinear narrative takes an eternity to arrive at a big reveal...

Full Review | Oct 19, 2020

A historically relevant tale conveying a message of freedom and redemption.

Full Review | Oct 15, 2020

The narrative of Detention is nearly nonexistent. And in the rare instances that the story took center stage, I had no idea what to make of it.

Full Review | Oct 15, 2020