Joshua Rothkopf

The film is tangled in its mess of references: a possession thriller that also wants to dish out some grainy video footage à la “The Ring” or “Bring Her Back” along with the expected mouth-to-mouth vomiting.

It’s a movie about a citizenry at war with itself, hoping to keep the plates spinning for one more night. You watch it and think how easy it would be to envision an American remake — and wonder, too, if a filmmaker like Lapid even exists here.

There isn’t much of an original signature here. Returning director Dan Trachtenberg hits the beats competently but not too stridently, like a good superfan should.

A film this well-made and cut (the pacy editing by Aden Hakimi calls back to the elder Romero’s own cutting of his major titles) shouldn’t be relegated to just one kind of audience. Anyone who appreciates horror should find something to smile at here.

More testimony to the experience of eating at Nobu would have helped this feel less like a commercial.

This isn’t the kind of puzzle thriller in which all the elements click into place with a thudding literalism that compliments an attentive eye. It’s one that accommodates the vagaries of human behavior, leaving punishment aside as a secondary concern.

A timid, far-from-revelatory film, authorized by the three surviving Zeppelin vets and graced by their presence in new interviews that give off the faint scent of impatience.

Superfans aren’t necessarily going to love this. It’s a movie made with affection, but also with the wisdom that visionaries can sometimes be jerks.

The potent image-making and performative ferocity turns what could have been a crime thriller into a near-metaphysical showdown.

A miraculously subtle piece of work.