Coma

Crichton's excellent adaptation of Robin Cook's novel is one of the most intelligent sci-fi thrillers in years. A simple enough story, but one told in such chilling fashion that visitors to hospitals will never feel the same again.

Coma is an extremely entertaining suspense drama in the Hitchcock tradition. Robin Cook's novel is adapted by Crichton into a smartly paced tale which combines traditional Hitchcock elements with contemporary personal relationships.

A suspense-filled nailbiter that plays on a fear no weapon weilding psycho can top.

The scenes inside the Institute have a chill, spectral beauty, yet the spookiness doesn't explode. The movie seems a little too cultivated, too cautious.

COMA wastes a superb performance by Bujold on a simplistic, predictable series of cliched suspense scenes, seasoned with some last-minute moralizing about contemporary medicine.

Shorn of its medical shock value, Coma is nothing more than Nancy Drew Goes to Surgery, a creaky blend of red herrings, ominous stares, stale cliff-hangers and doom-laden music. [06 Feb 1978, p.86]

Plausibility is not always important, but in a film as bereft of distinctive style and wit as Coma, it helps to believe in something. It can even help if one is offended. The aftereffect of Coma is a catlike yawn, benign and bored.