Critic Reviews

Clifton Hill becomes just as thrilling and disturbing as its titular strip of haunted houses and fading-fast motels.

Middleton plays Abby with a pleasing note of vulnerability that is often supplanted by a nagging anticipation she’ll tip off the edge. She and Gross have smooth chemistry as estranged sisters.

Where Disappearance at Clifton Hill really excels is in exploring the visual and sonic textures of a decaying resort, and in hailing the plucky resourcefulness of a broken woman, trying to piece her memories — and maybe herself — back together.

This is a standard unsolved mystery drama, the type that would be quite at home on a small-screen police procedural. The setting certainly adds to its interest, but even when the boy’s fate is (seemingly) explained, it is difficult to care.

What distinguishes the film from much of its ilk is Albert Shin’s ongoing taste for peculiar and unsettling details.

But for all its vividly detailed eccentricity, the movie, like Abby, connects the dots rather too easily. As Clifton Hill digs deeper into exceedingly sordid stuff, it doesn't dish up the kind of aha moments or chilling frissons that would lift the story from clever contrivance — until a final, delicious twist pulls the rug out from under this richly atmospheric but not always convincing tale.

For patient or forgiving fans of idiosyncratic thrillers, “Disappearance” may deliver satisfactory spills and chills.

Tonally confusing ... For all its strange and specific flavor, "Clifton Hill" is too tame and tepid to truly work as weird noir.

Shin’s film gets tangled up in its own web. ... His film leaves a vivid impression without quite leaving a mark.

A muddled mystery-thriller that’s something of a wash, one that director-turned-actor David Cronenberg all but steals.