SOURCE: Rainer, Peter. “Torture, Revenge, Death and the Maiden.” Los Angeles Times (23 December 1994): F16.

In the following review, Rainer observes that Death and the Maiden is “an expert piece of claustrophobic cinema” but comments that the film is ultimately ineffective due to its overly schematic and self-important tone.

Death and the Maiden is about the consequences of torture, and it never lets up. Essentially a three-character drama in a single location, it's an expert piece of claustrophobic cinema, but after a while you may want to break away from it. The film bears down on the audience with an almost sadistic relish. It's an unsettling experience, but not a particularly rich one. It's too schematic and self-important for that.

Ariel Dorfman's play, produced on Broadway in 1992 and from which the film is adapted, has its roots in the playwright's exile from Chile in 1973 during the coup that overthrew...