"It really helps when you feel genuinely sorry for the victims in a horror film, but when you have an anti-hero like Quaid whose sadistic actions are creative enough that you look forward to what he'll do next, you are kind of forced to be a hypocrite as a viewer. I'm sure DiBlasi was well aware of this when writing the screenplay. The result is a conflicting moral dynamic that works extremely well as an ongoing narrative hook. Dread is a solid genre effort with great production values. It's got a definite mean streak and it's not the kind of film that lets the viewer off easy at the end, but it's balanced out with characters who you get to know and actually give a shit about, so the toll of the experience is rewarding even if it's shocking, upsetting, and not exactly what I'd class as cathartic." - Paul McCannibal, Dread Central