Metacritic reviews

A resolutely offbeat film which offers a richly rewarding and affecting viewing experience if you’re willing to embrace it’s esoteric flourishes.

The supporting cast is excellent, especially Scott Wilson as an astronaut who flipped out on the launching pad and aborted his mission. Offbeat, visionary, and challenging.

Demented disquisitions on Catholic theology vie for supremacy with camp humor and horror-movie conventions, leading to a conclusion that somehow manages to conflate The Wild Angels and The Passion of Joan of Arc.

Heavy but fascinating creepy drama, that lacks pace in the first half but has some genuinely thrilling moments.

The Ninth Configuration is an often confusing story concerning the effects of a new 'doctor' on an institution for crazed military men which manages to effectively tie itself together in the end. Problem is the William Peter Blatty film takes entirely too long to explain itself.

The Ninth Configuration is neither frightening nor funny nor inspiring, although it strains to be all of these. [30 Sep 1985, p.3C]

It takes on the overtones not of an awful movie, but of an awful play.

A kind of Invasion of the Body Snatchers meets Catch-22, or maybe Fuller's Shock Corridor set as an episode from The Twilight Zone. Sounds interesting enough, but isn't.