Puig felt that the killing scenes ended up too drawn out, noting the system was down to heighten the impact, but essentially will come across a lot more as "repugnant and fetishized violence". Joe Neumaier of the New York Daily News was in arrangement with Puig when he referred to the movie as "stomach-churningly anti-human" because of its violence, and questioned why Goldwyn and Potter even signed on to the movie.