White Noise: The Canada/U.K./U.S. copro may have topped its Canuck competition at the box office, but critics have turned a cold shoulder to the supernatural thriller about snowy TV screens. The script’s ‘gaping holes and paranormal hooey’ are the biggest problem, says The New York Times’ Manohla Dargis, consisting as it does of ‘crude gee-whizzikers scares, cribbed from the horror canon,’ adds Entertainment Weekly. The Toronto Star’s Geoff Pevere credits debut director Geoffrey Sax for the pic’s sense of ‘isolated, insomniac, noctural paranoia’ and notes, as does Liz Braun at the Toronto Sun, that Michael Keaton holds up well in the lead.

The Hollywood Reporter also nods to the capable work of both DOP Chris Seager and editor Nick Arthurs, but can’t get past the sluggish third act and its nearly ‘pure hokem’ story.