No one would pretend that Blood Relatives is vintage Chabrol, nor that it is a profound meditation on sexual relations and the family, sexual taboos and society. But Chabrol has more ability than anyone, within the framework of the thriller, to provoke the odd reflection in his audience, and strangely enough the ironical gaze he directs at our assumptions about what the decent thing is, and who's doing it, is what stays with you afterwards, more than the rather tame unravellings of the thriller plot. (pp. 512-13)

[The] central weakness is the inexperienced lovers, the flashbacks to whose affair seem interminably dull. That apart, there are all Chabrol's other skills to relish: the bloody handprints on a glass door; his and Jean Rabier's use of the camera to create suspense or suspicion; his flair for witty detail…. (p. 513)

Gavin Millar, "Family Love" (© Gavin Millar, 1978; reprinted by permission of...