In a 1992 story in the Chicago Tribune, some high-profile black filmmakers expressed their disappointment that the film seemed to perpetuate several racist stereotypes. "There's no question that this film plays on white middle-class fears of black people," director Carl Franklin (Out of Time (2003), Il diavolo in blu (1995)) said. "It unabashedly uses racial stereotypes and destructive myths to create shock. I found it hokey and unsettling. It didn't work for me because I don't share those fears, buy into those myths." Reginald Hudlin, who directed House Party (1990), Il principe delle donne (1992), and Marcia per la libertà (2017), described the film as "worrisome," though he didn't want to speak on the record about his specific issues with the film. "I've gotten calls about [the movie], but I think I'm going to reserve comment," he said. "Some of my friends are in it and I may someday want to work for TriStar." For Bernard Rose, those assessments may have been hard to hear, as his goal in adapting Clive Barker's story and directing it was to upend the myths about inner cities. "[T]he tradition of oral storytelling is very much alive, especially when it's a scary story," he told The Independent. "And the biggest urban legend of all for me was the idea that there are places in cities where you do not go, because if you go in them something dreadful will happen--not to say that there isn't danger in ghettos and inner city areas, but the exaggerated fear of them is an urban myth."

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