 Other reviews were more negative. Paula Vitaris from Cinefantastique gave the episode a largely critical review and awarded it one star out of four. Vitaris wrote "with its trip into blatant religiosity, 'All Souls' comes off like a bad episode of Millennium". Furthermore, she was critical of the scenes wherein the Nephilims'souls were taken, noting the excessive religious imagery: "as [Dara's] soul is taken, the camera pans to the right and stops to linger on a telephone pole that forms a cross." Robert Shearman and Lars Pearson, in their book Wanting to Believe: A Critical Guide to The X-Files, Millennium & The Lone Gunmen, rated the episode one star out of five. The two derided the fact that the episode's killer appears to either be God or an angel commanded by God, along with the fact that the four girls are destined to die because they are disabled and "have no right to live". Furthermore, Shearman and Pearson concluded that, while religious worship is not a passive act, it is treated so in the episode. Ultimately, they concluded that while "looking at death from a different angle is fascinating" it would be explored better "in' Closure '."
