Reception
When Public Access screened at the 1993 Sundance Film Festival, it was one of the two films to win the Grand Jury Prize in dramatic competition, sharing the award with Ruby in Paradise. It also screened at the 1993 Florida Film Festival and won the Audience Award for best feature film. Despite the recognition, the film did not secure a theatrical distributor.
Variety called Public Access a "technically proficient" film considering its small budget and schedule. The trade paper observed, "What Singer and his co-scenarists seem to be getting at is a critique of Reagan-era greed, hypocrisy and antihumanism, as well as a commentary on the power of the media and its ability to distract the public from issues with attractive surfaces." It summarized, "This very low-budget study of malaise lurking beneath the tranquil surface of a typical small American town is serious-minded and bounces around some provocative ideas, but is vague about important matters as key story points, motivation and overriding theme." Newsweek wrote, "The 27-year-old Singer's a real talent, but the moody 'Public Access' needed a stronger script. After an intriguing buildup, in which a mysterious stranger enters a small town and stirs up trouble on public-access TV, the story self-destructs."
Time Out Film Guide described Public Access as "this chilly little parable taps into the poisonous well-springs of the middle-American psyche". The magazine reviewed, "The film is overly measured, with lots of slow zooms and slow motion (even the actors seem to be on go-slow), but it's engrossing, and Marquette is a genuinely scary customer, a dry-cleaned all-American sociopath." In contrast, The Hollywood Reporter's Henry Sheehan wrote of Public Access as "a virtuosically stylish independent feature that is as full of flourishes as it is devoid of meaning". Sheehan found the film "visually... ingenious" and that the soundtrack had "an inventive sophistication". Despite the highlights, he felt that Public Access's characters were "mere exigencies" and that the film could be "in the service of a more coherent or articulate story".
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