Music critic Robert Christgau interpreted the opening line to the album featuring the phrase "horror corridor" as Eminem telling listeners that it is a horrorcore album. Ben Kaplan of the Vancouver Courier also categorized it as a horrorcore album. Ann Powers of the Los Angeles Times said that the album's "horrorcore scenes" show Eminem as "a madman created by the hypocrisy of therapy". Music journalist Rob Sheffield remarked on its sensationalist drug references and said that Relapse is "a hip-hop version" of comedian Richard Pryor's Live on the Sunset Strip (1982).
