WisdomsHammer I was pleasantly surprised while watching this, finding it highly engaging. For a low budget movie, it is well-acted, well-scripted, and well shot! My only complaint is that, to me, it ran on a bit long towards the end. Pacing was good up to that point, but towards the end it felt redundant and labored. But that's a minor point on an overall fun film. Very glad to have found this gem!

D. Ceased It's been a good while since I've seen a horror movie this original. Anguish is very creative, especially for its time. Its clever use of the "film-within-a-film"(often mixing both so well you don't know what's the film they're watching and which is the film you're watching). Although it's far from perfect, this is a great big breath of fresh air.The movie starts with a shy eye doctor, John, who still lives with his mother. John gets harassed by one of his patients when he gets the wrong contact lenses. His mother promises to make them suffer, unlocking a serial killer side to John. He makes a visit to the girl's house to give her the correct pair of lenses, and promptly kills her and her boyfriend. We are then shown that this is a movie, and there is an audience watching. We're introduced to two girls, one fully enjoying the movie, and the other completely horrified. As the movie continues on, and John's killings become more frequent and intensified, the girl gets more terrified, to the verge of tears. John enters a movie theater, and starts slowly killing the audience one by one. His killings become too much and the girl leaves to the bathroom. While in the stall, a man walks in. This causes her to go back to her friend to check out the bathrooms. What they don't know is that there is a real killer who has targeted their showing. He dispatches off a few of the staff with his silenced pistol, before coming into the screening. His killings start to mimic John's on screen. He grabs the girl and holds her at gunpoint, slowly slipping into deep lunacy. He talks to the screen, and his cover gets blown. The girl's friend alerts the police, who watch him waiting to make their move. They manage to get their shot and take him out, just as the other movie is ending. The girl is taken to the hospital, where she is attacked by the killer from the movie. As the credits role, it is revealed that this was all ANOTHER movie.This movie is creepy and creative. The acting is very good in most places, nothing that's completely terrible and groan worthy. A lot of the movie has an Argento feel, kinda sleazy and gritty. There's a little bit of gore, but not as much as I wanted. The kills weren't that inventive but were satisfying enough. I think this is one that should be seen by lovers of horror and even those that are just looking for something different. The characters are pretty well developed, particularly the ones in The Mommy (the movie inside the movie). Highly recommended.

alanmora This has got to be one of the most original concepts for a film I have ever seen! This film takes the 'film within a film' (a concept used in other horror films such as Lamberto Bava's "Demons") concept to an entirely new level! As the film begins, we are told the story of a diabolic mother (played by Zelda Rubenstein of "Poltergeist" fame) and her obese, dim witted son who is nearly blind. This man is a serial killer who is controlled by his mother and her bizarre hypnotic powers over him. The strange hypnosis scenes in this movie are quite intense and it was rumored that they actually caused headaches and nausea for some viewers (in fact the original VHS box for the film warns that the film can be hypnotic and that watching it could cause headaches). "Mother" convinces her son to stalk a movie theater during a screening of "The Lost World" and murder the patrons one by one. She also commands him to remove the victims eyes and bring them to her. She believes that collecting eyes will somehow cure her son's illness and blindness. However, at this point the film takes a strange twist and we now realize that the film we have been watching is actually a separate movie called "The Mommy" that is being viewed by patrons in yet another movie theater who are being stalked by a man who is obsessed with the film. As the patrons of the theater witness the brutal slayings happening on the screen in front of them, they too are murdered one by one by the psychopath that is loose in their own movie theater! Now the viewer realizes that they are actually watching a film within a film within a film! It is now that the film reaches it's bizarre and unusual climax with an unbelievable ending. "Anguish" is not for the squeamish or faint of heart as the eye gouging and murder sequences are pretty intense and gory but it is most certainly one of the most original concepts for a horror film that I have seen in a long time and unfortunately, yes it is currently being remade!

Coventry Bigas Luna's "Anguish" is a uniquely curious and creatively constructed Spanish horror film that'll unquestionably impress you a lot more than the average routine and dull 80's (American) slasher picture. Luna presents an odd film-within-film structure and, surprisingly enough, both segments contain equal amounts of suspense, creepiness and gruesome images. At first, we follow a middle-aged and slightly insane mother-obsessed optometrist as he goes out at night to butcher as many people as possible & cut out their eyeballs for his collection. His freaky mother (the squeakily voiced midget Zelda Rubinstein) commands him under hypnosis and his modus operandi isn't exactly subtle, as John removes his victims' eyeballs sadistically and without the slightest sense of emotion. Okay, pretty twisted & sick horror tale we got here, or so you think until, after the first couple of murders, it suddenly becomes clear that mother & son's crazed adventure is just an ordinary movie being watched in a fully-occupied theater. We're subsequently introduced to two attractive young girls – one of them feeling very uncomfortable with what she sees on screen – and then "Anguish" truly becomes a one-of-a-kind experience, since a totally new (and supposedly non-fictional) psycho-killer plot develops itself parallel with the macabre (and fictional?) events on screen! Yeah okay, I realize this all sounds very confusing and perhaps even a bit stupid, but director Luno presents it all dead serious and plausible. Simultaneously with John entering a movie theater in "The Mommy" (the title of the first movie) to collect more eyeballs, an actual deranged psychopath spots the two girls and intends to kill them. The film-within-film concept has been done before, but usually very messy and resulting in a severe anti-climax. In "Anguish", however, the tension is masterfully developed and the transitions from 'old' movie to 'new' movie are literally perplexing. Michael Lerner's eyeball escapades are grotesque and really gore (with extreme close-ups of gouged out eyes…yuck), whereas Patty & Linda's nightmarish trip to the movie theater is intense and claustrophobic. The final twist is predictable, yes, as Luna attempts to connect the characters of both films with each other, but I honestly think I would have been disappointed if something similar wasn't done. The acting performances are excellent. Especially Michael Lerner and Talia Paul are splendid, and even Zelda Rubinstein is tolerable. She annoyed the hell out of me in the overrated "Poltergeist" films, but her odd appearance is ideal for an artsy Spanish horror experiment like this. "Anguish" is a terrific film for trained genre lovers, regretfully underrated and misunderstood to this date. Highly recommended!