Day 22: Anguish

Anguish is a movie within a movie (within a movie?).  It's an interesting idea that's been toyed with in some of other films (See Demons if you haven't already. It rips). But with a lot of cool ideas, sometimes the execution isn't all there. Such is the disappointing case of Anguish.

The film opens with scenes of a crazy mother figure played by Zelda Rubinstein (Poltergeist) hypnotizing her son(These scenes are dragged out for a painfully long duration) and having him commit murders for her. This goes on for approximately 20 minutes before we even realize that it's all just a movie being watched in a theater. The film is having an odd effect on some of the audience members watching. Suddenly a psychopath rambling about his mother begins murdering people in the theater.

One of the biggest disappointments I had with Anguish is how incredibly lame the real life killer is compared to the one in the movie. The killer in the movie is armed to the teeth with scalpels that he uses to mercilessly murder his victims before he proceeds to cut out their eyes! Awesome! Meanwhile, in the real world, our killer just goes around mumbling about his mother and shooting people. There is nothing lamer than a killer who only uses a gun in a horror film. Couldn't they have just given him a kitchen knife or something?

There are some plot elements that never get explained. The film that is being screened in the theater obviously has some sort of power over those who view it. But it's never explained how or why that happens. It's mentioned that the real life killer has seen the film several times. Is he under the influence of the movies power? There is definitely something supernatural about this damn movie! But they never explain it.

I've had the gore in this movie hyped to me before, which is initially why I was interested in viewing it. The gore is decent at best. Everything stays grounded and realistic but nothing truly impressive happens (aside from the infamous eye stab scene, which was really cool). There is some gore here but it's nothing for gore hounds to try and seek this movie out for.

I enjoyed Anguish and it's concept. There are some seriously brutal looking and creepy scenes. The acting for the most part is acceptable. There are a few cool shots that utilize the "movie within a movie" idea. Unfortunately I found myself really wanting to just watch the scalpel movie and not really caring what was happening in the theater. It's really a shame to see all the potential this movie had be squandered on needlessly.

Body Count:16

Side Note: I think a lot of people find Zelda Rubinstein's performance to be creepy here. I think her voice is incredibly annoying. The ending credits are pretty cool.