Siamois The core concept of this film is watching a slasher movie about people in a theater... who are watching a slasher movie themselves. The main idea certainly has merits and a lot of potential but alas, writer and director Bigas Luna never achieves it.The first slasher (the movie within the movie) has occult and psychedelic overtones but is rather silly. It does feature the only two actors worthy of the title in Lerner and Rubinstein. The second film is uninspired at best and features awful acting all around. Both suffer from drawn out scenes that go absolutely nowhere.The most excitement regarding Anguish is when you first discover you are watching a movie within a movie and then, you wait for something clever to happen... except it never does. Poorly written, shot, acted and edited, Anguish will mostly be remembered as a cool idea that may have been ahead of its time.

Boba_Fett1138 This movie is basically two for the price of one. It's a movie within a movie and it works out great and entertaining.No way that this is a brilliant movie but the way it got constructed still make this a quite good one and an original as well. The story evolved around a group of people watching an horror-flick in a cinema, that is about a psychopathic killer, who is under the heavy influence of his mother, when it turns out that there is a killer on the loose in the cinema as well. The events of the movie within the movie and the events within the cinema mirror each other, which really gives you the feeling that you're watching two movies at the same time. The time spend between the two story lines of the different movies is divided equally, so you feel attached and drawn toward both stories. It's this approach and the execution of it that makes "Angustia" a fun and original watch.You are basically having two slashers in this movie, the one even more gory and bloody than the other. Fans of the genre will therefore have plenty to enjoy with this one. The movie perhaps feels more like a Giallo in its style than a typical horror movie really and that's not a bad thing of course.It's a Spanish movie but yet it's done entirely in English. It had a Spanish director and some of the actors were Spanish as well but with the English there were obviously aiming toward an international market. And why not with a concept such as this one. This movie must have been great to watch in a packed cinema. It would had made you look over your shoulder once or twice for sure.But of course there also are some American actors to make this movie attractive for the international public. It was great fun to see Zelda Rubinstein in this. She was a real perfect actress for the genre and always played this sort of roles very well. I also really liked Michael Lerner as the eye collecting killer. He's not a big name but a well known face within the industry.A great fun and original movie!8/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

The_Void After seeing Anguish, I know it will stay in the memory a while as it's not quite like anything else I've seen. However, outside of the central gimmick; there is unfortunately not a great deal to recommend it for. Bigas Luna's film is a horror movie within a horror movie, and as you can probably imagine from that description; it's a completely bizarre and surreal film. The title 'Anguish' seems to be a clue to the order of the day as both segments focus on putting the subjects in a state of anguish with a series of gripping occurrences. The film focuses on John Pressman; an optician with an eye problem and a strange mother. After losing his job, he goes out on a killing spree under the direction of his mother who apparently is using some sort of hypnosis. The spree goes on for a short while and then the film takes a turn for the bizarre as the focus pans out and we find ourselves in a movie theatre with a group of people watching the film we've been watching! However, it turns out all is not well there either, as one of the crowd is a maniacal killer.The main problem I have with this film is simply that while the central idea is very good, the two segments of the story are actually quite mundane. They're both just your average 'serial killer' stories, albeit one featuring a great deal of eyeball violence. The director clearly wanted to excite his audience and get them on the edge of their seats, and while parts of the film are exciting - I didn't find myself in a state of anguish for the duration. I don't often find myself needing a particular point when it comes to serial killer flicks, but this film just feels a bit too intelligent not to have one. I can only assume that the director wanted to portray something along the lines of the idea that a potential killer could be influenced by what they are seeing on screen; although it's never really brought across. Distinctive performers Michael Lerner and Zelda Rubinstein are the pick of the cast and provide memorable leads. The film does deserve a lot of respect for going out and trying to do something a bit different and even though it doesn't come off as well as it might have; Anguish is still well worth seeing.

finitodistampare This movie plays with the audience expectations in a level and maybe it have some characteristics of the terror genre that can be seen in a lot of movies but have some features of its own that makes the movie an original one. It's clear that this movie was not made with a big budget but the cast and crew give life to an imaginative screenplay .Rubinstein and Lerner are really great here. What surprised me of this movie are the original ideas . I will not spoil you the movie at all but after watching so many movies this one still surprise me.The Spanish director Bigas Luna directed this somehow atypical movie in his career , that usually treats themes far from the terror genre or the thriller.It's a good achievement .