Horror Extreme Movie Catalog

Malformed, distorted, misshapen, deformed... all words that could be used to describe the plot and delivery of this (as well as starring actress Zelda Rubinstein... I know, I shouldn't have gone there), 1989's little known "horror" film Anguish. A somewhat interesting premise that features a movie inside of a movie angle, where the film that we initially are watching turns into the background of a second story taking place within a movie theater (think 1985's Italian splatterfest Demons for a good example of this), ultimately gets bogged down by an unintelligible script filled with unapealing characters (to downright obnoxious... Zelda, I'm talking to you again). In the first film, Michael Lerner (Barton Fink, Maniac Cop 2, Elf) stars as an unstable eye doctor who is hypnotized by his mother (Zelda)to kill... and also to remove the eyes of the victims. Some decent scenes of grue take place but more time is wasted on the scenes of hynotization which try REALLY hard to be unique and artistic but David Lynch this ain't (with Zelda spewing lines of psychobabble such as, "you once where like a snail... hidden... happy"). The second part involves a man obsessed with the movie loosing it inside the theater while the first film plays on in the background. Fairly tame from this point forward as our new antagonist's weapon of choice is a silenced pistol (and he has no interest in removing the victims eyes... bah!). Maybe the director was attempting to make a visionary piece of filmaking about how life can imitate art? Maybe... but this is schlock through and through (the "twist" ending solidifies this statement), whether you want to put a fancey bow on top of it or not (at least movies like Friday The 13th know exactly what they are). Looking at the other reviews on here, Anguish has a following that feel it's a really good film (although so does Boogeyman...)so there may be something I'm missing, but if you are on the hunt for anything mildly scary or disturbing I'd look elsewhere... though those looking for something with a little originality, or in the need of a Zelda Rubinstein fix, could certainly do worse (you could just watch Poltergeist again though?).

They sure did a great job at cleaning up the picture and sound for this 1986 flick. Zelda Rubinstein is a trip in this movie. Well the movie itself is quite a trip. This movie deserves more credit than what it received. You can really tell that alot of effort and thought went into making this movie. So as a viewer and customer of the dvd I can appreciate that. You should try too.