Rish Outfield's reviews
This was a creepy little film that no one I know has seen. With a name like Anguish, it has to be good.
When Michael Lerner, who works in an optometrist's office, is fired, his controlling mother (Zelda Rubinstein) hypnotizes him and sends him on a violent killing spree, cutting out his victims' eyes to add to his mother's collection. But wait, this is actually just a movie a couple of girls are watching in a theater. And in this movie, Lerner goes into a movie theater and begins to kill people there. But wait again, there is also a real killer in the audience watching the movie who begins killing people in the theater to coincide with the on-screen murders. But wait!
A Spanish film, but with scenes shot in California (and apparently New York as well), this was somewhat experimental, and did include some disturbing moments (especially since I don't particularly relish the thought of losing my eyes).
The movie within the movie ("The Mommy") was infinitely more interesting than the "real life" half, but ah well. It also featured "The Lost World," which is playing in the theater where Lerner's character slaughters moviegoers. The first twenty minutes were all a movie, which I got, but then there were some really confusing movie and theater transitions, causing disorientation and headaches as they became hard to separate. It plays with the moviegoing experience, switching from the action on the screen to the action in the story and back again with no warning. This might have been interesting to see on the big screen, but even then, the film becomes unbearably long during the middle and never quite recovers. Baffling on purpose, it moves slower than the snails that figure prominently in the visuals. It felt ten years older than 1986, if you know what I mean.
Zelda Rubinstein is always good (she'd be cool to get an autograph from) and it did include the great line: "You have no idea what it's like to really suffer . . . but you will, just wait."

Total Skulls: 7

Sequel
Sequel setup
Rips off earlier film
Horror film showing on TV/in theater in movie		The Mommy
Future celebrity appears
Former celebrity appears
Bad title
Bad premise
Bad acting
Bad dialogue
Bad execution
MTV Editing
OTS
Girl unnecessarily gets naked
Wanton sex
Death associated with sex
Unfulfilled promise of nudity
Characters forget about threat
Secluded location
Power is cut
Phone lines are cut
Someone investigates a strange noise
Someone runs up stairs instead of going out front door
Camera is the killer
Victims cower in front of a window/door
Victim locks self in with killer
Victim running from killer inexplicably falls
Toilet stall scene
Shower/bath scene
Car stalls or won't start
Cat jumps out
Fake scare
Laughable scare
Stupid discovery of corpse
Dream sequence
Hallucination/Vision
No one believes only witness
Crazy, drunk, old man knows the truth
Warning goes unheeded
Music detracts from scene
Death in first five minutes
x years before/later
Flashback sequence
Dark and stormy night
Killer doesn't stay dead
Killer wears a mask
Killer is in closet
Killer is in car with victim
Villain is more sympathetic than heroes
Unscary villain/monster
Beheading
Blood fountain
Blood hits camera
Poor death effect
Excessive gore
No one dies at all
Virgin survives
Geek/Nerd survives
Little kid lamely survives
Dog/Pet miraculously survives
Unresolved subplots
"It was all a dream" ending
Unbelievably happy ending
Unbelievably crappy ending
What the hell?