Angustia
Tags: comedy, gothic, murder, cult, alternate reality, violence, psychedelic, revenge

Plot synopsis:
The film begins with a written disclaimer:"During the film you are about to see, you will be subject to subliminal messages and mild hypnosis.""This will cause you no physical harm or lasting effect, but if for any reason you lose control or feel that your mind is leaving your body -- leave the auditorium immediately."The disclaimer is accompanied by a narrator, who advises viewers to take caution regarding their surroundings once the film has begun, and not to engage in conversation with any unknown individuals for the duration of the running time.In the opening scene, John (Michael Lerner) is at home with his mother. While he is playing with the pet pigeons in their cages, a bird flies out and around the room, until he manages to catch it and return it to his mother. John goes to work at an eye clinic where a doctor (Nat Baker) shows John and a group of students (Gustavo Gili, Antonio Regueiro and Joaquín Ribas) a collection of eyeballs in jars. John then goes to a patient, named Caroline (Isabel García Lorca), whom he tries to help put contact lenses in her eyes. John leaves after Caroline makes a comment about his eyes and a nurse (Patrice Manget) tells her that John is sensitive to such comments because John is a diabetic and he is slowly losing his vision. Caroline continues her complaints, and from home John's mother (Zelda Rubinstein) seems to listen to the conversation through a shell. "You'll be sorry!" John's mother says.Later, John is at home eating dinner and his mother plays a spiral on the turnstable, takes off John's thick-lenses glasses, and relaxes him through hypnosis. "Now you are with Mommy as one." John visits Caroline at her house, telling her that he has the correct prescription for her eyes. John lets himself into the house to ask Caroline to let him try out her new contact lenses. After fitting them in, Caroline seems content, so John apologizes about that morning and he suddenly pulls out a scalpel and slashes Caroline's throat. When Caroline's boyfriend (José María Chucarro) walks into the room and sees Caroline's dead body, John throws the scalpel at him and then stabs him in the stomach. At home, John's mother gets a phone call from the hospital. She says that John is not coming back (a conversation that John "hears" through his merging of minds with his mother. John's mother thinks that the entire hospital is against John and she tells him via telepathy to cut out all people's eyes.As John is cutting out the dead Caroline and her husband's eyes, the image slowly pulls back to reveal that this whole thing is a movie being shown to a small audience in a small movie theatre. The slasher film is called The Mommy and it is having a matinee showing in this theater somewhere in Los Angeles. Among the audience are two teenage girls named Patty (Talia Paul) and Linda (Clara Pastor). Patty is disgusted and frightened by the film and of John's character. The unfeeling Linda, munching on popcorn, tells Patty that it is only a movie.In the film, John is called home by his mother and she confronts him to kill all of the people in the city saying "all of the eyes of the city will be ours".Patty begins to complain about her eyes becoming irritated from her own contact lenses, and she sees a weird looking man (Ángel Jové), sitting across the aisle from her also rubbing his eyes.In the film, Mother begins an eerie trance for John involving spirals, and many people in the theater audience seem dazed by the movie. Patty tells Linda that she feels dizzy, and her breathing gets heavier, until finally the on-screen trance is over and John stands up to leave and tells his mother, "they are going to be very sorry, Mother." John goes out and goes to a movie theater, sits behind a man, stabs him with a screwdriver and cut out his eyes with a scalpel. Patty finally leaves Linda to watch the film alone.Mother tells John to go for more people in the theater. John sits behind a couple as the woman (Diane Pinkley) goes for more popcorn, and he kills the unaccompanied husband (Benito Porcino).In a women's room stall, Patty sees a pair of shoes outside the door and when they are gone, she runs back into the theater and tells her that the weird looking man was in the bathroom. Linda points him out, still sitting in his chair. But Patty is convinced that a man was in the bathroom and she persuades Linda to go check. Linda, who wants more popcorn anyway, finally agrees to check it out and tells Patty to stay to tell her what happened.In the film, the woman returns to her seat and offers popcorn to her dead husband (which John accepts). John then puts a cloth around her face.Patty continues staring at the weird looking man, who looks at his wristwatch as if timing the movements in the movie. Patty becomes more uneasy when he stands up and leaves the theater.In the movie, Mother tells John to come home, but John refuses saying that he can do all this alone. He goes to a restroom and begins to count his eyeballs.In the theater lobby, the girl at the concession (Josephine Borchaca) stand and the woman at the ticket booth (Antonella Murgía) are shot and killed by the weird looking man who has a silenced .38 caliber semi-automatic pistol. Linda comes out of the ladies room to see the killer dragging the bodies away. A terrified Linda takes cover in the mens room and hides in a stall while the killer enters to hide the two bodies in a stall right next to hers.In the movie, a woman confronts John for being in the ladies room and he chokes her to death, and in the struggle loses his glasses when they fall off and break on the floor. Mother continues to plead with John to come back home, but John refuses. The ticket lady enters the bathroom and screams when she sees John hanging over the stall and is swiped with the blade. John goes to the lobby for some popcorn and then attacks the concession girl as well.In the real world, the killer reloads his gun and he seems to be mimicking John's actions on the screen. A man sitting behind a very anxious Patty asks her if she is okay, and she tells him that her friend has been gone for a long time. The man asks Patty what her friend's name is and says that he will go to find her. The man enters the now deserted theater lobby and enters the mens room where he is shot through the neck by the killer. In parallel to both movies, the killer and John both secure the theater doors as the killer in the real world says "Don't worry Mother. I won't leave." A terror-stricken Linda slips out of the mens room and manages to get outside. Linda stops a passing salesman in the street and tells him that there is a murderer in the theater. The man walks with Linda to the theater where he goes inside, sees the secured doors, and blood on the floor. The man runs back out and the two of them run down the street to call the police.Back in the theater, the woman who was with the helpful man tells Patty that she will be right back for her husband has not returned. The woman is grabbed by the killer when she walks past a curtain and he shoots her as well. The killer then grabs Patty and holds her hostage while she is still in her seat, further mimicking John's onscreen dialogue.In the movie, a little girl in the audience finds the results of John's killings and soon people are screaming in the theater. John stabs a man who tries to get out the secured fire escape door and he grabs a teenage girl hostage and stands in front of the theater screen which is playing the silent movie Lost World. John screams out for his mother to come get him and Mommy leaves her house and takes a taxi to the theater. She tells the driver to call the police to save the people John has in the theater.At the same time, the killer then yells at the on-screen John when a man in the audience stands to confront him and is shot dead. Panic breaks out as the killer begins shooting at other people and he drags Patty to the front of the screen. Outside in both movies, the police arrive and surround both theaters. In the old movie, the police break into the theater and Mommy enters with them and tries to reason with John still holding the teen girl hostage in front of the theater screen.In the real world, SWAT teams enter the theater through the roof and cut the movie's sound and tell the killer to let Patty go. The killer refuses saying that he has to wait until his mother comes to get him. He shoots at the screen at John, and thus drops Patty to the floor. The police sharpshooters then open fire, killing the man. When Patty looks at the screen to see Mommy hypnotizing John out of his trance, a policeman opens fire, and accidentally hits Mommy instead and John cradles her. Suddenly, John looks right at Patty and address her directly saying "I want your eyes too!" He throws the scalpel out of the screen and hits Patty right in her left eye. The police break into the theater and all of the terrified patrons flee. They find Patty on the ground screaming hysterically (but with no scalpel in her eye). They get her outside where she is reunited with Linda and they take her to a hospital for evaluation.At the hospital, Linda and Patty's parents are with her relieved that Patty is fine and just a little emotionally shaken from her horrific experience. When Patty's parents leave, Linda stays a while longer. A little later, Linda tells Patty that she will return tomorrow. In a nearby elevator, Linda is suddenly grabbed by an orderly and a scalpel is aimed at her throat. The orderly walks into Patty's room with a tray and she sits up in her bed and tries to scream. The orderly is John.... and he wants her eyes! John tells Patty, "like the doctor said, its all in your imagination. I really don't exist." Patty finally manages to scream.During the closing credits, the theater audience watching this movie leaves the theater, and the last patron (Jaume Figueras) leaves for the left.

Review: This creepy motion picture ingeniously realized exploring the hypnotic effects of cinema talks about a timid eye clinic intern (Michael Lerner, Omen 4) under the sway of his psychic and authoritarian mother (Zelda Rubinstein, Poltergeister).
Our hapless soon-to-be victims arrive for a view a horror flick only to watch the gore unfold in the audience as well as on screen in which are showing the silent film titled ¨The lost world¨ and ¨ The mummy¨ .
As a group of viewers are killed in the form of a screening of a horror movie that brings naturalism to life.
The spectators (Talia Paul, Clara Pastor) see Lerner carving eyes on screen while a psycho-killer (Angel Jove) obsessed with the movie unleashes his own criminal spree on the unsuspecting spectators and he attacks anyone who crosses her way and soon the place is filled with people killed.
The initial story follows a son who is being hypnotized and forced into murder by his mother, played by Zelda Rubinstein, the tiny lil paranormal investigator in Poltergeist.
With a cool idea leading the way Anguish is one flick any fan of horror or of our beloved lil Zelda should without a doubt check out..
A demented mother telepathically directs her middle-aged son on bloody missions of revenge.And when he's finished murdering his victims,he gouges their eyes out and adds them to the bizarre family collection.But that's only a movie:The real horror is in the cinema where the audience watching this terrifying vision is being murdered one by one."Angustia" is a pretty bizarre Spanish horror film.The concept is certainly interesting and the director J.J.Bigas Luna perfectly mixes the line between the reality and the fantasy world of film.The acting is first-rate and there is plenty of gore and tension to satisfy fans of slasher films.The film is relatively unknown,but if you get a chance watch it.Highly recommended.8 out of 10..
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 ..
I have just watched "Angustia" for the fourth or fifth time, now on DVD, and I do not get tired of this original, bizarre and surrealistic cult-movie, very underrated in IMDb. I am a fan of Bigas Lune, and in my opinion "Angustia" is his masterpiece.
Michael Lerner, in the role of the mad ophthalmologist; Talia Paul, in the role of a scared viewer that becomes impressed with the film she is watching on the screen; and Ángel Jovè, in the role of a lunatic killer, are perfect.
Who can fathom what personal demon made him turn his back on this God-given gift, but the movie-going public has been denied a great star, one who could have brought the peoples of the world together in a ringing affirmation of their common humanity.
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.
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..
In that, we can affirm he did not fail.In this film we have the peculiar situation of watching a film within a film, and indeed there is a few brief moments of another film within that - one of those classics of the adventure genre of the late thirties/early forties, not by Bigas Luna.A sacked Ophthalmologist under the evil influence of his mother, just loves cutting out people's eyes, and does so.
However, things start happening in their cinema, whilst the main film on-screen continues its bizarre business.Bigas Luna concocts a weird tale, horrorful and suspenseful as you can get, as he plays on the viewers' psychological perception, as well as on the viewers' revulsion.
But, as always, Bigas Luna has a good eye for scrupulous scene-setting - unless the protagonist in this films gouges it out, of course.
For lovers of the horror genre - I am not - you could hardly find a more satisfying hour and a half of spending your time: Bigas Luna, as always, has an originality in how he lays it on and tells his story; more than a few shivers might well run up and down your spine whilst watching this one.I wonder if I dare take off my glasses to clean them.................?.
John (Michael Lerner), an orderly at a hospital, is hypnotised by his controlling midget mother (Zelda Rubinstein) who sends him to kill people and remove their eyes.
After twenty two minutes of confusing horror, in which John's snail-loving 'mother' listens in on her pigeon-fancier son's murderous activities using a large shell (?!?!), it is revealed that everything we have seen thus far is a film within a film called The Mommy, being watched by an audience that includes teenagers Patty (Talia Paul) and Linda (Clara Pastor).Terrified by the on screen carnage, Patty leaves the theatre and visits the loo, where she becomes convinced that the killer from The Mommy is lurking.
She heads back to tell Linda, who reluctantly investigates and discovers that a copycat psycho (Àngel Jové) armed with a gun is preparing to go on a killing spree.Cutting back and forth between The Mommy (a film that I doubt would draw in the crowds) and the 'real' action, director Bigas Luna experiments in mixing art-house surrealism with the slasher genre, which go together like oil and water, and chucks in some pretentious meta-cinema for good measure.
The core concept of this film is watching a slasher movie about people in a theater...
But there ARE some minor logical flaws in this movie (the ease with which BOTH killers murder their victims and pass unnoticed in movie theaters filled with people is a little hard to believe), and the final "surprise ending" is rather contrived, perhaps even predictable if you've seen similar movies (like Wes Craven's "New Nightmare" of 1994).
There was actually a point in "Anguish" that I got a little nervous.It begins as a disturbed mama's boy goes crazy and, with the help of his uber-creepy mommy, starts offing people and cutting out their eyes.
I think it made the movie a lot more interesting and enjoyable.The most confusing thing to me about this film is the fact that I had never heard of it before.
Another movie goer becomes hypnotized from watching the movie and goes on his own killing spree in the theater.
I remember two scenes : in the beginning there is a scene where a small bird has to be freed from behind a closet (fantastically filmed!), the other as the viewer sees the killer sorting out his kit in the cinema with the girls watching the horror movie.
ANGUISH (aka ANGUSTIA) 1986The Eyes Of The City Will Be Ours.This twisted little film is one of those highly underrated classics.
She also thinks that her son is a great eye surgeon, when really he's just an orderly.There are several points to this movie that made me enjoy it so much.
And these poor people are all caught up into it.During the course of the film, what is happening on the scene in THE MOMMY starts to happen in the `real life' part of the movie.
Lerner ends up at a movie theater and starts to kill people there.
The way that the same thing is happening almost together is a really interesting concept, and is played off really well.Another particular part that I liked, that may just be from the DVD, but during one scene where THE MOMMY is playing, you can hear the two main girls talking back and forth.
There's even a brief eye surgery scene that had me twitching for a bit.The `twist' ending, where the movie THE MOMMY and reality cross, I wouldn't consider your typical twist ending, like some would say.
But at the end, you start to wonder if that is what happened to the guy who started shooting up the theater in the first place.I would highly recommend this film to anyone who is looking for something different, and enjoys those strange and weird little films..
But not as annoying as the two girls who are watching the movie within a movie.As a horror film this one fails, it's too busy trying to be clever, trying to impart a message and seems to forget a slasher film must evoke a sense of tension, or at least a jump or two.
I saw an excellent print of Anguish at the movies at the Incredibly Strange Film Festival in Wellington, New Zealand a few years ago, and it was great.
Director and writer Bigas Luna has created a gem in Anguish.Starring Zelda Rubinstein who has also been in another classic flick, Poltergeist 1982.Also starring Michael Lerner who has also been in other classic flicks, Barton Fink 1991 and Maniac Cop 2 1990.Also starring Taila Paul.I enjoyed the cinematography, sound and violence.If you enjoyed this as much as I did then check out other classic horror flicks, Baby Blood 1990, The Beyond 1981, Pit and the Pendulum 1961, The Incredible Torture Show 1976, Blue Holocaust 1979, Borderland 2007, Brain Damage 1988, The Ring 2002, Gutterballs 2008, Candyman 1992, Children of the Corn III: Urban Harvest 1995, Circus of Horrors 1960, Cronos 1993, Deep in the Woods 2000, Deranged 1974, The Descent 2005, The Descent: Part 2 2009, Evil Dead Trap 1988, Final Destination 2000, Final Destination 2 2003, Final Destination 3 2006, Final Destination 5 2011, The Fog 1980, Freddy vs.
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.
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.
Theater patrons watching a new horror film about a killer (Michael Lerner) who rips out people's eyes at the urging of his mom (Zelda Rubenstein) fall victim to a killer in the audience who believes the mother in the movie is his real mother and must kill people at her urging.Highly original premise is often scary and well done and features good performances from the two leads playing against type, but it is too violent and the ending is a bit of a letdown.
* 1/2 out of ****Anguish begins by introducing us to Michael Lerner as John, an eye doctor, and Zelda Rubenstein as his overprotective mother.
When she sees Lerner on-screen enter a movie theater and kill off the audience, she believes someone amid her own crowd is about to do the same.
Admittedly, around the forty minute mark, things do get slightly suspenseful once the killer in the "real" audience starts knocking people off one-by-one, but it's pretty disappointing to see him use a gun rather than a knife, and the theater is too crowded to attain maximum creepiness.
It was the very effective visual of people struggling with the same thing on screen, had never thought a film could affect me like this.
It's not just a horror movie, it's an experiment into film-within-film with audience members watching a movie at a theater about an insane killer and his mother collecting eyes - with the way it's made disturbing and upsetting many of them - and then the events in the main movie switches to the theater as well - and the claustrophobia and mental states of "the real audience" starts going wild.
Wow, this was one crazy and memorable film, to say the least, and that final shot was the icing on the cake.I've seen too many movies with great premises that wind up underutilizing them, but this one more than lived up to its own.
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.
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.
"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!.
Having been to plenty of movies I found the in theater murders unbelievable, and the tie in to Mother was confusing.While the story had great potential this movie killed it.
This movie is about a lady that sends telepathic messages to her son in whom she babies and cares for to go out and kill people because they think that he's not a good surgeon.
The film splits when the scene in a movie theater comes out where we see a young girl apparently seeing something on the screen that nobody else is watching and this is when the movie becomes to confusing and I lacked interest in the film because I wanted it to just stick with the part of the mother and her son and not some other character apparently doing the same thing in the movie theater as on the screen and here we have not one but two killers and the story goes back and forth.
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.
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.
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.
I have yet to buy it only because I can find either only tattered VHS copies or over-priced DVD versions...Anyway the film starts off with a telepathically controlled "mama's-boy" who kills people and collects their eye's as souvenirs for his freaky mother.
A theatre of people spend an afternoon watching a horror movie called "The Mommy," starring Zelda Rubinstein and Michael Lerner.
It's about a mother who telepathically directs her son to kill people and steal their eyes for her.
Back and forth, the movie goes to the audience to "The Mommy," to the point that you feel like you are in that movie theatre.And then you find out there is a killer there in the theatre, with the same mother obsession as the killer in the movie they're all watching.I won't give away much more, other than that the movie is great.
The killer almost imitates the scenes in "The Mommy," especially when Lerner's character goes to a theatre and traps the patrons in and starts to kill them, one by one.
We find ourselves in a theater where people are watching the adventures of John and his dominant mother as well.
"Anguish" opens with the story of John (Michael Lerner), a middle aged man dominated by his demented mother (the unique Zelda Rubinstein).
She hypnotizes him into going on a murder spree, so that he may collect his victims' eyes.The catch here is that these opening 22 minutes are actually a movie within the movie.
While Lerner ends up offing the people watching a showing of the original "The Lost World", the people watching *his* movie begin to be terrorized by another mother dominated madman (Angel Jove) wielding a gun.This comes recommended to horror fans, who are sure to appreciate the clever way that director Bigas Luna ("Jamon Jamon", "The Chambermaid on the Titanic") so completely blurs the line between fantasy and reality.
It's been a good while since I've seen a horror movie this original.
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 enters a movie theater, and starts slowly killing the audience one by one.
However, we now see that this is only a movie that two teenage girls are watching in a theater.
The star of the film, I believe Michael Lerner, does a great job acting.
Well in this film Michael Lerner's character is great.
Geeky and bespectacled mama's boy orderly John Pressman (an excellent performance by Michael Lerner) is hypnotized by his evil and domineering mother Alice (a deliciously creepy portrayal by Zelda Rubinstein of "Poltergeist" fame) to embark on a vicious killing spree and pluck out the eyes of his victims.