I feel like horror may be the most underappreciated genre – not that it isn’t popular (other than comedy and the occasional action blockbuster, there are few genres that are as enduring as horror), but rather that it is too often written off as merely being “scary movies”, and nothing more than just the folly of empty thrills and cheap scares. This is an almost criminal under-assertion because there are so many diverse and unique horror films, it almost feels wrong to have a single term to refer to the wide-ranging selection of films (hence why there are multiple sub-categorizations and specific genres within the overarching genre of horror). There are few genres in which more experimental work has been done, and horror has been the most lasting throughout cinema history – once again, with the exception of comedy, what genre has persisted from the very roots of cinema to the present day, never fading away or becoming obscure, only the films within it aging, not the genre itself, as horror?. One of the more potent horror films I have seen recently is Anguish (also known by the alternative Spanish title Angustia), Bigas Luna’s eccentric horror film that is far more complex than what is presented as, a subversive and brilliant film that is as terrifying as it is darkly comic. Just beware: I didn’t read anything about this film before I saw it, and I was blown away by its incredible execution, which I will speak about in detail further on in this discussion. So if you haven’t seen this film, stop reading this and go seek it out, going in with as little knowledge as possible. It will be worth it, I assure you.

Alice Pressman (Zelda Rubinstein) lives in her castlelike manor with an array of odd pets, including snails and pigeons, as well as her klutz of a middle-aged son, John (Michael Lerner), who works as an orderly at a local ophthalmology clinic, which is somewhat ironic considering that he is going blind at a rapid rate. What is soon revealed about this seemingly innocuous pair is that Alice Pressman possesses the quaint quality of being a deranged lunatic, and that she uses hypnosis and a perceived telekinetic connection between her and her son to send John on a killing spree, randomly killing people for whatever reason – whether it be for revenge, or for acts of purely malicious intent. Finding his way into a cinema downtown, he starts to silently murder the patrons and harvest their eyeballs (part of his mother’s strange plot to restore her son’s failing eyesight through the acquisition of eyes from innocent victims), eventually keeping the entire cinema hostage as he executes his plan (pun absolutely intended) to murder everyone there, much to the chagrin of his mother, who is slowly losing her mystical connection with him, proving that John is just as deranged as his mother, even when she is not controlling him.

Of course, this film is far more than this, because we soon learn, as this story is progressing, that it is actually a film called The Mommy (directed by the imaginatively named “Anul Sagib”, an auteur if there ever was one) that characters within this film are watching in a local B-movie theatre. The focus is on two audience members, in particular, Patty (Talia Paul) and Linda (Clara Pastor). Patty starts to garner a very visceral reaction to the film, which her friend credits simply to the artificial terror instilled in her by the film. However, when events around them start transpiring that closely resemble the plot of the film they are watching, with a mysterious man (Ángel Jovè) starting to murder people in and around the cinema in a way that reflects the murder spree of John in The Mommy, mirroring many of his movements and intentions. Suddenly, the boundaries between reality and fiction start to become extremely blurred, and the patrons of the cinema in this film start to feel the same anguish of the people in the film they are watching, with escape starting to seem almost unlikely, and the distance between what is real and what is now starting to grow radically smaller when fantasy and reality become ambiguously merged.

I thought I used to know what meta-cinema was, through the works of Tarantino and Godard. There is cinema-about-cinema, and then there is Anguish. Luna takes the concept of metafiction to extreme new levels, and I cannot express how extraordinarily innovative such an approach was. It wasn’t enough that he had a fantastic concept – he used the idea in a way that was relentlessly unique, unpredictable and entertaining, and managed to elicit fear in the audience in a way I have yet to experience. Anguish, on the surface, isn’t a particularly scary film – but it is one that has a powerful existential undercurrent that will doubtlessly bring about some form of dread in the audience member – one can only imagine the experience of watching Anguish in a cinema in 1987 (my heart goes out to those poor people who had to experience this inexplicably daunting and terrifying experience). When it is revealed towards the end of Anguish that the events that transpired – a set of characters watching The Mommy and experiencing similar occurrences to those that they saw on screen – were actually just another film being watched by another audience, it adds an unnecessarily brilliant layer to this film that managed to be far more complex than one would ever expect from a B-grade horror movie like this.

Actually, I am adverse to implying that Anguish is anything close to simply being a B-movie in any way, but it seems like Luna seems to relish in misleading the audience into believing that this film is just another conventional 1980s slasher film, one that is deliriously entertaining, but ultimately shallow. Oh, how wrong we were to expect anything less than something subversively brilliant from this unconventional film. A hypnotic experience, Luna crafts something extraordinary and entirely unforgettable. He makes use of the tremendously eccentric Zelda Rubinstein who is more unsettling than ever (even surpassing her scene-stealing work in the Poltergeist films) to play the actress of the film-within-the-film-within-the-film. Rubinstein was such a terrific actress, and her performance here is equally terrifying as it is hilarious, and her heightened, almost melodramatic, execution (once again, pun intended) is made understandable after the real story of this film is revealed. Reliable character actor Michael Lerner is excellent as John, the murderous maniac who finds the balance between psychotic and clumsy. Talia Paul also deserves kudos for her realistic portrayal of an individual navigating the delicate line between responding heavily to a film and being traumatized. As a film, Anguish is great, but where it is most notable, and towers above films of its ilk, is in its concept.

Anguish is something truly special, and what Luna did here was astonishing. It is a film that exceeds the sum of its parts and actually could be considered less of a film and more of a playful, postmodern experiment, where the core (and oft-referenced) theory of postmodernism is incredulity towards meta-narratives, with this film itself looking quite abstractly at the recursivity of cinema itself – it comments on the filmmaking process in a way that is rarely this effective, and like many great postmodern works, it causes quite an extreme reaction in the viewer: existential dread. The film makes the audience start to wonder about the nature of reality, questioning the relationship between fact and fiction, and how the realisation that they may not be entirely unrelated can be quite distressing – at the end, it is revealed that the events that we thought were reality were actually part of a film that a third audience was watching – and thus, we were watching an audience watch an audience, who watch another audience – and what if, on the grander scheme of everything, we are in a film that is being watched by another audience – take this is a reference to either The Truman Show or the overarching omnipresence of a deity, whichever you prefer. Anguish is a highly-experimental look at cinema, with some subliminal commentary that is simultaneously disturbing and ingenious, and the scope of what this film says can only be seen after the fact – the focus on eyes throughout this film (with John collecting the eyes of his victims) is a thinly-veiled reference to viewers themselves, and the “harvesting” that takes place through a particularly resonant, effective film. The critique (or could it be a homage?) of cinema is quite subliminal throughout this film, and the realization that it was far more complex than a simple slasher film was unquestionably effective, with Alice Pressman quite literally directing her son in his malicious actions that take place, unsurprisingly, in a cinema. There is so much that can be unpacked from this film, and with the many different interpretations I have found, all of which are borne out of either rabid enthusiasm or overwhelming awe, it is clear that Anguish is an exceptionally unique, effective film.

Anguish is in no uncertain terms a surrealist masterpiece. I can’t remember the last time I saw such a brilliant indictment of consumer culture, specifically those of the arts, as this, and Bigas Luna made something extraordinary. It is a fascinating comment on meta-fiction and an exercise in idiosyncratic postmodernism. It is a film that questions reality and leaves the audience absolutely shaken, whether it be through energetic adoration, relentless fearfulness or an uncomfortable existential crisis. There is very little doubt that Anguish was ahead of its time, and considering it has remained relatively obscure, but not underappreciated, suggests that it is a well-hidden surprise for anyone who wants something unique and unpredictable. I cannot implore everyone – horror fans or otherwise – to give Anguish some of your time because it is truly one of the most unexpectedly brilliant films of its kind and something entirely impossible to forget. Just make sure you keep an eye over your shoulder next time you’re in the cinema.