Anguish

Anguish is a 1987 Spanish horror thriller directed and written by Bigas Luna, released in March of that year. It follows John Pressman, an eye doctor's assistant with a fixation on human eyes, who kills so that his domineering mother Alice can add to her collection. A mother and son pair, played by Zelda Rubinstein and Michael Lerner, anchor the story, which shifts between the film being watched and the world of the people watching it. Two friends, Patty and Linda, settle into a cinema screening of a horror movie about this very killer, and the line between the screen and the audience's surroundings begins to blur. Àngel Jové plays a figure in the theatre, with Clara Pastor and Isabel García Lorca also in the cast.

Bigas Luna both wrote and directed, and the film stands as the earliest title listed among the features he directed, ahead of The Ages of Lulu in 1990 and Jamón Jamón in 1992. It was produced by Pepón Coromina for Samba P.C. and Luna Films.

Audience response has held up over time. On IMDb it holds a 6.7 rating from around 4,800 votes, while on TMDB it sits at 6.4 from a much smaller pool of 158 votes. The wide gap in vote numbers points to a modest but durable following rather than broad contemporary attention.