Director: Sonny Mallhi
Writer: Sonny Mallhi (Screenplay)
Starring: Ryan Simpkins, Annika AMrks, Karina Logue, Cliff Chamberlian, Amberley Gridley, Ryan O’Nan, Paulina Olszynski
Plot: A girl, Tess, is diagnosed with an identity disorder that may actually be channelling an evil, dead spirit inside of her.
Runtime: 1 Hour 31 Minutes
There may be spoilers in the rest of the review
Story: Anguish starts when Tess (Simpkins) and her mother Jessica (Marks) move to a new town to start a new life, a quieter life to help Tess deal with her mental health problems, which have started to see improvements in recent years.
As Tess looks to learn more about the surrounding area, she learns of a tragedy that saw a girl the same age as she killed in an accident, with the spirit looking to come back, using Tess as the vessel. Can Tess manage to overcome this latest problem with her mental health and escape the evil trying to take her.
Thoughts on Anguish
Thoughts – Anguish is a horror that will take the idea of possession in a direction that we haven’t seen before, with the idea a dead person’s spirit will look to communicate with someone they loved in life, rather than being purely dangerous. This is a horror that is ‘loosely’ based on real events, which will be left for people to make their own mind up about. The idea is smart, it will keep the options open for where everything went, instead of just being the bog standard possession based movie, while it will also balance the line that it could be a mental health problem. The performances are strong through the film, with nobody looking out of place in the film, with Ryan Simpkins needing to take on a few different roles during the film. When it comes to the horror, we do get one nicely played out horror scene, with the idea that not everything is meant to be scares for the whole film.
Final Thoughts – Anguish is one of the smartest twists on possession movies we have seen in years.
