2016 October Horror Challenge#73: "Anguish (2015)"

I wanted to clarify that this is the "Anguish" from 2015, because I still want to see the earlier movie with the same name, though I might not be able to this year. As for this version, it doesn't come highly rated, but the premise sounds really good, and it did manage to shock the shit out of me right away, which is hard to do to my movie savvy self, so I'm impressed.

The movie is about a young girl who suffers from a mental illness and appears crazy to others, but really she is fighting a battle in her mind against something dangerous. It's not clear whether this is supernatural or not, so I guess I'll have to watch it to find out. Either way, it's compelling, and the actress who plays the young girl does a good job, as does the actress who plays her mother. The other actors do a good job, too, drawing me into the story with their performances.

The idea of losing your mind is scary enough even without a supernatural threat, and the girl's previous mental problems of course make it hard to know whether there really is something ghostly going on or not. That's the strongest aspect of this movie, the terror the girl feels because she keeps trying to tell herself what's happening isn't real...but what if it is? Creepy!

I feel horrible for the girl and her struggle, but I feel horrible for the parents, too, because what they're going through must be terrible, having to watch this happen to your kid and not knowing what to do it how to help her. Sometimes I want to punch the parents in movies like this, but not this time. That alone makes me respect the movie more. Of course, with movies like this, it's hard to see where things are going, what's the endgame here?

After awhile, there's really only one way for this to go, and once things start to spiral out of control, the movie gets even creepier. Note to self: don't try this at home, for fuck's sake. This movie definitely got under my skin better than others of its ilk, though, and it might even be the best possession-themed movie I've seen this year.