Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. Have you seen 1987's ANGUISH? Probably not, but if you have visited the Alamo Drafthouse in Austin there's a good chance you know at least a few scenes from this movie. The Alamo has their "No Talking or We'll Take Your Ass Out" bits that play before every movie and the one that is probably my favorite features clips from this flick.
ANGUISH is a weird, semi-experimental mind-fuck of a film about a chubby serial killer surgeon with a domineering hypnotist mother (played by the legendary Zelda Rubinstein)... or so you think. After this guy makes a house call and carves out some poor bastard's eyes the camera pulls back and suddenly you're in the audience and you realize you're watching a movie within a movie. But that's just the beginning of things. The events going on in the movie are being mirrored in the real world and maybe even having an effect on the real world as a man is driven to insanity and quietly begins killing the people in the theater.
Now, I don't know how you modernize this to take place in a multiplex and not have it be ridiculous, here's hoping Sam Raimi's GHOST HOUSE PICTURES does the right thing when they do the remake and set it in an old movie palace... c'mon, most places have something like that in their town, yeah?
Variety's story also says Ghost House is up to remaking Danish horror film ROOM 205 (now called THE DORM), which will be directed JU-ON: THE GRUDGE style by original director Martin Barnewitz, with THE GRUDGE remake's Stephen Susco handling the adaptation. I have not seen the original so I have no comment on that one.
WHEN A STRANGER CALLS' screenwriter, Jake Wade Wall has written the adaptation of ANGUISH. Hope it's good. The original is one of those really cool ideas that is doubly cool for being so unknown, but the idea is strong enough to survive someone else taking a stab at it. I just hope they get someone very talented... and Bring Back Zelda!!!
