The acting was excellent especially the young lead actress. I would not categorize it as a horror movie. A good solid drama. If you are looking for an action packed movie, this is not it. I would still recommend it.

On arriving in small town USA a troubled girl is contacted by the dead, and her family must fight to end her troubles ...A slow but evenly paced drama that treads the line between the literal and the metaphorical. The intro delivers a blunt shock, then we explore the world of the heroine as she mopes about before contact is made. The horror effects are mostly jumpy, with a few imaginative visuals, but I don't think this really hits the horror mark.It's similar in tone to The Babadook, which was draining to watch, but at least this movie has some literal spooks and doesn't make the mistake of leaving the story on the metaphorical level. It's also less affecting than Magic Magic, which deals with a girl spiralling into madness and isn't so linear. The drama is underpowered, I think, because the heroine doesn't change when contact is made - really, she just gets a little more depressed and erratic, so there's no contrast.There's almost zero need for male input, which would be interesting if the female characters weren't forever falling tearfully into each other's arms. The priest seemed pointless, and there's one odd scene with a guy in mask, which I wanted to see play out but may have been a left-over from a theme that was edited out. One thing I did appreciate is how miserable the American way has become, with bills for useless medical treatment and military service and underemployment - although indie films like this pack nowhere near the punch of similar stuff from the '70s.The acting is good, with good dialogue and timing in a flashback scene at the swings. The sound creates a spooky mood through plucked strings and humming cellos, and there's an off-key folk song that gets repeated. Effective, but the music is constantly "on" with no space for silence, so I ended up wondering how the story would play with just ambient sound - probably unwatchable. The photography and editing are good.Overall: Thoughtful, bit of a drag.

"Horror" is a well selling label, which is the reason, why many ambitious movies are labeled as horror movies despite being nothing like that - this old curse also hits "Anguish" and makes it being seen mostly by an audience, who will not take this slow little indie movie as a pleasure but will rather be disappointed.I don't want to hide that I am part of just this audience. Looking for a small, chilling ghost / possession movie I stumbled about "Anguish" with little to no expectations and no idea about what the movie will be in detail. Starting the movie, I was immediately annoyed by "Lucy", but well, things take a certain turn here...late, we are introduced to "Tess", who, in all honesty, is at least as annoying as Lucy, if not more. I see what the directors tried - they wanted to paint an introverted, troubled character, but I am not sure if this wouldn't have played out better if they didn't try to show an annoying teenager but a sensitive, unusually calm kid or something...but well.The story basically is about a girl, that gets possessed by the spirit of another girl - without spoilers, if you read my review this far, you can probably figure out who gets possessed by whom.If you expect a possession horror movie, some exorcism, creepy stuff, moving things and whatever there might be out there in the huge horror movie portfolio, than forget that. "Anguish" is 95 % very low paced drama about how the mothers cope with the situation - the girl(s) is/are surprisingly unsurprised (no pun intended) by the situation. I mean, hey, getting possessed by some dead girl is pretty refreshing if you live in a boring small town, eh? So, that's it. Basically nothing more happens during the entire movie. Two annoying girls, two a very little bit less annoying mothers, and some drama about why things have to be this way, until the movie finals in a, well, it's not even a twist, I'd say it's the end you will expect from minute one, if you ever have seen any horror movie, despite the fact "Anguish" isn't such.I can give some points for the fairly nice soundtrack, the okay acting of the female lead girl, the atmosphere and the one scene, that gets supernatural finally (even though this scene does not make any sense at all - they just wanted to have it in the movie for showing off some shift/tilt effects, I assume). The result of this scene finals in the mentioned "twist" and does not match with the scene. At all. I'd basically describe that as a continuity mistake.So, can I recommend? For my personal taste, I can not, unfortunately. I appreciate the efforts of independent film makers, and I understand they tried to mix up rather suspense than horror with drama elements. And hey, I can be fan of this - Carrie, Babadook and others show that this walk on a red line can be done. Anguish fails to place itself amongst those examples and can thus not be recommended - at least not if you have to pay for it. If your preferred VoD portal has it offered for free, you can take a look.

In the short space of time she is on screen, objectionable brat Lucy (Amberley Gridley) sulks and pouts so much that when she is knocked down by a speeding car during a spectacular strop, the relief outweighs any grief.Next we meet Tess (Ryan Simpkins), a similarly uncommunicative young lady who initially displays all of Lucy's charm (i.e.: none) – and yet Tess's troubles are there for a reason: for years, she has suffered mental instability episodes throughout her life. We learn this from scenes of her isolation, even in her fairly bustling hometown. This may make her susceptible to Lucy's undead spirit … With so little happening throughout the running time, and when much of that time is given to focussing on Tess's sullen moping, there isn't much sympathy invited. It is suggested that Tess's condition - a 'dissociative identity disorder' - makes her susceptible to Lucy's undead presence. Her mother Jessica, fashionably not that much older than her daughter, is wracked with the applicable concern, but when her daughter is so cut off, so apathetic, as far as this drama is concerned, she just becomes a pain in the neck. With an unresponsive child possessed by a sulky adolescent, the subtleties of the drama are fatally unengaging.And yet, amid the heart-wrenching soul-searching, Sarah's wishes that her dead daughter Lucy needs to be 'in a better place' are somewhat unnerving, especially as the spirit seems unwilling to leave the host body. These scenes, and others, would have been so much more effective if more was made of the supernatural element.Ultimately, despite what are presumably the best intentions of the cast and crew, two women screaming 'Tess!!' every time the young woman coughs or chokes or looks earnestly into the distance doesn't really inspire much of a reaction. Sadly, I ran out of patience long before the film ended. As a guide in how not to look after a troubled teen, this may be useful, but as a horror film, it is duller than dull.