John (Michael Lerner), an orderly at a hospital, is hypnotised by his controlling midget mother (Zelda Rubinstein) who sends him to kill people and remove their eyes. After twenty two minutes of confusing horror, in which John's snail-loving 'mother' listens in on her pigeon-fancier son's murderous activities using a large shell (?!?!), it is revealed that everything we have seen thus far is a film within a film called The Mommy, being watched by an audience that includes teenagers Patty (Talia Paul) and Linda (Clara Pastor).
Terrified by the on screen carnage, Patty leaves the theatre and visits the loo, where she becomes convinced that the killer from The Mommy is lurking. She heads back to tell Linda, who reluctantly investigates and discovers that a copycat psycho (Àngel Jové) armed with a gun is preparing to go on a killing spree.
Cutting back and forth between The Mommy (a film that I doubt would draw in the crowds) and the 'real' action, director Bigas Luna experiments in mixing art-house surrealism with the slasher genre, which go together like oil and water, and chucks in some pretentious meta-cinema for good measure. The result is a woeful experience—tedious, repetitive, and thoroughly irritating (as if any film headlined by Rubinstein could be anything but!).
Terrified by the on screen carnage, Patty leaves the theatre and visits the loo, where she becomes convinced that the killer from The Mommy is lurking. She heads back to tell Linda, who reluctantly investigates and discovers that a copycat psycho (Àngel Jové) armed with a gun is preparing to go on a killing spree.
Cutting back and forth between The Mommy (a film that I doubt would draw in the crowds) and the 'real' action, director Bigas Luna experiments in mixing art-house surrealism with the slasher genre, which go together like oil and water, and chucks in some pretentious meta-cinema for good measure. The result is a woeful experience—tedious, repetitive, and thoroughly irritating (as if any film headlined by Rubinstein could be anything but!).