This movie is a lot more like an experimental film than anything else. So, that means that MANY will find it rather disappointing due to its surrealism and crazy plot. Some will also find it to be a wonderful film. I guess it all boils down to the type of person you are. If you like artsy films and usually like what the critics rave about, then you'll probably like this. If you like Hollywood-style films or action films, you'll probably be bored to tears. I think I fall somewhere in the middle, though I definitely am not a fan of action films. I like the odd and offbeat and respect the experimental nature of the film BUT I also found myself a bit bored by the whole thing. If the film had been 30 minutes or 45, I probably would have loved it.

The overall experience was sort of like staring at a Dali painting for 90 minutes.

I'm just beginning to view Bunuel's work. I know I saw this movie somewhere before but was taken under its spell. It has that "No Exit" sense about it. A group of upper crust party goers are suddenly put in a situation like the Star Trek force field. Except the force field seems to be in their heads. They cannot leave the room they are in and are forced to take up residency in this mansion. The servants have hit the road and so they are forced to face the trials imposed on them using the tools their pathetic selves have provided. Obviously, Bunuel doesn't like these people and makes them incompetent and ineffective. The kicker, of course, is that they don't have any will, just like the sheep and the bear that run through the house. Of course, it is all surreal and strange traits began to show themselves. They are fundamentally uncivilized and fall prey to baser instincts as well as wallowing in their own filth. There is a great kicker at the end which seems to work, but where is the world going. Or is this just allegorical? Is life just like this, only less dramatic. Certainly a seminal work.

A group of bourgeois friends are trapped in a house after a dinner party. Some type of mysterious force does not allow them to leave a room. There, a few days later, their social behavior masks fall down, revealing persons very selfish, rottenness, confessions about their friendship and a 'bad smell': most of them stinks. They survive, through the sacrifice of some lambs, and in the end, everything and everybody returns to the same initial position and they leave the place.

"El Ángel Exterminador" is an intriguing and weird surrealist and metaphoric film that criticizes the behavior of the bourgeois class. This challenging film exerts some type of spell on the viewer that makes him love it. The film looks like a dream (or nightmare) with a spectacular restored photography in black & white and wonderful shadows. The essence of the story is very clear, with the hypocrite bourgeois class trapped in their world, changing positions but without leaving their social class and sacrificing lambs to survive and in the end returning to the same initial position in the world. But who is "The Exterminating Angel" from the title? An angel punishing the upper class? My vote is nine.

Title (Brazil): "O Anjo Exterminador" ("The Terminator Angel")