Torment is a 1986 American psychological horror film directed by Samson Aslanian and John Hopkins, and starring Taylor Gilbert, William Witt, and Eve Brenner.

Its plot follows a young woman in San Francisco who is stalked by a sadistic killer while visiting the estate of her future mother-in-law.

Bob, a lascivious middle-aged man, arrives in San Francisco and begins a string of serial killings, targeting young women.

Bob lays out a series of photographs on the table of young women—each his victims—before revealing a forensic police sketch of him made by law enforcement.

He grows enraged when she attempts to call Michael, and violently drags Jennifer out of the house, but is stopped by Mrs. Courtland, who shoots him in the shoulder with a shotgun.

Bogartis, a local officer summoned to the home by Michael, who received a panicked call from his mother, is hacked to death by Bob outside with an axe.

Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times praised the film as an "ingenious little suspense thriller that deftly upturns the cliches of the lady-in-distress genre," likening it to the Coen brothers's Blood Simple (1984).

[2] Malcolm Johnson of the Hartford Courant praised the film as a "gripping" thriller, adding that "as it moves toward its harrowing conclusion, Torment is by turns sad, scary, and darkly amusing.

"[3] The Philadelphia Daily News's Joe Baltake praised the film for its blunt and unfiltered presentation of violence against women, noting: "Borrowing freely from Wait Until Dark, Halloween and any number of Hitchcock thrillers, Torment takes its theme from what was merely implied—hinted at—in other slasher movies, i.e., that the women who get bludgeoned to death deserve it because of their brazen, sexually liberated ways.

"[5] Bill Cosford of the Miami Herald was less laudatory of the film, deeming it a "cramped, low-budget thriller" boasting a "shabby" script.