Intensity 🩸🩸🩸🩸 out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸
Directed by Demián Rugna
The Argentinian possession as a pandemic film When Evil Lurks took the horror community by storm this year. It is a tale spun by South America’s greatest horror director, Demián Rugna, and it is bound to become a modern classic. With his latest feature film, Rugna has written the new rules for possession horror in a George Romero fashion. Brilliant and brutal, but also a downer.
This movie lit the horror festival circuit on fire. Horror Audiences should have seen it coming, as Rugna’s previous movie, Aterrados (Terrified), was one of the best horror movies of 2017. Terrified showed off Rugna’s style and aptitude in building tension and terror. It built a story around a strong narrative, and when it brought the horror, it hit HARD. It took Rugna six years to subject audiences back to his brutal feature stylings, and he did not disappoint. Compared to Terrified, When Evil Lurks takes the terror up tenfold.
The Cast:
- Ezequiel Rodríguez as Pedro, a farmer and a recently divorced father.
- Demián Salomón as Jaimi, Pedro’s brother; a hopeless romantic.
- Silvina Sabeter as Mirta, part of an exorcism “cleaner’ crew and Jaimi’s crush.
- Luis Ziembrowski as Armando Ruiz, a powerful local landholder.
- Desirée Salgueiro as Jimena Ruiz, Armando’s pregnant wife.
- Virginia Garófalo as Sabrina, Pedro’s estranged ex-wife.
- Frederico Liss is Leo, Sabrina’s new husband.
- Emilio Vodanovich as Jair, Pedro and Sabrina’s autistic son.
- Marcelo Michinaux as Santino, Pedro and Sabrina’s younger son.
- Lucrecia Nirón Talazac as Vicky, Sabrina and Leo’s Daughter
A Short Synopsis:
It all starts with good intentions gone bad. Pedro has moved out to the country following a volatile divorce and is consigned to living with his brother, Jaimi, in his ranch house outside a rural village. When shots are heard in the night, they search a nearby grove of trees, and find the severed body of a man that leads them to a shack on the property of their neighboring landholder, Ruiz. Inside the shack is an elderly woman with her two sons, one of whom has become bloated and “Rotten”: possessed by a demon yet to be born. Apparently, the half-man they found in the woods was a “cleaner” on his way to exorcise the demon.
When Ruiz discovers the situation, he insists that the Rotten be removed from his property, before it drives the value of his land down. Pedro, Jaimi, and Ruiz throw the bloated possessed demon into the back of Ruiz’s pickup to haul him away. Little do they know that this was a terrible idea. The Roten escapes the truck, and now the whole village is at risk. Ruiz and his wife Jimena discover that the demon has possessed a goat, as this is one of the rules of the spread of demonic possession. The devil likes to use animals as agents, and this goat is the harbinger of doom for the Ruiz family.
Meanwhile, Pedro determines that it is probably best to flee. He travels to pick up his children from his ex-wife Sabrina and her new husband Leo. Unfortunately, Pedro brings the possession plague with him on his clothes, and it spreads to Sabrina’s mastiff. This deadly domino triggers an explosive spread of the problem. Pedro manages to rescue his mother, his murmuring autistic son Jair (who sounds possessed due to his autism), and his youngest naive little boy Santino.
The fleeing family takes refuge with one of Jaimi’s old girlfriends, who is a cleaner and could help formulate a plan to cleanse the land of this possession plague before it destroys everything and everyone around them.
EVALUATION:
Brutal. This is a brutal movie. The gore that is used is potent and stomach-turning. The mere presence of Uriel, the bloated Rotten pre-demon is horrific. The evil portrayed by the quick possession is devastating. It could have been worse. According to an interview with Tasha Robinson at Polygon, Rugna confessed that the Argentinian film governing body forbade any blood on the children. Given the terrifying violence imposed on the kids, I did pick up on the lack of gore on the kids. (Evil Dead Rise, this is not.) Blood will flow though, and you can smell the stink of that demon.
The editing is top-shelf, and Rugna manages to seed the plot with terrific foreshadowing. His subtle nods that set up devastating jump scares are a masterclass in scene development. I mentioned George Romero at the top of this review, and it would not be surprising if this movie re-writes the rules of the possession film as Romero’s films developed the rules of zombie films.
Some of the more interesting new rules of possession:
- Don’t take a possessed individual away from their place of inception before an exorcism is performed. Once again, good intentions (or, in Ruiz’s case, financial intentions) failed.
- Do not shoot a demon with a firearm. This rule subverts many existing tropes.
- Demonic essence passes from one host to another, like a disease.
- Demons jump possession from one person to another if a body dies.
- Demons are fond of using animals as vessels.
- Saying a demon’s name out loud makes you vulnerable to possession.
I loved the story arcs in When Evil Lurks. Pedro’s descent into hell starts with a swagger, and ends with a man on his knees. He starts as a confident man, a man in control of his environment. And with each repeated hammering blow of loss, Pedro diminishes. The story of Jair, the autistic teenager, is similarly fascinating. He is the weakest of them all, but he is blind to the threat. Jair is fearful of many things, but the demonic threat doesn’t register with him. He also represents a target of opportunity. Bravo to Emilio Vodanovich, who, with one subtle eye shift, provides a huge moment in the third act. Expect to see his name when it comes to the Thingy Awards.
Concluding Thoughts:
For those of you who fear getting lost in translation with foreign films, rest easy. You almost don’t need dialogue in this film to understand the plot. Powerful visual storytelling and characters who immediately make sense in the context of the plot power the story point through. You never get lost in this movie. It helps that the pace gets your heart racing early and often.
This is not a perfect movie, however. The first and second acts forcefully power through the story beats. By comparison, the third act coasts. Pedro’s deteriorating hope and will, along with the crushing toll upon the characters leading up to the final showdown, leave the end stakes feeling a little flat. Perhaps that is a reflection of my exhaustion at the conclusion. The movie is also a big bummer. This may be another Romero influence on Rugna. The end of the movie leaves you feeling exhausted and defeated as Pedro.
Those criticisms aside, When Evil Lurks represents a crowning achievement in Patagonian Horror. Demián Rugna is now a horror star director. He is to Argentinian Horror as Timo Tjajanto is to Indonesian Horror and what David Cronenberg is to Canadian Horror. He is a master of the format. If you want to check out some other Patagonian (Uruguay, Chile, and Argentina) you might also want to check out Apps, Embryo, Legions, The Last Matinee , and Vurdulak Blood. It’s not that there haven’t been good South American films, they just haven’t broken like When Evil Lurks. Check these films out!
IFC Midnight picked up the distribution for this film, and it is available for viewing on Shudder. It is unrated. This represents the upper limits of an R-rating if comparing MPAA ratings. There are obvious trigger warnings for people who cannot handle violence against children or animals.
Review by Eric Li
