When Evil Lurks (2023)
October 30, 2023 8:22 PM - Subscribe
In a remote village, two brothers find a demon-infected man. When a wealthy neighbor convinces them to help him get rid of the man, everything goes terribly wrong.
Brothers Pedro and Jimmy discover that a demonic infection has been festering in a nearby farmhouse, its very proximity poisoning the local livestock. They are convinced by a wealthy landowner to simply move him elsewhere rather than wait for the authorities aka "cleaners" to deal the situation properly.
This movie is very much full of trigger warnings as there is a lot of very graphic violence to children. I don't want to spoiler and ruin some of the suspense, but if you have issues with dog attacks definitely give this one a miss. Oh and pus or bodily fluids. This movie is brutal. One of the reviewer on Letterboxd compared it to Cannibal Holocaust in terms of exactly how rough a watch it is. I don't want any viewers going in unaware of how rough a movie this is.
Despite the movie focusing on possession, filmmaker Demián Rugna, said the movie is about bureaucratic indifference and laziness. As he told the Fantastic Fest audience in a Q&A after the movie’s premiere, he got the idea for When Evil Lurks from a series of news stories about farm pesticides in his native Argentina causing widespread health issues:
“The pesticide infected them,” Rugna told Polygon. “Kids were born with cancer. Sometimes you see something in the news, but then there’s nothing more to say, and you forget the image. They’re in the middle of nothing, the middle of poverty. They must do work for less than a couple dollars, and they’re all ill. After you turn off the television, you forget, but they are still there, they are still probably gonna die.”
He said it happens too often, that “people who work the land” get “abandoned” by the system. “When I decided to make a movie with some kind of exorcism, I thought, OK, but what happens if the people cannot reach a priest? All the Exorcist movies happen in the city, in a big house. But what if we’re in the middle of nothing, in a poor house, with poor people who nobody cares for? Even the owner of the land wants to get rid of them, to burn their houses. It happens in my own country all the time — not the demons, [but the rest].”
For those concerned about the child actors in this movie, and there are a lot of them, Rugna explained how his production walked the actors’ parents through their safety plans:
“I’d need two hours to tell about the process of working with the parents,” he said. “It’s too funny, because we did take care with the parents — we thought, OK, we want to share the entire script. We were scared about the reaction of the parents. […] The parents were too excited to put their kids in our movie. You can’t imagine. […] When the parents read the script, and we’re like, The kid’s gonna be bit by a dog and crushed with a car — ‘Oh, I love the script! Got it!’”
Amazingly there are NO CGI effects in this film according to Rugna, which impressive since the cast consists of so many children and animals.
Written and directed by Demián Rugna (Terrified and Satanic Hispanics) starring Ezequiel Rodríguez and Demián Salomón who both appeared in Legions last year-another film about demonic forces manifesting on Earth.
Brothers Pedro and Jimmy discover that a demonic infection has been festering in a nearby farmhouse, its very proximity poisoning the local livestock. They are convinced by a wealthy landowner to simply move him elsewhere rather than wait for the authorities aka "cleaners" to deal the situation properly.
This movie is very much full of trigger warnings as there is a lot of very graphic violence to children. I don't want to spoiler and ruin some of the suspense, but if you have issues with dog attacks definitely give this one a miss. Oh and pus or bodily fluids. This movie is brutal. One of the reviewer on Letterboxd compared it to Cannibal Holocaust in terms of exactly how rough a watch it is. I don't want any viewers going in unaware of how rough a movie this is.
Despite the movie focusing on possession, filmmaker Demián Rugna, said the movie is about bureaucratic indifference and laziness. As he told the Fantastic Fest audience in a Q&A after the movie’s premiere, he got the idea for When Evil Lurks from a series of news stories about farm pesticides in his native Argentina causing widespread health issues:
“The pesticide infected them,” Rugna told Polygon. “Kids were born with cancer. Sometimes you see something in the news, but then there’s nothing more to say, and you forget the image. They’re in the middle of nothing, the middle of poverty. They must do work for less than a couple dollars, and they’re all ill. After you turn off the television, you forget, but they are still there, they are still probably gonna die.”
He said it happens too often, that “people who work the land” get “abandoned” by the system. “When I decided to make a movie with some kind of exorcism, I thought, OK, but what happens if the people cannot reach a priest? All the Exorcist movies happen in the city, in a big house. But what if we’re in the middle of nothing, in a poor house, with poor people who nobody cares for? Even the owner of the land wants to get rid of them, to burn their houses. It happens in my own country all the time — not the demons, [but the rest].”
For those concerned about the child actors in this movie, and there are a lot of them, Rugna explained how his production walked the actors’ parents through their safety plans:
“I’d need two hours to tell about the process of working with the parents,” he said. “It’s too funny, because we did take care with the parents — we thought, OK, we want to share the entire script. We were scared about the reaction of the parents. […] The parents were too excited to put their kids in our movie. You can’t imagine. […] When the parents read the script, and we’re like, The kid’s gonna be bit by a dog and crushed with a car — ‘Oh, I love the script! Got it!’”
Amazingly there are NO CGI effects in this film according to Rugna, which impressive since the cast consists of so many children and animals.
Written and directed by Demián Rugna (Terrified and Satanic Hispanics) starring Ezequiel Rodríguez and Demián Salomón who both appeared in Legions last year-another film about demonic forces manifesting on Earth.
Shaking my head at Pedro. What a frustrating climax, not that it was bad, but Pedro is the worst. I haven't wanted to shout at a horror movie like that in a long time.
posted by forbiddencabinet at 11:27 PM on October 30, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by forbiddencabinet at 11:27 PM on October 30, 2023 [1 favorite]
Worth mentioning that this is not quite a sequel to Terrified. It appears to be in the same world since The Rules and the exorcism tool also make an appearance, with more explanation, in Terrified. Demián Salomón is in both movies, but is playing different characters.
posted by forbiddencabinet at 11:37 PM on October 30, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by forbiddencabinet at 11:37 PM on October 30, 2023 [1 favorite]
I just watched this last night. I found the social commentary to be slight, though that's not a criticism; it just didn't add anything for me. I get that the police didn't want to do anything when there was clearly some sort of protocol involved, but the didn't play out at any other point in the movie, and just seemed necessary.
I liked the paranoia at the beginning and having just enough implied knowledge to be scared, but the ending slowed down once they started explaining the rules more. Once the explaining started, there was enough for me to have further questions, but not enough to make things more tense. If anything, I felt less tension, because I was thinking about imagined rules instead of being in the moment.
I think they should've left less as more. It's brutal and pessimistic, and didn't need to be more than that. Pedro seemed to be done in by the rule of "don't be scared," which is pretty sucky, since of COURSE he's going to be scared. That's a pretty decent premise for me as is.
posted by mrphancy at 12:14 PM on October 31, 2023
I liked the paranoia at the beginning and having just enough implied knowledge to be scared, but the ending slowed down once they started explaining the rules more. Once the explaining started, there was enough for me to have further questions, but not enough to make things more tense. If anything, I felt less tension, because I was thinking about imagined rules instead of being in the moment.
I think they should've left less as more. It's brutal and pessimistic, and didn't need to be more than that. Pedro seemed to be done in by the rule of "don't be scared," which is pretty sucky, since of COURSE he's going to be scared. That's a pretty decent premise for me as is.
posted by mrphancy at 12:14 PM on October 31, 2023
The police not doing anything is what ends up allowing the rich landowner to convince the brothers to help him "take care of it" without going through the proper protocols resulting in the rotten one escaping. The family has already waited a year and now it's beginning to infect local wildlife (which is all the landowner cares about). So their failure to act paired with the landowner's avarice are what set this in motion.
Interesting you felt there was too much exposition, most of the audience complaints I've seen are there wasn't enough exposition/explanation in terms of the rotten ones etc.
posted by miss-lapin at 12:33 PM on October 31, 2023
Interesting you felt there was too much exposition, most of the audience complaints I've seen are there wasn't enough exposition/explanation in terms of the rotten ones etc.
posted by miss-lapin at 12:33 PM on October 31, 2023
Wow wow wow. Just saw this the other night. Thanks for the contextual links on this.
posted by queensissy at 12:38 PM on October 31, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by queensissy at 12:38 PM on October 31, 2023 [1 favorite]
I understand all that setup, I just felt it didn't really discuss it any further after that, so it wasn't really on my mind as as theme for the rest of the movie. And I agree that there is not enough explanation of the rotten ones and birthing demons and jumping from body to body, but I feel adding more would've just bloated the runtime. I think having no real reason and playing it like a zombie movie would've been cooler. Personal preference I suppose. I did like the movie, though it may seem like I'm dumping on it.
posted by mrphancy at 9:41 PM on October 31, 2023
posted by mrphancy at 9:41 PM on October 31, 2023
I thought this was great, and probably one of the most original horror films I've seen this year.
I thought the world-building and lore was pretty skillfully done, when the movie starts you have no idea what's going on, but the characters obviously do, and then you pick up drips and drabs of lore from context, and finally there's the requisite information dump to a naive character when the grandmother lists the rules to the child (maybe this last part was a little clumsy, but they got it over with quickly at least). I didn't feel like I needed any more of the back-story than was provided, personally, and I appreciated their restraint in not starting out the movie with an opening "in 1973 in Beunos Aires, a mysterious blah blah blah" crawl or something.
The bit with the dog and the girl in this was an amazing "everything is about to go straight to hell" moment, and there were lots of indelible images here, like when you realize what the possessed Sabrina has been doing as she walks by the side of the road.
posted by whir at 2:20 PM on November 3, 2023 [1 favorite]
I thought the world-building and lore was pretty skillfully done, when the movie starts you have no idea what's going on, but the characters obviously do, and then you pick up drips and drabs of lore from context, and finally there's the requisite information dump to a naive character when the grandmother lists the rules to the child (maybe this last part was a little clumsy, but they got it over with quickly at least). I didn't feel like I needed any more of the back-story than was provided, personally, and I appreciated their restraint in not starting out the movie with an opening "in 1973 in Beunos Aires, a mysterious blah blah blah" crawl or something.
The bit with the dog and the girl in this was an amazing "everything is about to go straight to hell" moment, and there were lots of indelible images here, like when you realize what the possessed Sabrina has been doing as she walks by the side of the road.
posted by whir at 2:20 PM on November 3, 2023 [1 favorite]
Lots of good things about this. I loved the feeling of being post-apocalyptic but not really because everything seems kinda fine? (A little like the original Mad Max (and also involving some ice cream...). When people insisted things weren't bad, that the brothers were just imagining things and got scared etc., that was some good shit. It's been long enough, or far away enough, that people have forgotten, and no one wants it to be true.
The movie's a bit marred by idiot ball stuff. Too much wtf-are-you-doing-you-dumbass. Too much kind of shouting escalation tension, like just before the dog attack, or in the final confrontation; it went on a bit too long for me and the tension vanished. Cheap tension, like a ringing phone. This may be why the violence didn't really shock me. Though, I just had to turn off The Innocents the other day because two kids harm a cat. It's possible I like cats more than kids lmao. I think it's more that the Innocents was cold in its heart.
I did like the line, "Evil loves children, and children love evil."
posted by fleacircus at 8:28 PM on November 4, 2023
The movie's a bit marred by idiot ball stuff. Too much wtf-are-you-doing-you-dumbass. Too much kind of shouting escalation tension, like just before the dog attack, or in the final confrontation; it went on a bit too long for me and the tension vanished. Cheap tension, like a ringing phone. This may be why the violence didn't really shock me. Though, I just had to turn off The Innocents the other day because two kids harm a cat. It's possible I like cats more than kids lmao. I think it's more that the Innocents was cold in its heart.
I did like the line, "Evil loves children, and children love evil."
posted by fleacircus at 8:28 PM on November 4, 2023
Oh and I really liked when Mirta wondered if this was all happening to torture her with Jaime's presence. The paranoia felt real...
posted by fleacircus at 9:39 PM on November 4, 2023
posted by fleacircus at 9:39 PM on November 4, 2023
Watched this last night and loved it. It’s bracing that this was a movie in which the main character did everything wrong, failed at everything he attempted, made everything worse at every step, and lost everything. Sucks to be you, Pedro! He probably would have been better off just shooting Uriel at the start and letting the demon be born, since after that it just walked away.
For all the gore and grossness (and there was a lot), the most chilling part was after Pedro gets Jair to cough up grandma’s necklace… and Jair’s eye darts up for just a moment to see Pedro’s reaction. Yikes.
posted by ejs at 6:15 AM on November 5, 2023 [1 favorite]
For all the gore and grossness (and there was a lot), the most chilling part was after Pedro gets Jair to cough up grandma’s necklace… and Jair’s eye darts up for just a moment to see Pedro’s reaction. Yikes.
posted by ejs at 6:15 AM on November 5, 2023 [1 favorite]
I think it's more that the Innocents was cold in its heart.
That's an interesting comparison. I was also a lot more disturbed by the violence in The Innocents than I was in this movie, despite it being in many ways less gruesome. Maybe it just seems more plausible for kids to torture an animal out of basic amoral cruelty than as a result of demonic possession.
I will admit I was kind of dreading seeing the daughter's mauled body after the dog incident and was somewhat relieved to see her looking (unnaturally) unhurt at the end of that scene.
posted by whir at 3:47 PM on November 7, 2023 [1 favorite]
That's an interesting comparison. I was also a lot more disturbed by the violence in The Innocents than I was in this movie, despite it being in many ways less gruesome. Maybe it just seems more plausible for kids to torture an animal out of basic amoral cruelty than as a result of demonic possession.
I will admit I was kind of dreading seeing the daughter's mauled body after the dog incident and was somewhat relieved to see her looking (unnaturally) unhurt at the end of that scene.
posted by whir at 3:47 PM on November 7, 2023 [1 favorite]
Just watched it. Thoughtful, grim, and entirely appropriate considering Argentina's current trajectory. Mandatory viewing.
posted by Jessica Savitch's Coke Spoon at 3:44 PM on December 10, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by Jessica Savitch's Coke Spoon at 3:44 PM on December 10, 2023 [2 favorites]
Rugna announces himself as one of the world's best horror directors with this film. *****
posted by DirtyOldTown at 12:24 PM on January 11 [2 favorites]
posted by DirtyOldTown at 12:24 PM on January 11 [2 favorites]
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Having said that it's a really amazing take on possession as it doesn't involve religion at all, but instead government bureaucracy as basically more evil than actual demons. Despite the social commentary in this movie, this is not remotely elevated horror. This is absolutely visceral omg did you just see that? horror. It's nice to see a film marry those two elements so effectively.
Definitely one of my favorite movies this year.
posted by miss-lapin at 8:36 PM on October 30, 2023 [5 favorites]