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Film: When Evil Lurks (Cuando acecha la maldad)
Year: 2023
Director: Demián Rugna
Writer: Demián Rugna
Starring: Ezequiel Rodríguez, Demián Salomón and Silvina Sabater
Review:
This is a film that I saw was playing at the Gateway Film Center. It tended to be later in the day and it is hard for me stay up thanks to my daughter not sleeping the greatest. I heard good things surrounding this one so I made it a point that when there was an early showing on Sunday, I got to the theater to watch it. A bonus is that this is from the guy behind Terrified, which I like as well. I’ve also now given this a rewatch to see where I sat with it for my end of year list on Shudder.
Synopsis: in a remote village, two brothers find a demon-infected man just about to give birth to evil itself. They decide to get rid of the man, but merely succeed in spreading the chaos.
Now I believe this takes place in what I’m guessing is Argentina. The two brothers are Pedro (Ezequiel Rodríguez) and Jaime (Demián Salomón). They hear gunshots. Jaime wonders if it is poachers, but Pedro points out that they wouldn’t be shooting as much as they are. They’d be sneakier. Morning is coming so at first light; they go to look. It turns out that the person who was shooting was a ‘cleaner’. He was looking for a nearby woman.
They seek her out at her home where she lives with her two sons. Her older one is Uriel and he has become ‘rotten’. He is possessed by an unborn demon who is awaiting physical birth. Pedro questions why he hasn’t been dealt with and the man they found dismembered was heading here to do that. Our two brothers go to the police, who don’t help. It sounds like this information is known about Uriel. The mayor included, but it has been a massive delay in helping. A nearby farmer, Ruiz (Luis Ziembrowski) wants the son dealt with. There are rules though. One of them is that you cannot harm or kill the ‘rotten’ or it will bring the demon into the world. They instead decide to move it and drop him off far away.
This becomes a problem that they didn’t notice the body fall out of the bed of the truck. This causes the brothers to panic. They head to the house of Pedro’s ex-wife and her family. From what I gather, he left her. Their older son Jair (Emilio Vodanovich) is autistic and non-verbal. There is also a younger boy named Santino (Marcelo Michinaux). His ex-wife is Sabrina (Virginia Garófalo) and has a daughter with her new husband, Sara (Paula Rubinsztein). His name is Leo (Federico Liss). He shows up unannounced, stripping naked and demanding new clothes. He also wants them to pack as he is afraid the evil will spread here. There’s another rule about not encountering items that were close to the ‘rotten’. Even though this duo had the best intentions, their decisions create a domino effect that will pull anyone they meet and there is limited time before it is too late.
That is where I’ll leave my recap and introduction to the characters. Where I want to start is that this movie was stressful in the best ways possible. What we’re getting here is a different take on the haunting/possession film. It also feels like it is in the same world as his earlier movie, Terrified. What I think I like best here is that evil can spread easier than we realize and to contain it is much harder. This bit here got my anxiety up.
Now that I’ve said that I’d also put this in the vein of like The Dark and the Wicked or even like A Dark Song. The reason that I say this, we are in a small, isolated town. This also takes place mostly in the rural areas. That is why it reminded me of the former. The problem is that decisions made get the evil closer to town where there are more potential victims. What makes that scary is that one of the rules is that evil can spread using technology like electric lights. The town is full of them. The reason I brought up the latter is these strict rules. Like in A Dark Song, the ritual there takes so much care and mindfulness, which is what we have in this world. The tension ramps up though is that evil spreads so easily as opposed to what you must do to prevent it. This was well done.
I did have a warning here that due to my lack of sleep, I didn’t know if I missed things in my first watch. I don’t know if that was the case, but there are things that I noticed more here. To get into that, I want to know if the lore here is based on regional beliefs or just made up for the movie. Regardless of the answer, it feels like our writer/director Rugna knows the answer to this question. If he made it up, it seems like he knows all the ins and outs. Even if he doesn’t, it feels like it to me which is what I want when there is folklore that I’m not familiar with. Going farther with this is there are callbacks that appear later. There is a picture that Jair drew and Mirtha (Silvina Sabater) tells of an encounter she had. This makes me think it could be the same demon there, trying again to get back into our world.
There is a bit here which I haven’t brought up and it is that Rugna also likes to put children in peril. Now that I’m a parent, which hits me harder. There is something with a dog that made me gasp audibly. Knowing that no one is safe makes it raises the atmosphere as well. There’s also a good number of children in the movie so that adds as well. I do know there are concerns that this is a bit too gratuitous. I can see their argument and I don’t have a rebuttal. It works for me with building the atmosphere.
That should be enough for the story so over to the acting. Rodríguez and Salomón are good as the two brothers. We follow the former a bit more since he has a family. They play well off each other as they create a bigger problem and then try to fix it. Ziembrowski was also solid in his role as this wealthy farm owner who thinks the government is out to take his land. That tracks as to why he thinks that Uriel hasn’t been dealt with. Sabater is also solid as this ‘witch’ like lady that they seek out for help. We learn that was a member of the church before becoming a ‘cleaner’. I’ll credit Liss, Desirée Salgueiro, Emilio Vodanovich, Garófalo, Rubinsztein and Michinaux. These are all characters met that get affected in some way by evil. They all work and the acting was solid across the board.
All that is left in this is filmmaking. Rugna does so well at capturing the feel of the small town and the surrounding area. That isolated atmosphere is good. What is terrifying though is the idea of what could happen to the rest of the world if evil gets out. I’ll credit the cinematography to capture that. It also is scary knowing that there isn’t anyone coming to help them either. I do love the effects we got. They are brutal and practical from what I could see. That’s a plus there. I’ll credit the sound design, which adds to the atmosphere. The soundtrack also fits for what was needed.
In conclusion, this movie got under my skin in the best way possible. I love the different takes that Rugna has used with the haunting/possession film. He incorporates different ideas and folklore into it so that could be part of it. Either way, this is a tired sub-genre that he is breathing different life into. I’d say that this is also well made from the cinematography to effects and the sound design as well as track. The acting is also good across the board. The fear that they convey and the images we see work well in unison. I will warn you that this is in Spanish, so I watched it with subtitles. If that’s an issue then avoid this. This one is up there as one of my favorites of the year.
My Rating: 9 out of 10