[TIFF 2023 Review] WHEN EVIL LURKS - Nightmarish Conjurings

This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, WHEN EVIL LURKS covered here wouldn’t exist.

Demián Rugna is an Argentinian writer and director whom horror fans know as the director of Terrified or Aterrados. Terrified has built up an audience, including director Timo Tjahjanto, who called the film aggressively scary, which is one of the best ways that I have heard Rugna’s work described. Now, he’s back with his brand-new horror film, WHEN EVIL LURKS.

In WHEN EVIL LURKS, brothers Pedro (Ezequiel Rodríguez) and Jimmy (Demián Salomón) discover that a demonic infection has been festering in a nearby farmhouse — its very proximity poisoning the local livestock — they attempt to evict the victim from their land. Failing to adhere to the proper rites of exorcism, their reckless actions inadvertently trigger an epidemic of possessions across their rural community. Now, they must outrun an encroaching evil as it corrupts and mutilates everyone it is exposed to and enlist the aid of a wizened “cleaner,” who holds the only tools that can stop this supernatural plague.”

I will start this review by saying that if you love horror movies, you should immediately watch Rugna’s previous feature, Terrified and Satanic Hispanics, which includes his segment “Tambien Lo Vi,” which is another great example of his work. Then, once you are done watching his other films, go see WHEN EVIL LURKS. Holy ghosts, it’s a stunner that will make you moan in fear. I know because that’s how I reacted to it. The entire audience was losing their minds during the film, and I look forward to watching it with another festival crowd because I know it’s going to be a great time.

I thought I was ready, and may I say, reader, I was not.

If you have been following Rugna’s career, you already know he has quietly become a horror master. What he has done with WHEN EVIL LURKS is create his own version of demonic possession. He’s created his own lore and traditions that are presented in the film as fait accompli that have nothing to do with the Catholic rituals or God. It looks at it from a much more realistic and almost scientific standpoint. He has carved his own niche with a razor-sharpness. The film is set in a rural area of Argentina. The world that he built in a very short time is part of what makes this film sing. It is singing death metal, but it’s still an amazing song.

The film’s violence is so sudden and so shocking, while paradoxically, Rugna quite frequently doesn’t bother to hide his intentions. While many directors employ tactics like jump scares, Rugna places the horror in plain sight, concentrates on it, communicates it to the audience, and then makes you wait for it to happen. It’s so much worse. It’s perfect, textbook Hitchockian suspense. At the same time, Rugna’s very Latino and macabre sense of humor is always at work. He is merciless. I said to someone, it’s horrifying but still funny. Many of the characters in horror films that are sacrosanct have no protection in a Rugna film. If anything, he seems to delight in going after characters that audiences want to protect. When people start getting offended about a horror film really going for the jugular, you know that it was artistically successful. The effects are all practical and are gory and chilling, dripping with pus, viscera, and so much blood.

One of the best parts of this film is the all-important aspect of casting. All of the actors are splendid. They all make the totally berserk goings-on seem real because they react to the horror with such truth. In particular, the two leads, a pair of brothers, Ezequiel Rodríguez as Pedro and Demián Salomón as Jimmy, give performances that are lived in and well-worn. You can feel the connection between them as you would normally see between very close siblings. Little touches like the way Pedro smokes his cigarettes and how he has to stop to rest even during a chase scene because his smoking renders him unable to run for very long. Jimmy is such a likable, if slightly too deferential, guy. Totally believable and such delicate details of humanity. Because while monsters are important in a scary movie, if your human beings aren’t equally as believable, the scares will fail.

The cinematography by Mariano Suárez has the beauty of a fall day. The scenes in the darkness hide what they want to hide, but everything that needs to be visible is plainly visible and well-lit. The soundtrack by Pablo Fuu sometimes swells with strings, and as the film advances has a pounding, plucked sound that pecks what is left of your nerves. It breathes along with the film itself and is a perfect accompaniment and enhancement to the terror. The production and costume design enhance the film’s atmosphere, and as mentioned earlier, the special effects and makeup are not only practical, no CGI, but gruesomely effective.

One of the things that people complain about in horror films is that they would never do such stupid things whilst being chased by a serial killer with a knife or a horde of zombies. But the reactions that you see from the characters in the film are those of people overwhelmed and in denial about a menace that they know is a problem but that they refuse to admit exists. You have had a front-row seat to how this very human characteristic works for the last three years. It provides heart-sinking despair to the story when you realize if only people had listened, maybe all those nice people wouldn’t be dead.

The difference in WHEN EVIL LURKS plotwise is that instead of demonic possession being limited to one body, in this story, the evil can infect as many people as it can. Some minds have protection against possession, but most don’t, and trying to defend yourself by killing either a rotten or a possessed person or animal can lead to the demon possessing you. What’s more, the possessed are murderous and have taboo appetites. The danger is everywhere. I don’t know why someone hasn’t thought of doing this before, really, on this kind of scale. You even have to be careful about clothing that has been around the place where the possessed are. It’s an infection that is all too easily spread.

William Friedkin’s The Exorcist has cast a long shadow over horror, particularly the subgenre of demonic possession films. His film was so great that most possession films that came after it worked with the template of The Exorcist. I think that this tendency for filmmakers not to explore other possibilities in the subgenre stifles what exorcism films could be, and it is wonderful to see that directors and writers like Rugna are stepping out of the Christian version of this horror myth. It’s not Friedkin’s fault that he made a classic, but his influence was that strong.

WHEN EVIL LURKS has a grandeur that would make it stand out even if it weren’t already head and shoulders above most of the subgenre. There’s pride in the small things and things like love, friendship, and brotherhood that are thoroughly tested by the evil in the film. Vibrant characters, grotesque body horror, and swift and utterly breathtaking violence make this film an excruciatingly spine-chilling, mind-melting, and ultimately heartbreaking experience.

WHEN EVIL LURKS is set to be released on October 6, and what better time for a truly frightening film than to open at the beginning of the spooky season? The film will be available to stream on Shudder on October 27th.

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Dolores Quintana

Dolores Quintana is an actor and writer living in Los Angeles. She has written for blogs as diverse as Buddyhead, Pocho.com, and The Theatre @ Boston Court. She works as an actor in independent film and both immersive and traditional theatre with Alone: an Existential Haunting, Screenshot Productions, and Native Voices at The Autry.

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