‘Evil loves children. And children love evil...’
It’s been a landmark year for the humble possession movie. Evil Dead Rise harked back to the classics of the genre, Talk to Me changed the game, but When Evil Lurks is the most original and daring of the three and there are moments within this film that genuinely got under my skin…
When a rumour begins to surface that a local man in a small, rural farming community somewhere in Argentina has turned ‘rotten’ (possessed by a demon), brothers Pedro (Ezequiel Rodríguez) and Jimi (Demián Salomón) go and check it out. What they find is a bloated, grotesque shell of a man, devoid of all humanity and oozing pus and bad intentions. Along with their neighbour Ruiz (Luis Ziembrowski), the brothers decide the best course of action is to move this demon-man thing into a pick-up truck, drive for three hours and then dump him by the side of the road. It’s a bold strategy. Also a stupid one as it turns out. The evil returns to the brothers’ small town and turns everyone it comes into contact with into a murderous lunatic. Father murders daughter. Brother maims brother. A whole bunch of gnarly shit goes down. There is stuff in this film that will haunt me until the day I die (hopefully not by being consumed by an ancient and unknowable evil).
Argentinian director Demián Rugna has form in this area having already created the similarly unnerveing Terrified back in 2017. Where that film unleashed terror into the suburbs of Buenos Aires, here we are deep into the countryside. This rural setting provides the playhouse for some serious violence. Much of it involves primitive tools and blunt-force trauma. Rugna utilises practical effects along with coaxing an excellent performance from Rodriguez as our flawed and tragic protagonist to create something of real power – and something that is genuinely utterly unique. It may be folk horror adjacent and a possession movie at its heart but in many ways, When Evil Lurks is unclassifiable.
It’s not often that a horror film affects me in such a profound way but other than Skinamarink, this was the most uncomfortable I felt watching any movie in 2023. High praise indeed.