Demian Rugna’s Latest Film, ‘When Evil Lurks,’ Is Brilliant And Original – Movie Review

With The Exorcist: Believer out now, the market seems flooded with possession movies. But everyone elsemight as well go home, because director Demian Rugna (Terrified) has fused extreme gore with cerebral horror and delivered one of the best possession stories of all time with his new film, When Evil Lurks.

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 helping him to deliver the inferno.

Gunshots in the night awaken brothers Pedro (Ezequiel Rodriguez: The Road) and Jimi (Demian Salomon: Satanic Hispanics) in their rural farmhouse in Argentina. The next day, they make the grisly discovery of the lower half of a torso in the woods. This leads them to a nearby house where a man lies bloated, leaking, and begging to die. He is infected, or “rotten.” With the help of a local landowner, the brothers attempt to deal with the situation themselves, accidentally unleashing a chain reaction of terrible events.

Unlike most possession films, When Evil Lurks exists in a place where religion as we know it is dead. The existence of the the rotten is accepted among the townspeople, and most know the rules for dealing with them. Among these rules is: don’t use electricity, never name them, and do not use guns to kill them. But knowing the rules and delivering on them under crushing pressure are two different things. The film starts with a low level of anxiety, ratchets it up, and then never, ever lets you go. When Evil Lurks is terrifying because it’s so unpredictable… no one is safe.

Among the fetid air of evil, Rodriguez and Salomon do a fine job of fleshing out the brothers, ensuring that the viewer never loses a sense of humanity. But these two aren’t “final survivor” archetypes. They are just regular people making difficult choices, ones that sometimes make things catastrophically worse.

Gorehounds, rejoice! This film has incredible graphic practical effects, and lots of them. I do feel like I need to add a disclaimer that if you can’t handle violence toward children or animals, you need to skip this one.

Hands down, When Evil Lurks is the best film of 2023! When Evil Lurks is available now in select theaters will be available to stream on Shudder on October 27, 2023.