This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labour of the writers and actors currently on strike, the movie being covered here wouldn't exist.
Argentinian director Demián Rugna shocked, titillated, and thrilled film fans with the release of Aterrados (Terrified) back in 2017 – exactly the reaction any horror creator craves. The supernatural tale blended truly haunting imagery with a captivating narrative and fully fleshed-out characters in the perfect recipe for soul-altering scares. Rugna set himself a high bar for his latest film, Cuando Acecha La Maldad (When Evil Lurks), which screened at this year's Fantastic Fest.
Set in an alternate Argentina, a supernatural plague is present which sees residents infected with demons who then become ‘Rotten', a possessed human hellbent on spreading evil. Brothers Pedro (Ezequiel Rodríguez) and Jimi (Demián Salomón) come across one of the infected near their home and, along with their neighbour Ruiz (Luis Ziembrowski), confront him and his mother. They decide to move him far away, but this only unleashes the evil within and forces them to flee from the area with their families.
Doom-filled and with an onslaught of misery and gore, When Evil Lurks leaves you feeling dirty after watching. Each frame blends macabre beauty with horror — the exquisite cinematography capturing a sprawling countryside, rustic farmhouses and quaint streets contrasts starkly with the mayhem that unfolds.
From its opening scenes, it's clear audiences are in for a hellish ride as the brothers find a body torn to pieces, which in turn leads them to their first Rotten. Yet as the film unfolds, it soon becomes apparent that the horror movie rules have not so much been thrown out of the window, but lie impaled on the broken glass below. Nobody here is safe. As Pedro and Jimi desperately try to escape the demons chasing them, heart-pumping fear goes hand in hand with a sense of hopelessness, as the violence and sadness around them becomes more and more relentless.
By elevating his craft to new heights, Demián Rugna has cemented himself as a director whose output should go straight to the top of any horror fan's watchlist. Uniquely grisly, mean-spirited and rotten to the core this is a film that's sure to fester in audience's brains for quite some time.
When Evil Lurks screened at Fantastic Fest 2023 on September 22. It comes to UK cinemas from October 6 and streams on Shudder from October 27.
