WHEN EVIL LURKS (2023)
Label: Second Sight Films
Region Code: Region-Free
Rating: Cert. 15
Duration: 99 Minutes 42 Seconds
Audio: Spanish DTS-HD MA 5.1 Surround with Optional English Subtitles
Video: Dolby Vision HDR 2160p Ultra HD Widescreen (2.39:1)
Director: Demián Rugna
Cast: Demián Salomón, Ezequiel Rodríguez
From Argentinian director Demián Rugna, the director of Terrified (2017), comes the visceral demonic possession tale When Evil Lurks (2023), set in a rural Argentinian village that finds itself plagued by a demon. It starts with brothers Pedro (Ezequiel Rodríguez) and Jimi (Demián Salomón, Terrified) hearing gunshots in the dead of night, the next day they tour the nearby area to investigate and discover a disemboweled corpse cut to pieces, which leads them to the nearby home of María Elena (Isabel Quinteros), an elderly woman who lives with her two sons, Uriel and Eduardo (Ricardo Velázquez), the former of whom they discover is possessed, something they call a "rotter", which is someone possessed by an unborn demon, the possessed's flesh slowly bloats and festers until the demon can be born into physical world. They also learn that the corpse they discovered in the woods nearby was that of a "cleaner", an exorcist/mystic of sorts who can kill the demon before it's evil can spread, using ancient ways and an archaic device. The film sort of establishes seven key rules for slowing down and stopping the possession, they are not quite spelled out, but are slowly inferred throughout the film, rules like don't ever use a gun on the possessed for it will taint and spread the evil, don't use electric light for it attracts evil, and other such rules. They initially try to dispose of the "rotter" with their boss Ruiz (Luis Ziembrowski), loading the bloated body of the Uriel "rotter" into the bed of his truck, but a near accident on the road with a child causes them to lose the corpse somewhere along the way, it having gone unnoticed until they pull over. Realizing that the evil is still in the area the brothers decide they need to flee the area before they are tainted by the evil, Jimi gathers up their mother Sara while Pedro visits his ex-wife Sabrina and his two children, the younger Santino (Marcelo Michinaux) and the autistic Jair (Emilio Vodanovich), but she and her new boyfriend Leonardo think Pedro has flipped his lid, and is talking crazy, and she wants nothing to do with him. During the argument the family dog licks ooze from Pedro's "rotter" infected clothes and the animal viciously turns on Sabrina and Leonardo's young daughter Vicky (Lucrecia Nirón Talazac), mauling her and carrying her limp corpse off down the street, with Leo giving chase with a shotgun.
From here it turns into a chilling gorefest as the malevolent evil sets about spreading it's fear and evil, destroying the lives of the brothers and all they love, with dead loved ones now possessed by the demon continuing to spread it's insidious evil, punctuated by some grisly violence and surprisingly impactful gore, you will not soon forget the horrors of the bloated "rotter", the dog mauling and a scene of a mother eating the brains of her young child, it's wild stuff. I also love how this is an exorcism flick that is absent of the church, they way they set about tackling it comes from a folkloric origin, for better or worse, the somewhat ambiguous nature of the lurking evil and the somewhat loose assembly of rules make for an interesting tack for sure, and I love how messy and absolutely downtrodden the ending it, I was gutted by it. I also quite enjoyed how flawed our main character Pedro is, he seems to make all the wrong the moves, his actions actively making things significantly worse, unable to see the evil right in front of his eyes. I quite liked Demián Rugna's previous film Terrified (2017), and this possession shocker build on that appreciation, its a better made more assured film in every respect, and it had me on the edge of my seat the whole time, even when I was struggling to fully understand what exactly the rules of this possession were I was always fully engrossed on onboard. Rugna has crafted quite a unique demonic possession flick with When Evil lurks, the atmosphere of this is thick, it's unsettling and dread-filled, dripping with bad vibes, and the practical effects are quite gruesome, definitely check this one out.
Audio/Video: When Evil Lurks (2023) gets a terrific looking 4K Ultra HD release from Second Sight Films, the image is nicely detailed and textures, moments of horrific violence and the grotesque look of the "rotter" with it's bloated, festering, loose flesh come across wonderfully with the 4K resolution and Dolby Vision color-grading. Black levels are deep and inky, contrast is nicely dialed-in and the saturation color is pleasing. Audio comes by way of Spanish language DTS-HD MA 5.1 with optional English subtitles. The audio elements are clean and well-balanced, the creepy score by Pablo Fuu (Legions) really enhances the demonic horrors unfolding onscreen.
The Second Sight release is well-stocked with extras, starting off with an New Audio Commentary by Gabriel Eljaiek-Rodriguez. Then into the 28-min It Was Always There: a new interview with director Demián Rugna, the director sporting a Hellraiser t-shirt gets into how an early love of action films lead to horror as a youth, issues finding finding funding in Argentina, his movie inspiration, the writing process, Shudders involvement, production delays, casting, specifics scenes of violence, working with animals and kids (noting that kids are way more difficult because of the myriad of rules and regulations), problem solving day to day, and how it's the easiest looking scenes that are somehow the hardest to shoot. He also discusses his 80% practical/20% digital philosophy when it comes to FX, the score, and the films premiere at Midnight Madness.
Next up is the 23-min Tragedy is Inevitable: a new interview with actor Ezequiel Rodríguez - the actor talks about his recent entry into genre cinema, being cast in the film, and the scene he thought went too far involving a child, which gave him pause, and how heavy the character's darkness weighed on him. The 18-min We Made a Movie: a new interview with actor Demián Salomón sees the actor discussing making early shorts with the director, shooting Terrified which was based on an earlier short, and his experience shooting When Evil Lurks, as well as the infamous the dog scene, and how it was he who turned director Demián Rugna onto Ezequiel Rodriguez.
The last of the cast interviews is the 19-min Stripped to the Bone: a new interview with actor Virginia Garófalo - she gets into reading the script and getting chills, her character's rawness, trying not to lose intensity between takes, the gruesome FX and the challenges of her grotesque make-up appliances, as well as her brain-eating scene, celebrating the director and other Argentinian filmmakers, and how she broke her finger during rehearsal, resulting in the FX team creating a fake finder to use during filming. The last extras is the 9-min Terror and the Unknown in When Evil Lurks: a video essay by Mike Muncer - he delve into different portrayals of pure evil in film, from the Evil Dead to Prince of Darkness and beyond.
The single-disc standard edition 4K UHD arrives in an oversized black keepcase with a single-sided sleeve of artwork, featuring a haunting black on red illustration by Chris Berning.
Special Features
• UHD presented in HDR with Dolby Vision produced by Second Sight Films
• New audio commentary by Gabriel Eljaiek-Rodriguez
• It Was Always There: a new interview with director Demián Rugna (27:38)
• Tragedy is Inevitable: a new interview with actor Ezequiel Rodríguez (23:24)
• We Made a Movie: a new interview with actor Demián Salomón (17:36)
• Stripped to the Bone: a new interview with actor Virginia Garófalo (18:42)
• Terror and the Unknown in When Evil Lurks: a video essay by Mike Muncer (8:44)
