When Evil Lurks (2023): One Of The Best Horrors Of The Last Decade

Ben and Rob head into the Argentine countryside for When Evil Lurks (Cuando acecha la maldad), the 2023 possession horror from Terrified director Demián Rugna that became Shudder’s first Spanish-language original. Brothers Pedro and Jimmy, played by Ezequiel Rodríguez and Demián Salomón, find a half-eviscerated corpse and a man about to give birth to a demon. Their botched attempt to deal with it sets off a contagion that spreads across the region, in a story where faith offers no protection and the rules of the exorcism film have been thrown out.

What real-world nightmare did Rugna say sparked the script, and how does a film about rotting, contaminated land mirror a country that sees the horror coming and does nothing about it? How did he turn a tiny Argentine budget into a daylight road movie, and was he really channelling Evil Dead, The Wailing and The Road? Why is the script so brutal and so hard to second-guess, with an opening that drops us into a world already ruined and refuses to hold our hand? How did that dog scene get filmed? And why did a film this uncompromising sweep Sitges, the Fangoria Chainsaw Awards and a cult following?

And finally… what does it really mean?!

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