When Evil Lurks starts with a bang. Well, two bangs, to be precise. The film opens with brothers Pedro (Ezequiel Rodriguez) and Jimmy (Demián Salomon) awoken by a pair of gunshots that pierce through an otherwise quiet night in their sleepy rural town. The two then set off to investigate the noise, only to come across a rotting subhuman bathing in his own fetid fluids and excrement.
Pedro and Jimmy immediately recognize the threat at hand. Clearly, this isn’t their first rodeo. They know exactly how to proceed: get this creature as far away from their community as possible. As they haul the swollen being into their pickup truck, it becomes evident that this is something much more sinister than your regular creature feature. Indeed, this bubbling monster is infected with something unspeakable that will continue to spread and spread until it is too late. Directed by Demián Rugna, When Evil Lurks follows Pedro and Jimmy’s desperate attempts to contain the infectious evil at hand. It quickly leaps out from under a boldly original and bone-chilling premise and wastes no time hooking its viewers and setting the scene for a film that is impressively committed to defying horror conventions and being its own beast.
Indeed, When Evil Lurks takes place in a uniquely-crafted and novel world where characters are all-too familiar with the disease that has taken root in their village. The hunting of this evil comes with several rules, which feel less like Zombieland-esque headshot-related safety precautions, and more like some otherworldly credence that is not meant to be explained or understood – just followed at all costs.
At times, the singularity of Rugna’s world feels like a double-edged sword. While a lack of exposition is always refreshing in a film, and in this case makes the story feel that much more authentic, there are times in When Evil Lurks that leave viewers a little too deep in the dark. Particularly in the third act, there are moments when characters act in ways that are distractingly mystifying. Still, the film maintains a familiar and human enough undertone to feel uniquely relatable throughout. Horror often works best when it serves as social commentary, and at its core, Lurks is about the perils of distrust, and the chaos that ensues when trust begins to fracture within a community during the outbreak of a malevolent disease. (Sound familiar?)
But When Evil Lurks isn’t just a grim and nightmarish cautionary tale – it’s also insanely fun. The film is filled with a profusion of I-can’t-believe-they-went-there moments, one of which involves the creepiest goat you’ve seen since The Witch, another of which sees a kid getting bitten by a zombie dog, and the rest of which are so delightfully gruesome that you’ll simply have to see them to believe them.
These shocking moments shine even brighter when juxtaposed with the understated stylization of the film. Mariano Suárez’s cinematography is refreshingly restrained, and through limited, stagnant camera setups, he positions his characters in a stark and eerily real world. Similarly, When Evil Lurks manages to escape the trap of punctuating every jump scare with a deafening musical cue. Instead, the score simply accompanies the viewer through the film’s emotional beats without being manipulative.
In a world where horror flicks are churned out at the speed of light, it can be hard not to feel bogged down by the sheer volume of scary content that feels derivative, unimaginative, or otherwise lacking in substance. Which isn’t to say that recent years haven’t provided their fair share of refreshingly thoughtful and original horror, but still: When a filmmaker finds a way to talk about fears that have existed for literal centuries, that’s something to celebrate. And that is exactly what Rugna has done.
Director: Demián Rugna
Writer: Demián Rugna
Stars: Ezequiel Rodriguez, Demián Salomon, Luis Ziembrowski, Silvia Sabater, Marcelo Michinaux
Release Date: October 6
Aurora Amidon is a film journalist and passionate defender of Hostel: Part II. Follow her on Twitter for her latest questionable culture takes.