Greetings from beautiful Los Angeles, hope you are doing well. There’s nothing new to report on my side of the world, other than life got its usual sparkle back now that the industry strikes are officially over and we can go back to making money art in Hollywood (gonna miss the free lunches at Bob’s Big Boy tho). Right, enough with the pleasantries, let’s jump into it.
Just like you, I follow various horror enthusiasts with the sole purpose of broadening my taste within the genre. Sure, I listen to those with similar opinions to mine, but I really pay attention to those who do not; as a rule of thumb, the farthest you and I are in our enjoyment of the horror spectrum, the better the payoff for me, the better the surprise I get when I watch that which you claim to love. Right, so imagine my surprise when two of the horror people I highly respect, one who echoes my taste, and one who sure as f*ck does not, separately lauded the same indie movie they had watched in festivals (09/22/23 Austin Fantastic Fest, 10/01/23 Beyond Fest, respectively). The movie was called Cuando Acecha la Maldad aka When Evil Lurks (2023) and it was written and directed by Demian Rugna, the acclaimed Argentinean filmmaker who gave us Aterrados aka Terrified (2017). I was intrigued and desperately needed to watch the new film for myself, soon. But soon could not come sooner. And so I waited. Waited until it was released in theaters near me.
CUT TO:
INT. SHERMAN OAKS GALLERIA – TWO WEEKS LATER - NOON
Let me tell you a thing or two about the blessings of going to a movie matinee on opening day: no people around. That is it, actually, the best thing and the second-best thing about going to a matinee on opening day here in L.A. for an indie genre film is the fact that there is no people, period. So here I was at noon on a Friday (yes, PTO was requested in advance because I am that dedicated to horror in my real life) and, besides me being there, one other guy was in attendance as well. Sweet.
Now, so you understand the magnitude of my excitement and subsequent emotional reaction to the movie, you must know the context of that day. As it turned out, I was not only eager to finally watch that one new movie so highly recommended, the one that was unapologetically categorized as one of the best horror movies made in recent years, but I was also uncharacteristically stressed out due to recent personal life challenges and, brother, I was more than ready to escape reality for a couple of hours, to forget about my own problems and give my full attention to this horror gift, if you will. So, I walked in that movie theater full of hope for the—and let me be bold here—pretty much guaranteed great time I was about to have.
Wrong.
I ended up way more stressed out by the end of the movie and—shock, horror!—around the third act I even asked myself, Should I leave now and try to finish it when I am in a better headspace? But quickly answered back, No – what the hell are you thinking, Marath, just relax and enjoy the chaos! Now, if you have already watched When Evil Lurks, then you know [SPOILER] that even the freaking ending was like, WTF!? There was nowhere to run, no one had a way of escaping evil, there was no hope at all… in retrospect, the irony of my looking for comfort and refuge in the movie was, shall we say, horribly poetic? My problems (read: evil) are here and will be here with me, no matter what I do and no matter where I go, so I shall better not expose (read: infect) my loved ones with them. No. Use.
[NOTE: It is not lost in me that one of the big reasons why the movie had such a great impact was because I watched it on the big screen, in a technically empty room, alone, surrounded, no, engulfed in darkness, literally and figuratively. Had I waited three more weeks until it was available online, I bet I would not have cared as much. And that, my dear horror friend, is the power of going to the cinema to experience movie making in full. ADDITIONAL NOTE: Still on the topic of going to the cinema to experience a movie in all its full glory, I have to point out that one of the first thoughts I verbalized in my mind as soon as the movie started was, Wow, this film feels like a real Hollywood movie, like The Shining or The Thing, don’t know what it is but it feels like a legacy movie, not a ready-made Netflix one. And (and!) word to the wise: if you still have the option of watching for the first time When Evil Lurks, go to the cinema for it (granted, it had a limited theatrical release at the beginning of October and we are just ending December, oh wait, Merry Christmas btw), do not watch it online as you will not get that ‘it’ factor due to digital compression. Like I said, the power of going to the cinema is real.]
One last random thing before I actually start talking about the story of the movie. When Evil Lurks is an Argentinean movie, thus Spanish was the spoken language. I speak Spanish, thus I got the privilege of experiencing the movie as it was supposed to be, although, I must admit that one of the main topics, that of possession, was talked about with words I had never heard being used in that context before, thus it took me a minute to realize that ‘encarnado’ (ingrown) and ‘embichado’ (full of bugs) were colloquialisms that meant possessed by an evil spirit, so once I got over that hump I was ready and good to go, baby. Alright, let the ‘embichamiento’ begin!
**SPOILERS AHEAD**
Pedro was the main character of this enormous story happening in a small rural town. Pedro was a divorced father, living in the same house as his bachelor brother. Pedro was this unknown man but I could tell right away he was riddled by his bad decisions, clueless as to what he did (or did not do) to end up alone, wasting away in regret.
One night, the brothers heard something odd happening out in the distance, but decided not to risk it and wait until next morning to go investigate. What they found was an unraveling mystery, full of unimaginable pain, suffering, and violence. They were certainly not equipped to face any of that, let alone fix it. Evil was a feeling, a game, one that you must play smartly should you want to remain in it. This Evil, however, had no interest in playing by its own rules; animals, humans, men, women, children, they all were fair game when coming across it. But in reality, there was no game, there was no chance, Evil was going to win. Evil will win.
When Pedro and his brother tried to help the first ‘embichado’ they did it badly, you see, they blindly followed the exasperated orders of one of the land owners. They clumsily tried to dispose of that first victim, the one currently carrying Evil, as in, impregnated by it, but because they rushed the disposal, they actually lost the body, the morbidly swollen and infected body. It would have been sensible to say that here’s where their troubles began, but as we already established, their troubles had already begun, and they had already lost – at this point, they were just killing time by spreading Evil and making it kill everyone way faster. Evil will win.
Pedro, being the emotional and reckless person that he was, went to his ex-wife’s house to rescue her and their kids, but was obviously met with resistance by her new husband. Try to picture, if you will, the disturbing image of a naked Pedro, freaking out by his soiled clothes, barking orders that made no sense, scaring everyone, even the dog… so, long story short, everyone gets killed by Evil, but then brought back to life by Evil, but Pedro was still running away, not understanding that faith was already decided. Evil will win.
A demon-hunter lady, Mirtha, eventually provided guidance as to how to properly fight against Evil, but, as you would expect it since we are dealing with Pedro here, he ruined the very skilled, very sophisticated plan mapped out by her due to his impatient nature and, bam, he gets Mirtha killed as well. (Mirtha’s death was the one that bothered me the most, actually.)
With the plan ruined, and with the only capable person dead, Evil gave birth to itself. A little demon kid now walked the earth. Evil won.
So that was the movie – pretty bleak, no? Two things are for certain, When Evil Lurks is indeed one of the best horror movies made in recent years, and on top of that also showcases one of the now most memorable and disturbing moments in horror cinema, that of a possessed mother, walking at night on the side of the road in pitch-black darkness, while scooping with her bare hands the brains of her diseased child, eating them.
In Love and Fear,
—Marath
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