‘When Evil Lurks’ Review: TIFF Satanic Horror Film is Dull – IndieWire
Illness has all the time been fertile floor for the horror style: what’s a zombie or vampire film if not the story of a very nasty virus making its method from host to host? Demonic possession onscreen typically has the same subtext; take a look at the definitive instance, 1973’s “The Exorcist,” the place internet hosting an historical evil leaves a bit of lady bedridden, lined in sores, and vomiting her abdomen out.
“When Evil Lurks,” from Argentinian director Demián Rugna, takes the virus imagery and symbolism and runs with it because the central conceit, putting the viewers in a tiny group that goes via, primarily, a quickly escalating epidemic of demonic possession. An improperly disposed affected person zero introduces the plague of demonic terror upon the small rural village, slowly infecting man, girl, little one, and canine, and forcing households to flee for his or her lives.
It’s a enjoyable premise that, fortunately, doesn’t pressure exhausting at relevancy for any particular COVID-19 parallels, however the movie doesn’t fairly belief the viewers to select up on the apparent, forcing the primary character’s son to bluntly say “like a illness?” when the demonic menace is defined to him. It’s a second of unneeded hand-holding indicative of the movie itself, which goals to be atmospheric, nasty enjoyable however often will get in its personal method.
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Like one of many movie’s contaminated, Rugna’s film begins robust however deteriorates fairly shortly. The story kicks off instantly when brothers Pedro (Ezequiel Rodríguez) and Jimi (Demián Salomón), from the house they share, hear odd noises within the evening, and examine the following day to seek out that their neighbor Uriel has turn into a “rotten”: a grotesque, memorably nasty swollen blob of flesh and boils host to a horrific evil, the mere presence of which places each dwelling being at risk of demonic possession.
Simply the neatest alternative in Rugna’s script is to maintain exposition initially elusive. Each Pedro and Jimi are very conscious of what a rotten is; within the movie’s world it’s a typical phenomenon, albeit extra seen in huge cities than the farmland the place they dwell. Little or no element of how society has been formed by this horror is revealed in favor of focusing purely on the one case at hand. How the rotten features and the foundations for coping with them — you’ll be able to’t shoot them, you’ll be able to’t use electrical lights round them — is data dolled out sparingly, making the opening scenes an intriguing sluggish boil the place half the attraction is piecing the logic of the world collectively.
Upon discovering that Uriel’s household has been retaining him hidden for the higher a part of a yr, Pedro and Jimi inform the wealthy native landowner Ruiz (Luis Dziembrowski), whose livestock have been rising sick due to the rotten’s affect. In a transfer that immediately makes a case for the Unhealthy Horror Film Resolution Corridor of Fame, Ruiz convinces the 2 to assist him forcibly take Uriel from his household and get rid of him outdoors their group’s limits; when Uriel falls out of their truck and will get misplaced mid-journey, the boys resolve that was adequate and return house with out searching for him. Predictably, the possessions begin spreading shortly from there, and Pedro and Jimi try to assemble their household and flee the group whereas they nonetheless can.
If the movie’s first 20 minutes introduce it as sluggish and atmospheric horror, the sequence the place the possessions start to unfold dispels that impression shortly. All pretenses of subtlety are dropped for kills and scares which might be extra lurid and outrageous than scary, together with a bit of lady getting viciously thrown round like a chew toy by a possessed canine. It by no means fairly turns into an outright horror comedy, however moments the place Pedro strips in his ex-wife Sabrina’s (Virginia Garofalo) home and burns his garments with out explaining himself make the movie really feel far lighter and sillier than it did earlier than. Nonetheless, Sabrina’s house and the city at giant descending into chaos because the possessions start to unfold throughout a sunny day is manic enjoyable to observe onscreen, delivering on the promise of quickly increasing hazard a viral possession guarantees. The film stays entertaining, though the shift in vitality leaves you to surprise what kind of horror movie you’re really watching.
In the end, “When Evil Lurks” settles on “a boring one.” After Pedro and Jimi get on the street with Pedro’s sons and their aged mom, the film has already peaked in intrigue and leisure, and begins spinning its wheels till lastly ending. The movie’s preliminary withholding of exposition is changed by the brother’s mom Sara (Paula Rubinsztein) telling Pedro’s youngest Santino (Marcelo Michinaux) all the foundations of cope with the rotten, together with a number of which have beforehand been talked about simply to verify the viewers didn’t miss it. The vagueness of the world and the way the rotten operate start to really feel much less like an intentional alternative than an indication of poor planning: it by no means turns into completely clear what separates those that get possessed from those that don’t, and most of the “guidelines” aren’t introduced again in a significant method.
Relatively than leaning into the chaos and pressure {that a} demonic epidemic might trigger, the movie makes the odd option to downplay the premise in its back-half, by no means addressing how the broader group is responding to the possessions in favor of following the brothers as they take refuge with Mirtha (Silvina Sabater), a “cleaner” with the instruments to destroy the rotten and a bent to doll out clunky sayings like “evil loves youngsters, youngsters love evil.” With the thrills of its premise changed by largely rote scares and a climactic foray into probably the most boring and unfrightening haunted faculty of all time, “When Evil Lurks” begins counting on its characters and their relationships, significantly Pedro’s strained bond along with his sons, to present it any weight.
However the characters are uniformly wafer-thin — Jimi and Mirtha have a romantic previous that interprets to zero onscreen warmth — and in Pedro’s case, his backstory of beforehand abandoning his sons is referred to briefly with out it ever impacting his interactions with them in any notable method. Particularly galling is the portrayal of Pedro’s eldest Jair (Emilio Vodanovich), whose autism leaves him largely unable to talk. The script treats him as a plot gadget greater than an precise individual — there’s some exposition about how demons invade autistic individuals’s our bodies however battle for management as a result of they “can’t work out their minds” — so when the story abruptly begins to hinge on our funding in him and his father, it feels just like the film anticipating the viewers to care about somebody it barely cares about itself.
A enjoyable premise can get a horror movie far, and “When Evil Lurks” has one which could possibly be taken to attention-grabbing, terrifying locations. However fairly than lean into what makes its world of demonic illnesses intriguing, the movie squanders its personal potential by leaning into its worst qualities and instincts. As an alternative of giving us one thing feverishly nightmarish, it finally ends up operating as tepid as a minor head chilly.
Grade: C
“When Evil Lurks” premiered on the 2023 Toronto Worldwide Movie Pageant. It is going to premiere in theaters on Friday, October 6 earlier than streaming on Shudder on Friday, October 27.
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