When Evil Lurks (Cuando acecha la maldad)

Brothers Pedro (Ezequiel Rodriguez) and Jimmy (Demián Salomon) hear gunshots at night and investigating the next morning find that a man has been cut in half and his instruments scattered.

A journal indicates that he was on a mission. Making their way to the house they find a boy and his mother who are waiting for someone to kill son and brother Uriel.

Uriel has been possessed, their term is a ‘rotten’, and is in state of bodily disintegration putrid and flowing with pus. Praying for death the brothers come close to shooting him (what the demon wants) until warned that gunpowder would just free whatever is inside and pollute the whole area. To paraphrase one of the characters ‘the rotten will rot others’.

There’s a grubby and dirty look about this whole film from writer and director Damián Rugna. From the appearance of the two dishevelled brothers to the ‘rotten’ to the atrocities that are committed. All juxtaposed against some glorious images of the Argentinian countryside and initially tranquil towns.

The visuals are matched shot for shot by an intensity of story and performance that barely lets up for the duration. The tale builds steadily with the lore explained and the unbreakable rules that govern them. This sort of demonic possession is not uncommon hence the rituals that have been developed to deal them.

What cannot be prepared for is the sheer cold brutality of a demon that is content to use anything, including pregnant women and children to further its own ends. And there are some genuinely shocking moments here. That isn’t new by any means just here there’s a malevolence and manipulation that should get under the skin of the viewer as much as it toyed with the minds of the brothers.

Their slow-wits and gut level reactions to almost everything – as when Pedro having realised what is going on, goes to get his children, in the process destroying his ex-wife’s world – are initially annoying though later reflection the panic is all to understandable.

What is interesting about this film is that Rugna has resisted the temptation to link it to any established religion: the ‘rotten’ it is just pure evil. The instruments used appear to have a mathematical and geometric origin rather that any faith-based ritual.

The possible implication that the build-up of base human activity has generated a malign force that will eventually manifest and run rampant.

When Evil Lurks is out now in UK cinemas.