When Evil Lurks

Once evil does begin spreading and people start dying, the brothers meet up with the witchy Mirta (Silvina Sabater), who instructs them to locate the original “rotten” so they can dispose of it properly. The team (which now includes Pedro’s sons and mother) splits up, and Pedro and Mirta head to the rural school where the “rotten” is hidden. The location is fitting because, as Mirta says, “Children are drawn to evil, and evil likes children.” What follows is reminiscent of Narciso Ibáñez Serrador’s Who Can Kill a Child? (1976), in which kids take over an island and do away with all the adults. Like Ibáñez Serrador, Rugna is not afraid to break the taboo (that still holds strong in the U.S.) of depicting violence against children. Having demonstrated this in an earlier scene, the segment in the school is especially chilling because audiences know what Rugna is capable of showing. Evil kids may be a common trope in horror, but Rugna gives it flair, with young actors who alternate between deceptively sweet and terrifying, spitting blood and covered in powdery white lime. 

The film’s final scare involving Pedro’s autistic teenage son, Jair (Emilio Vodanovich), reverses the roles in one of Grimm’s fairy tales. Transforming a purported innocent into a murderous character, Rugna toys with our discomfort, turning Hansel and Gretel on its head. Rugna is a master at doling out shock, but he also employs the pacing of a haunted-house exhibit, reliably providing scares on a dime. It’s a twisted pleasure to behold, even if it prevents the audience from taking the film seriously and rushes the plot, exposition, and backstory in the process. Rugna is a director of great promise, having improved upon his previous film, the jump scare–heavy Terrified (2017), which also involves a creeping, invisible evil. His command of genre is growing nimble, and When Evil Lurks is his most haunting film yet. Whatever comes next is sure to be a wild and frightening watch.