When Evil Lurks [Blu-Ray]

aka Cuando acecha la maldadIf you often feel that horror fails to cultivate the dread, utter shock, and dire hopelessness it deserves, then this is the gut-punching atmospheric film you need in your life. That is all.Casual agrarian frontier life takes a dire turn when brothers Pedro (Ezequiel Rodríguez) and Jimi (Demián Salomón) happen upon a mutilated body near their ranchland. The macabrely disfigured man who is claimed to be possessed by a demon threatens to birth greater evil upon the land.Upon discovery of the bloated, oozing body of Uriel, it is imperative that they take his body far away and kill him to halt the evil inside him from moving to the next vulnerable soul, the unborn child of a neighbor. While often reduced to a group of panicked men discussing the matter on the ranch, the atmosphere is incredibly stressful. For what they feel they must do is as unsettling as the perceived consequences of inaction. Moving the corpulent demonic vessel is a likewise unnerving matter. He seeps pus from his lips when disturbed, and his skin is an amalgamation of bedsores and clusters of cysts. The very sight of Uriel admonishes what lies within.Despite only affecting three small neighboring ranchland households, this dilemma feels intensely large. With no help from local authorities and uncertain of the best way to handle this unique problem, they do what they think is best. But to us viewers, their actions feel anything but.From here, the wild superstition is as horrendous as the imagery is brutal. Characters are murdered under hopeless circumstances, for reasons combining possession and fear of demonic forces. As the story continues; the desperate superstition mounts. Leaving all possessions behind, burning clothes exposed to the evil, and fleeing the afflicted land eventually seems to be the only option. They run. The evil follows.The cinematography and general camerawork are excellent! But what about blood and guts…? There is a brutally grounded abruptness to death in this movie. The special effects gore of the severed lower half of a man to the festering obese body of the ranchland neighbor Uriel will surely shock viewers. Multiple self-inflicted suicidal ax wounds to the face will leave you slack-jawed at the visuals as well as with other awkwardly unique and undeserving deaths. The animal attack comes out of nowhere and is truly astounding! In fact, this movie will make you nervous whenever you see a camera linger on an animal. Oh, and the car death… that, too!!! Not to mention a LOT of skull crushing squishy head trauma. Yeah, this film brings a lot to the table.What this film lacks (for me) is a satisfying resolution to the story. Some people didn’t like the story or the “rules” of the possession because they didn’t fully get it—or so I’ve read online. But as someone who got it, I still didn’t care for the turns or revelations of the third act. However, even with this criticism stated, I thought this film was awesome and the execution of aspects I liked less remained thoughtfully crafted.Writer and director Demián Rugna has regaled horror fans again, and his greatest flaw may also be the source of his strength: his patience. After all, his previous feature film was in 2017! So rather than rush him, I simply hope he has another soul-rattling groundbreaker in store for us by 2029… but yeah, sooner would be better! In the meantime, I need to find the horror anthologies to which he has contributed short segments.

This movie has such an awesome and fresh take on the whole possession and demon genre of horror movies. The world building is so good, and leaves me wanting to know more about the world past and present. The characters at times are frustrating, especially the "protagonists" who we're supposed to be rooting for, and ultimately they become their own greatest undoing. This is hands down one of my new all time favorite films and I will always recommend it to horror fans.

So I'm a big horror movie fan, but I don't find many of the movies I watch very scary. The use of CGI in horror movies makes them even less scary because everything looks fake and frankly, a little silly.This movie was one of the few that really stuck with me. There are some genuinely creepy moments and a general feeling of dread throughout the movie.I kind of wish they had more time for lore building in the movie. There are certain rules and rituals involving demons that the characters seem to know about, but they don't ever really explain in detail. For example - you can't kill a demon possessed person with a gun. They kind of explain what happens if you do, but not why it happens.Overall it was a good horror movie with realistic practical effects and it doesn't rely on jump scares.A warning though: this movie is violent and gory and some of the violence and gore involves children. Most scary movies I've seen spare children from scenes like that, but this one did not hold back. If you think you might be sensitive to scenes like that, then this movie is not for you.Also, one of the ending scenes literally made me gag...

I thoroughly enjoy movies like this, Belzebuth and Aterrados are at the top of my list of great horror. Maybe it’s personal to me, but the stereotype of autistic people being “possessed” and demonic is still dangerous and harmful, and it was disappointing for the movie to lean into it without really justifying or addressing the choice, the symptoms of extreme autism are still highly stigmatized, and this movie capitalizes on this widely believed myth and it wasn’t clever or meaningful, it just felt very gross and left a bad taste in my mouth. Everything else in the movie is well-paced and dark with the hopeless ending of sadness and acceptance, but introducing the autistic child as mistakenly demonic, and then justifying that concern at the end of the movie felt like a very low blow to an already marginalized group, this entire story could have been realized without that piece in the plot. Great idea, good execution, extremely poor side motive.

I can't recommend this movie enough. If you love a good scary movie here you go. I believe they are speaking Italian so you will be reading. Don't worry it won't interfere with this wonderful movie. I feel this is a different take on a possessed person. Please watch this movie.👍😎

Definitely recommend everyone to watch this movie. If you don’t know Spanish, be prepared to read the entire movie. But nonetheless it’s still great!

Good movie. 🍿

Unabashedly and repeatedly shows violence against small children, anti-religious rhetoric and a cast of characters impossible to root for, either because they're horrible people or worse: because they're viciously idiotic.In several instances, a character is told by another not to do a certain thing because it's what the demon wants them to do. After being painstakingly informed of the dire repercussions of doing said thing, the characters just shrugs and does the thing, anyway. This, of course, brings death and calamity to all. And that's how the movie ends.I was excited to watch this movie for over a month and now, I'm glad that I didn't pay to watch this.

El director Demian Rugna regresa después de hacer una de las películas -que en mi opinión- es de las más aterradoras de años recientes: Aterrados.Y para demostrar que no fue surte de una ocasión, entrega otra película aterradora: Cuando Acecha la Maldad.La película empieza como esas historias que nuestras abuelas nos contaban, historias que sucedían en pueblos o lugares alejados de la ciudad.Además de que la película está bien realizada para ser una película sin tanto presupuesto, la historia está interesante, tiene escenas que quedarán en sus cabezas aún después de terminada la cinta, y al igual que Aterrados, no hay un final feliz.No cabe duda que Demian es un director al cual hay que seguir poniéndole atención: tiene mucho que contar.El Blu-ray de Shudder tiene audio en español.