When Evil Lurks (2023) Dir. Demián Rugna



Demián Rugna’s follow up to his cult classic Terrified (2017) gets the special edition treatment from Second Sight. When Evil Lurks was originally released in 2023 and showcased that Rugna had lost none of his ability to create shocking, uncomfortable horror sequences.

Rather than a series of vignettes like in Terrified, he weaves some of the most disturbing sequences in recent memory into a 100min narrative, that subverts a lot of possession tropes and brings with it paranoia, fear of infection and a genuinely grotesque villain.

All these points about the various genre beats are nicely covered in a brief video essay on the disc, presented by Mike Muncer (perhaps best known for his podcast The Evolution of Horror) so I won’t linger on this too much.

Brothers Pedro and Jimi (Ezequiel Rodríguez and Demián Salomon) come across the brutalised corpse on the boundary of their farmland and their neighbour’s. The body is that of a cleaner; someone capable of destroying a rotten, a person possessed by an unborn demon.

There’s very little context other than this, but we quickly understand why these rotten are so dangerous. The practical effects on the possessed man are incredible, but also stomach churning, and after a gradual build up in tension for the first 20min, all hell breaks loose. Rugna is willing to throw everything at the audience, including incredibly realistic animal attacks and multiple children getting mauled, or doing the mauling.

The middle section of this film is near unmatched with its ability to surprise and disgust, with the writer/director leaving little to imagination, and leaving utterly no doubt about the threat that the rotten pose. It slows down significantly for the final half hour, when Pedro and Jimi, along with their mother (Paula Rubinsztein) and Pedro’s children, Santino (Marcelo Michinaux) and Jair (Emilio Vodanovich) find themselves hiding out at the home of Mirta (Silvina Sabater). She is a cleaner as well, and says she will help the pair find the original rotten and destroy it before the unborn demon can be brought into the world.

The sudden shift in pace isn’t a bad thing, although some of the long exposition could have been trimmed slightly. Details of Mirta’s past erase some of the mystery that added a lot of tension to the start of the film. There’s also the very uncomfortable link that Rugna makes between severe, non-verbal autism and possession – something that smacks of when every schizophrenic character had to be possessed, or evil. You have to hope that neurodivergence doesn’t become a shorthand for horror in the same way that mental illness often has been.

Still Rugna does just about pull off the ending, resulting in a seriously bleak conclusion that leaves little hope for the inhabitants of this universe. This is a film that carries itself with aplomb, drawing the audience in so completely that they never stop to question the events, and presenting horror images that will no doubt become iconic.

Second Sight have done a good job here with this edition, though as the film is only two years old there was no work to do with the transfer as such. Still, it looks and sounds incredible. The fact that When Evil Lurks is such a modern edition to the label’s collection also means that it is a little lighter on special features than some might hope. Alongside the aforementioned video essay, there are the typical interviews with cast and crew, and a new audio commentary from academic Gabriel Eljaiek-Rodriguez.

The limited edition gets photocards and a 120-page booklet with new essays about the film, along with Second Sight’s typically high-quality slipcases.

★★★½☆

3.5 / 5

Matthew Tilt

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Second Sight Films presents When Evil Lurks - released on Dual Limited Edition and Standard Editions 4K/UHD and Blu-ray on 28 July 2025