When Evil Lurks

• Ezequiel Rodriguez as Pedro[7]
• Demián Salomon as Jimmy[7]
• Luis Ziembrowski
• Silvia Sabater
• Marcelo Michinaux

The morning after hearing gunshots in nearby woods, brothers Pedro and Jaime investigate and discover half the body of a man which leads them to a nearby shack, where a woman hides with her two sons. The oldest son, Uriel, has become a "Rotten" - a being possessed by a unborn demon who is awaiting physical birth. The deceased man in the woods is a “Cleaner” that the mother called for a year prior, someone who is supposed to safely kill Uriel and abort the demon before it possesses others.

After authorities dismiss the Rotten as not their problem, the brothers approach the landowner Ruiz who aggressively attempts to deal with Uriel himself. After being talked down by his wife and the brothers, Ruiz insists on disposing of the blighted Uriel by dumping him hours away. After narrowly avoiding a young boy in the road, the three men discover Uriel has somehow escaped the truck. Ruiz declares the matter resolved and returns home unconcerned.

The next morning Ruiz's wife discovers one of their goats has become possessed. Against her warning not to use guns because they help to spread the possession of the Rotted, Ruiz executes the animal and his wife promptly commits murder-suicide with an axe. That night, Uriel's brother approaches the brothers saying his mother vanished and he is afraid. Pedro reluctantly lets him sleep in their barn. The child warns them electric lights will draw demons, but the brothers disregard him and leave the lights on.

That morning Jaime and Pedro agree to leave the town, take their family members, and escape to safety. Jaime gets their mother, while Pedro goes to the home of his ex-wife, Sabrina. This leads to an argument between himself, Sabrina and her new husband, Leonardo, when Pedro tries to collect his two children. While they are distracted by the argument, the family dog who, previously licked Pedro's demon-mucked clothes, savagely attacks Leonardo and Sabrina's daughter and drags her outside. Leonardo and Pedro chase the dog and the former shoots the dog. Pedro returns to Sabrina but sees her daughter is back unharmed and threatening Sabrina, so Pedro steals their car. As Pedro drives away with his sons, he witnesses Leonardo crash his car into Sabrina as their daughter dances.

After Pedro picks up Jaime and their mother, the assembled family leaves town. It becomes apparent that Grandma does not take the situation seriously, doubting what her sons have experienced. Despite warnings from Pedro, Grandma explains to her inquisitive youngest grandson about the Rotten and the Possessed.

Still not believing a Rotten would appear in the countryside, she dismissively lists ways to avoid conflict with the demon. The eldest son, who is severely autistic, mutters the names of the demons she lists several times but this goes unnoticed by the adults.

The family arrives at the house of Mirta, a former Cleaner and friend of Jaime, who invites them to stay overnight. Multiple times throughout the night, Mirta warns Jaime about Pedro’s autistic son as exhibiting signs of possession which Jaime dismisses. The possessed corpse of Sabrina kidnaps her youngest son and Mirta advises that Jaime chase after her while she and Pedro search for Uriel to end the demonic plague. While seeking out Sabrina, Jaime discovers she has killed the child and runs her over in a fit of emotion. In doing this, he collides with a tree. Grandma stays at Mirta's house and waits with her oldest grandson who returns to the house, now speaking clearly and without impediment.

Pedro and Mirta's search leads them to a schoolhouse filled with possessed children who boldly lie to the pair in order to exacerbate the demonic birth. The pair find Uriel under the stage in the small auditorium and Pedro tries to properly unearth him as Mirta sets up the demon killing equipment. Losing his patience and believing one of the children's lies about a fire axe nearby that might help, Pedro runs to the office while Mirta screams to not leave her. While he is away, the children trap Pedro, kill Mirta and dismantle the equipment. Enraged, Pedro beats Uriel to death with a piece of the broken equipment but is too late to intercept the birth. The demon inside Uriel is born soon after, shedding his corpse and presenting itself to a defeated Pedro. After taunting Pedro by sparing him, the newly born demon walks out into the morning sun followed by the children.

The two brothers return to Mirta's separately and after collecting the remaining son, head back to their own home. At the shed, Uriel's possessed brother tells him he killed the original Cleaner four days ago, devouring him. He also reveals he did the same to his mother the night before. Before Jaime leaves, the boy alludes that his and Pedro's mother has suffered the same fate. Pedro returns inside and feeds his son ice cream but he begins choking. While Pedro helps him, seemingly a routine occurrence, he discovers he's choking on his mother's hair and that his son is possessed as well, having tricked him under the veil of his autism. Pedro runs outside and collapses in grief, having lost everyone but his brother. Jaime is equally distraught and struggles to console Pedro.

In 2021, the screenplay for When Evil Lurks won the Runner Up Prize at the Sitges Pitchbox, an international pitch event hosted by Filmarket Hub and the Sitges Film Festival.[8][9]

When Evil Lurks is produced by Shudder and La Puerta Roja, the latter a joint venture partnership between the Argentine-based Aramos Cine and Machaco Films.[8] It is Shudder's first Spanish-language production.[10][11] Filming took place in 2022.[8]

During the film's post-production, an early market screening was held for the film at Ventana Sur in Puerto Madero, Buenos Aires, where it won the Blood Window Screenings Award.[10][11][9]

When Evil Lurks had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) on September 13, 2023, in the festival's "Midnight Madness" section.[12] The Paris-based company Charades will manage international sales for the film at the festival.[12] The film is slated to be theatrically released by IFC Films on October 6, followed by a release on the Shudder streaming service on October 27.[4][5]

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 99% of 75 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 7.8/10. The website's consensus reads: "A hard-hitting horror film whose surface-level frights are just as engaging as its thematic concerns, When Evil Lurks marks a viscerally unsettling addition to the possession horror canon."[13] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 74 out of 100, based on nine critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.[14]

• When Evil Lurks at IMDb