When Evil Lurks Reviews

When Evil Lurks was honestly a wild ride. The first half was super strong—tense, creepy, and unpredictable. The second half was still good, but the characters started making some really frustrating decisions. Like Pedro (the dad) trusting that creepy little girl he just beat up over Mirtha, the actual expert in handling possessions. Be serious. One thing I really appreciated though was how the movie made sure every action had a consequence. Nothing happened just for shock value—everything tied back to a choice someone made. Pedro doesn’t burn his infected clothes? His dog gets possessed and kills the little girl, Jair. Ruiz shoots a possessed goat? He dies not long after. Sabrina ignores Pedro’s warning? She gets possessed. The film keeps hitting you with the weight of every bad call, and it never lets up. Something I found really interesting was how the film treated the demonic presence almost like a virus. It wasn’t just a ghost or demon hiding in the shadows—it spread through contact, through sound, through negligence. That approach made the story feel way more real and terrifying. The whole thing felt more like an outbreak than a haunting, which gave it this extra layer of urgency and dread, kind of like the horror was baked into the systems people live in rather than something supernatural they could escape. Another thing that stood out was how the movie handled its violence. Some deaths were shown in full, like Jair’s, which was brutal and genuinely shocking. But others, like Pedro’s mom and his son Santino, were left offscreen or only implied. It worked really well, making certain scenes more emotional and allowing Pedro’s grief to come through without relying too much on gore. The gore that was shown, though, was disgusting in the best way. The atmosphere was thick with dread, the horror was relentless, and it really felt like no one was safe. It’s a brutal watch, but definitely a good one if you’re into horror that goes all in.

Okay so. I get the idea. I do. But holy shit, that movie was so terrible. I'm not sure if everything was just lost in translation since I watched with subtitles, but that was the most aggravating, frustrating, confusing movie I think I've ever watched, ever. They just go in circles the ENTIRE movie. They don't solve any of the problems that they literally SAY THEY ARE GOING TO DO!!! And like, the antichrist at the end? No explanation either? Also no one knows how to say "Hey, there's a DEMON around, it's possessing EVERYONE, let's gtfo"??? No, I'm just going to strip naked in front of these little kids and just stare at you instead of talking. They said they need to get the ministry or something to get rid of the demon and all the stuff but instead of listening to EVERYONE say "Don't shoot it with a gun", what do they do???? .....Oh, right, they shoot it with a gun. Makes sense! I've never felt more angry about a movie before and I've watched a lot of bad movies. This takes the CAKE. I feel like I just wasted an hour and 40 minutes just yelling at the screen. I only watched this because apparently Robert Englund said it was the best horror movie in the past 5 years? Never listen to his opinion again, because I don't think he knows at all what he's talking about.