When Evil Lurks

Demián Rugna’s screenplay took second prize at the Sitges script market in 2021; two years later the film returned and won both best feature and the Blood Window award. At Gérardmer it took the critics’ prize and the audience award. Still being cut, it had already won the Blood Window screenings award at Ventana Sur in Buenos Aires. Rugna deliberately pulled possession away from religion. Rather than a victim talking in a deep voice, he says he built a bodily ruin you recognise on sight. The effects follow: he says there is no CGI at all and nothing built as a three dimensional object in a computer, the digital layers only supporting makeup shot on set by Marcos Berta. He also says no studio would have approved this much violence involving children, and only a small independent production let him shoot it. Those children tightened the calendar: on shooting days of 10 to 12 hours the young actors could be on set for 3, which Rugna calls the hardest part of the job. The film is Shudder’s first Spanish language co-production. A good fit if you want a possession world whose rules simply operate, never explained and carrying no prayers or icons. Not for viewers who want violence against children and animals kept off camera.