Sadly, I didn't like this film at all and wanted to stop watching after about 52 minutes in... I pushed through and for what, for a rant growing inside me that now must come to light...

As always, do not let my criticism diminish your appreciation of this film, it's just my opinion. I'm also happy for the Argentinian filmmakers to get more worldwide recognition - long live local horror! My rant is really aimed at a particular kind of horror film that When Evil Lurks or Gaspar Noé's films represent to me.

Let me start by saying that I always disagree when some people claim that there is no way to shock the audience anymore. Nonsense. It's still relatively easy to do, unless one means the small minority of viewers that watch only the most extreme films and get desensitized in the process - then yes, they're probably immune to any transgressions. But I think you can still shock general audience, even general horror audience with ease.

Show harming a pet with all the details. Show harming a child with all the details. Show brutal, prolonged sexual assault. Show pedophilia, zoophilia, necrophilia and some other -philias with all the details. Show harming a pregnant woman with all the details. Show harming a person with disability with all the details. And so on. These are guaranteed to get a strong reaction from people if you go far enough in what is shown onscreen.

But why don't most horrors show that much? In my opinion, such extremes are actually really hard to pull off well. Yes, you achieve shock value but then the viewer may inevitably ask, "Why? Why are you showing this to me? What's the point of my discomfort? You broke the taboo but WHY?" And often there is not a convincing reason out there, just technical skills in showing convincing gore and suffering, combined with "because I could" nihilistic attitude.

Such films present a gallery of human suffering but, really, why? I am genuinely baffled by them. They do not even care to establish characters (compare When Evil Lurks to Hereditary, I'm not even a fan of Hereditary but it makes us learn a lot about the main characters before they get destroyed).

The plot of When Evil Lurks goes like this: "Oh, see, here is this human, oh, see, here is this human suffering enormous pain. Isn't that groundbreaking?" No, for me it's lazy and shows faults of the script. A feature film is more than a series of scenes, these scenes should preferably form a coherent whole that one can interpret.

Perhaps the nihilism is the message. The ending suggests as much. Nothing matters, everything will be taken away from you, your family will suffer, "there's no point in praying" (as the poster s). But that's not enough for me, I prefer fictional plots to have more substance than that!

I do not mind unhappy endings at all (after all, Cronenberg is one of my favorite directors and his characters do suffer). But I prefer if the filmmakers using them have a more complex aim in mind than "life sucks if there's a demon nearby."