When Evil Lurks (2023): Horror

In an attempt to prevent evil from spreading, two brothers deal with it themselves only to create ultimate chaos.

One-way ticket to hopelessness! If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times. A protracted opening shot raises the bar high! And the whole of When Evil Lurks‘ first act does exactly that. The things people say, and the reason they say them, make one wonder what it is that the characters know and the audience doesn’t. Why do people regard evil the way they do, and what is that evil anyway? More importantly, how does one defeat such an evil force?

And while everyone’s trying to figure it out and approach it in a way that makes sense to them… the dog sequence will haunt you almost as much as it will haunt them! It’s brutal, relentless, and… evil! Upon watching it, while it noticeably slows down, expect chaos till the very end (The woman and the boy walking…)! And this is where I’m going to leave it… with a question: What if the world found out one day that biblical evil exists, it has taken over, and God, the one we used to justify our atrocities, has abandoned us?

Writer/director Demián Rugna hits the nail on the head with an original and unconventional horror that will shock you to your core. A must-see Argentinian horror for every fan of the genre. This is one of Shudder’s best horrors yet! Speaking of Argentinian horrors, you also definitely need to watch Rugna’s earlier horror Terrified (2017) – one of my earliest reviews.

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P.S. Have a look at Rugna’s inspiration for writing the script: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt16300962/trivia/?item=tr7183296&ref_=ext_shr_lnk

A Dark Song (2016): Drama/Fantasy/Horror

A woman who wants to find closure goes down a very dark path with unpredictable consequences.

You have never seen more a elaborative and thorough preparation for something that could not sound, seem, and feel so wrong. IFC Midnight invests in a slow-burn thriller that writer/director Liam Gavin makes as real as they come. The amazing performances from both Steve Oram and Catherine Walker enhance that pseudorealism.

As the ritual progresses, inevitably, one question will constantly be coming to your mind: Is it working? A subsequent question then will be: Do you want it to work? Even better, should it work? Now, what you need to know is that the ritual performed in the film exists and is known as the Abramelin Operation. Certain parts of the rituals were deliberately left out, and Gavin asked the artists to change the symbols – for obvious reasons.

A Dark Song meticulously elaborates on a ritual that, whether you are a believer or not, you wouldn’t probably dare to perform. The ending is like anything you ever expected, so if you are going to find it exciting, thrilling, boring, or nonsensical cannot be predicted. All I can tell you is that will get your attention.

Highly recommended for every horror fan out there (with patience). Definitely worth your while!

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Hunter Hunter (2020): Drama/Horror/Mystery

A family of fur trappers is threatened by a wolf, but the real threat is nothing they have ever encountered before.

Suspenseful, compelling, and nothing like you expect! Absolutely brilliant! One of the most realistic thrillers you’ve seen in ages. Separate stories come together naturally, blending financial and societal issues that you and I face, with the thrills and horrors of the remote wilderness, and all that to a build-up that neither you nor I have and hopefully will never have to face. Devon Sawa (Joseph) and Summer H. Howell (Renée) have wonderful chemistry as father and daughter, but it is Camille Sullivan (Anne) who will blow you out of the water. Her character is meticulously written, and Sullivan has thoroughly developed it.

There is no need to go into technical details: directing, writing, acting, editing, and photography are 10/10. IFC Midnight, leader of independent film productions, delivers once more! The man behind it, Shawn Linden, builds up the suspense in a way that glues you to your seats but wait, oh boy, wait for the way he climaxes it. Wait to see what’s coming in the end as it is highly unlikely that you have ever seen anything like it…

A must-see for every horror fan out there!

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Resurrection (2022): Crime/Drama/Horror

A single mother and successful executive starts gradually losing her mind when a mysterious man from her past appears out of the blue.

Intense and captivating! I walked right into it, knowing nothing about it. Rebecca Hall’s acting and her character, Margaret, compete to get your attention. Is Margaret that compelling or is Hall so freaking good? And while you’re wondering that, the appearance of the mysterious man, the one and only Tim Roth, escalates the suspense to the extreme. Who is he? What has he done to her? What is he doing to her? What is he going to do to her?

But when you make it to Margaret’s disturbing monologue, take a break for a second – actually 8 minutes, stop asking questions, and pay attention. A great director knows when to cut or not. In dialogue, they know when to cut from the addresser to the addressee. They know their actors’/actresses’ abilities and trust them – and that extends to Grace Kaufman (Abbie). Writer/director Andrew Semans goes above and beyond and creates a psychological thriller that delves into trauma, manipulation, and their implications and throws you off your comfort zone. He lets Hall, Roth, and Kaufman unfold their talent and paces his film eerily and methodically.

It’s interesting, we may think we know someone and admire their confidence and want to be like them but little do we know. More interestingly, we may think we know ourselves, but, one day, we might realise that we have forgotten how our actual face looks, buried deep underneath the innumerable facades we’ve put on over the years…

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P.S. Speaking of disturbing 8-minute monologues, a similarly unsettling one is Mia Goth’s in Pearl (2022): https://kaygazpro.com/2023/01/06/pearl-2022-horror/ Remember… a good director knows!

Hatching (2022): Drama/Fantasy/Horror

A young girl finds and keeps a dead bird’s egg, but when it hatches, a horror beyond her imagination starts growing.

You don’t know what you sign up for! Meet the family… mother: detestable, father: poor sod, brother: mama’s boy and spoiled brat, Tinja: victim of the “perfect family” and the true anti-heroine of the story (or is it, villain?). Once that’s established, the awkwardly looking and sounding gigantic bird spices things up. Admittedly, it doesn’t seem much, and its role, at first, is quite questionable and awkward, but the way the narrative escalates the awkwardness is replaced by an unexpected horror that leads the story in an unpredictable direction. How so?

Interestingly, the mother, you know, the one you instantly hated, you will abhor later on. Her boyfriend? You’ll empathise with him, even knowing what’s happening. The father and son are as bad, and Tinja becomes one of the most interesting child characters you’ve seen in recent years. The last time I got that impressed was watching The Innocents (2021): https://kaygazpro.com/2022/03/23/the-innocents-2021-drama-horror-mystery/.

Hint and tiny spoiler… I believe there is a moral behind it, and that has to do with the externalisation of inner human monstrosity, and its connection to the alter ego. The obviousness of the father/son relationship might be displayed on purpose by co-writer/director Hanna Bergholm only to throw you off and hide the subliminal similarities of the mother/daughter one. I’m sure you can find more online about it, but my recommendation is to watch it, contemplate it, and only then do a “compare and contrast” with what you thought of it. IFC Midnight rarely disappoints and always offers a fresh perspective to the genre.

Excellent performances by Siiri Solalinna (Tinja) and Sophia Heikkilä (mother)! Also, excellent photography and editing!

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Watcher (2022): Drama/Horror/Thriller

A young woman moves with her husband from America to Romania, and soon she realises that someone is watching every move of hers.

A deceiving, slow-burn thriller with a great leading actress. Why deceiving, huh? What you know and what you think you know is not the same. Ostensibly, the plot revolves around a young woman who is afraid that someone is watching her, and, potentially, following her. The subplot revolves around the same young woman who is lonely, in a foreign country, alone (for the most part), arguably depressed, and who neither speaks nor understands a word of what everyone’s saying. Until you know for sure, the line between the plot and the subplot is vague.

Zack Ford’s script and Chloe Okuno’s lens keep the narrative restricted. Okuno, like a watcher (pun intended), follows Julia wherever she goes and depicts reality as perceived through her eyes, only. Respectively, Michael Block’s editing discloses what you need to know, hiding carefully what you want to. The result of both is the deception mentioned above. Maika Monroe is an amazing and massively underrated actress. Watching It Follows (2014) and The Guest (2014) one can tell how much still she has to offer, especially in the horror/thriller genre. Also, Burn Gorman’s portrayal as a lonely man is brilliant.

It is a horrible feeling to be surrounded by an unfamiliar environment, language, and people, especially when being in an unstable mental state. Nothing and no one is what they seem to be. And Okuno and Monroe nail that feeling!

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The Innocents (2021): Drama/Horror/Mystery

During the summer holidays, four children befriend one another as they develop psychic abilities that prove to be anything but innocent.

Slow-burn, atmospheric, and psychologically brutal. I’m not sure how much the children knew about what they were doing in the individual scenes or if they are now allowed to watch the final cut, but would be interesting to find out. As in previous cases though, chances are that they don’t and they find out when they are old enough to watch it themselves and make sense of it. Remember, to them, what they do is just instructions that, without having the big picture, it may as well be just fun. For us though, the adult audience… is soul-wrenching.

The premise is rather simple: Kids are associated with innocence, yeah? And even though that is something you might expect to see here, you will not! These kids do not represent innocence. Not all of them anyway. If you are a horror fan it cannot not remind you of films, such as The Village of the Damned (1960) or Children of the Corn (1984). But it’s neither. The connection between the children starts as mysterious, fun and sweet, but gradually escalates to a dark, sinister, and contradicting connection of unidentified origins.

Very well written, shot, edited, and acted! Eskil Vogt’s The Innocents is definitely worth your attention. Pay attention to the little details: Pessi Levanto’s soundtrack; how his music is used, when it is used. Sturla Brandth Grøvlen’s cinematography; from the long shots (the ominous, invisible force…) to the kids’ close-ups (… affecting them). Extra attention also to Jens Christian Fodstad’s editing and how beautifully the narrative visually flows. All kids do a tremendous job in front of the camera and get a lengthy round of applause, it is Alva Brynsmo Ramstad (Anna) who is tasked with the hardest role and her performance is stellar! I could not tell at first if she was acting. Hats off to all the kids!

Finally, if you are interested, I have extensively delved into the portrayal of kids in horror films on my podcast Kids in Horror: Source of Evil vs Source of Resolution: https://kaygazpro.com/2020/09/09/kids-source-of-evil-vs-source-of-resolution/ Michelle Satchwell, the Head of the Social Sciences Department at a large school in Derbyshire, UK, analyses the use of kids in horror films and examines the genre through the prism of Evolutionary, Cognitive, Psychodynamic, and Social Psychology.

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