This is one interesting list for two reasons—the films carry flimsy and tenuous connections despite being entirely unrelated, and one most certainly not like the others. Of course I’m speaking of Children of the Corn when addressing the odd one out. You see, When Evil Lurks and The Horde are both international films whereas Children of the Corn is domestic (that is, if you are currently reading this in the United States), and the former two films are modern, whereas the latter is a bit of a classic, having been release in 1984.
Still, Children of the Corn merits inclusion as it illustrates, to some degree, some of the themes presented in When Evil Lurks, as discussed in the review that follows. Watch these films in the order as they are presented, for—as mentioned in the subtitle above—it’s a bit humorous to consider Children of the Corn as a continuation from where When Evil Lurks leaves us. And as The Horde is a delightfully mindless zombie thriller, it provides the perfect capstone for a wonderfully graphic cinematic weekend.
We here at the Calamity give When Evil Lurks a solid 🤡🤡 on the Calamity Clowns for Content scale. We would be proud to score it a whopping one clown, but we feel the second clown belongs as a representation of the behavior of the men in the film, making clowns of themselves for failing to listen to the women. But more on that in the following review.
If this is your first foray with the Calamity on Cinema, then take note that the rating system is backwards: the less clowns, the better. If you require further elucidation on the topic, you may find a thorough explanation here. You will find the List on Letterboxd linked below:
Evil knows more about your fears than you do.
There are a number of chilling quotes throughout the film that really dig in and settle as the plot unravels. From the exposition on casting out and avoiding "The Rotten" to plain and overt comments on popular religion, the themes that arise in When Evil Lurks are haunting, staying with you long after you leave the Yazurlo brothers behind. The film itself is artistic in its execution: the photography and color are beautiful; the violence is just the right amount; and the fear is palpable without succumbing to cheap tricks—minus one cheap trick, but we'll get to that later.
nothing superfluous
mdelgadia, in their review, states,
There’s nothing in this movie that doesn’t fit perfectly, and the storytelling picks up in a fully realized world that doesn’t require exposition or backstory. MASTERPIECE!!!
I agree. Really quick story time:
When I was writing Showdown at Sunrise, I aimed to write a short story. Most publishers suggest the word count cut off is around 10k words for a story to be considered “short”. Showdown was pressed up close to that 10k limit. I revised the story three times, attempting to cull everything possible in order to drop the word count. One of my editors made the attempt as well. It went to publishing, still pushed up against that 10k limit. When I say this story was tight, it was tight. There was nothing superfluous to cut.
Same idea with this film. It is very tight, holding each scene close, every word vital, to the entire exposition. There are many moments of frustration in the action, but these underscore the importance in the development of each character and our alignment with them. This, I think, is essential to the efficacy of the themes weaving throughout the film.
on influence
So immersed was I in the viewing of the film, one very poignant theme failed to surface until the day after I watched it. In fact, it occurred to me as I began writing this review. Throughout the film, everyone who holds some belief in the folklore of this region understands and accepts that anyone who is Rotten should be avoided, that they infect and mutilate everything around them. Furthermore, children are far more susceptible to the Rotten, as they have a penchant for evil: "El maldad gusta a los niños, y los niños gusta al maldad." Evil likes children, and children like evil. This becomes a sort of allegory, addressing the influence people have over one another, and how one evil person can infect an entire community, altering and manipulating their thinking, their behavior, their way of life. This can be seen most thoroughly over the last twelve years with regard to Donald Trump and the Cult of MAGA. One Rotten can infect and devour whole communities. Furthermore, to specify children as being easily manipulated serves as a warning with regard to their upbringing. For is it not written in Proverbs, "Train up a child in the way he should go, And when he is old he will not depart from it"? When Evil Lurks strikes at the heart of this concern with absolute zero subtlety.
Continued below the break.
Showdown at Sunrise
A merchant finds himself in a bind when he manages to survive a duel. A chance encounter in an odd shoppe may just be the luck he needs. The question is, will this luck hold out?
A western with a little bit of magic and a whole lotta gumption.
father Knows Best, and the one cheap trope
The film exudes this all without the use of cheap thrills ... mostly. Jump scares are absent; unnecessary gore is omitted. While there are disgusting moments, they remain vital to the atmosphere, the environment, the characters, the story. The only apparent issue is frustrating decisions made by the men. As HiRicky writes, “... the characters make so many dumb decisions that it is hard to root for any of them”. And he's right, except not in the way we all might want to condemn these characters. While making "so many dumb decisions" is a cheap trope made use by many writers and directors, the frustrating actions taken by the men in this film are thematic, and indicative of the culture. Why listen to a hysterical female? The Man of the House knows best.
GentleSeal wrote, “All of this could have been avoided if any of the men listened to the women," (emphasis theirs). This theme may not be immediately apparent, but it begins to really stick out as the story progress. In fact, out of the entire film, there are only two instances where the men do not listen to the women and the men are proven correct.
Warning: Spoilers
The first is when Pedro arrives at the house of his ex-wife to gather the family and get them out of the pueblo. She shrieks at him to leave them alone and demands her husband to call the police. Pedro refuses to concede, doing all he can to gather up the children. In the ensuing chaos, the dog violently sweeps their daughter away; the daughter returns, infected, to leer at her mother as she informs her of her impeding doom; and the husband crashes the truck into the wife, killing her.
The second is when Pedro and Jaime are driving away with their own mother. She is insistent they have been manipulated and nothing is the matter; whatever is happening is all in their heads.
The brothers ignore these two, and rightfully so. The consequences for the disbelief of these women soon becomes apparent.
End Spoilers
Every other time, they and other men in the film are repeatedly warned by the women around them not to take particular actions. And in true machismo fashion, they fail to listen, choosing instead to act on impulse and emotion. This, of course, leads to debilitating consequences; consequences which continue to build one upon another throughout the entire film.
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suffer the little children
CinemaVoid wrote, “It's refreshing to see a film that accurately portrays children for what they really are; vessels of wickedness and harbingers of malevolence.”
I laughed and nodded along when I read this. And while this film certainly suggests children are evil, I think this reaction misses the underlying theme of influence and how children are far easier to manipulate than adults. Even the adults who state the effect evil has on children miss the subtext of influence, conflating children's pliability with an inherent attraction toward it.
Still, numerous films abound capitalizing on this alleged attraction. There is something sinister about a malevolent child, or children, and writers in the horror genre have not been shy about making use of this trope. From films like The Exorcist and Poltergeist to Children of the Corn and Omen, the role children play in horror ranges from drawn-to-the-darkness to directly malevolent.
When Evil Lurks, too, capitalizes on this trope, though it does so from the view of influence and manipulation. Had the Rotten not been let loose upon the Pueblo, had the cleaner succeeded in eliminating it in the beginning, it is likely these children would not have succumbed to the depths of depravity in which we find them in the end.
in sum
While I hesitate to place When Evil Lurks on the same level as Watcher , it certainly comes very close. It's beautifully made, articulate in style, rich in theme. It generally lacks the cheap motifs other horror films heavily rely on to build tension. This is, in my most humble estimation, an excellent film, and I highly recommend watching it.
We can always appreciate a solid film which fails to rely on mechanisms popularized within a genre. May you appreciate and enjoy watching the films in the List provided. Do not hesitate to make use of the survey below and let us know what you thought about the films after having watched them. And make sure to stop by next Thursday to set up your cinematic weekend of horror.
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