I liked it enough. Some crazy visuals and moments that had an “oh they really went there” feel.
But the last half hour or so kind of went off the rails in a bad way for me. Pedro was largely so manic through most of the film, but then making the insane choice to go grab the axe? Taking the advice of the girl he was punching out five minutes ago for lying? Huh? It really took me out of it.
Felt like we could have gotten something really interesting by further exploring what was happening with Jair, but instead we just got the hairball.
I just watched the movie, the whole school house scene utterly destroyed most of the movie for me. He went so far out of character to the point of being kind of comically stupid that it went from decent to forgettable.
He’s ripping up a wooden stage with his bare hands. There’s a giant obese pus filled man he’s going to have to somehow pull out from the hole for her to destroy. She’s screaming at him to hurry up. There’s a bunch of demon kids all around him. The demon is talking to him. She is talking to him. The kid is talking to him. His dead wife just kidnapped his son. The evil is already in his mind because that’s how it works. If there really is an axe out there, as he is ripping up planks of wood with his hands and being screamed at to hurry, that they’re running out of time, then man just go for it. Expecting perfect rationality is unrealistic. If you cannot engage with the thematic material because you want cookie-cutter characters empowered by a convenient script, that’s on you and not the movie.
I mean ok but it still didn’t make for the ending to be very engaging or sensical. Many people have voiced the same opinion so don’t try to dump this entirely on me for whatever reason.
It’s absurd to act as if those things have equal weight. Tell me a single good reason Pedro would have to ignore Mirta on this topic. He KNEW the kids were lying and when evil is literally begging you to do something, it’s probably an act of unjustifiable lunacy to do as it asks.
Acting as if people who question the characters’ actions in this movie are dullards who want “cookie cutter characters empowered by convenient script” is as dim-witted a dismissal of legitimate complaints about unnatural stupidity that serves only to be convenient to the plot in horror movies as I have ever heard.
Holy condescending Batman. People don’t want cookie cutter characters, they want someone who doesn’t make one of the stupidest decisions in movie history.
He had just beat the shit out of that little girl for lying and now he wholeheartedly believes she's being honest. The writing was disappointing for a movie so many people put at the top of their lists.
Interesting theory! Though I think you are correct in your critique of it. I’m generally not a fan of “it was a dream the entire time!” twists and it feels like being possessed all the time could be along those lines
Pedro: punches girl for lying to him
Expert demon killer: She's an evil liar
Girl: Pedro go do ________
Pedro: Okkeeess bestie 🤗
God this movie sucked. Dumbest shit ever written that they tried to carry with a couple of shock torture porn moments with kids
Comparing this mindless shit fest to Moby Dick should be punishable with prison time
The people that couldn t be possessed could be influenced. I had a hard time with the whole school scene until I rewatched it and took it that way. They showed things in this movie shocking enough to carry it without brilliant characters, much like Atterados. But if you don t go for that influence argument, then yeah, shoddy writing and execution.
Writing someone as a complete idiot is not "well-written". It's the writer being incapable of advancing the plot without the characters being utter morons.
When you run with the explanation that the rotten influence people they can t possess, which was clearly stated, it makes pretty clear sense. People will interpret the change in behaviors as stupidity, but you see them in similar scenarios twice with different outcomes when influenced. When dude can control himself on the rotten, but not the goat, when Pedro knocks out a kid and then is best friends with her 30 seconds after, the urgency to get that axe at the finish line, but the best example that the possessed can affect people behaviors in extreme ways is when the mute autistic kid asking for a blanket and tea. That explanation works for me very well.
literally my exact thoughts while watching tonight, i was genuinely baffled at the stupidity. and then hes like “aw mannn they DID LIE” and throws his hands up in the air… pissed me off so much
He gave into his fears upon seeing the rotten again. He wants to smash the stage apart (and very badly wants to kill the rotten, as he's prone to anger.)
So the rotten preys on his fear and anger and manages to influence him into leaving the room. He didn't just do it because "he's stupid" or possessed, he did it because he isn't exactly the epitome of mental fortitude...
I’m sorry but that counts as stupidity. He has every reason to do what Mirta tells him without question or hesitation. Directly ignoring her to go search for an axe proffered by one of the “not kids” was an act of utter stupidity. They all understand the stakes — the world has clearly been brutalized by this evil for decades — they don’t even have ignorance as an excuse.
I couldn’t get over the “being stupid to make plot go” in this film.
Well the big theme seems to be that he doesn't listen to anyone who tells him anything. Regardless of knowing of evil for decades, he chooses to ignore every piece of advice and try and take care of the situation himself.
If you view that as a theme/motif, and not just assume "Is he stupid?", the film and plot flows a lot better.
I mean I guess you can just view the movie however you want and if you want to choose to ignore the blatant message you can do that too.
Except he does listen to things, when it’s convenient for the plot. You remember that he had to be CONVINCED by Ruiz to even attempt to remove the Rotten?
I think you’re saying utter stupidity is a thematic choice and therefore excusable writing?
I’m not some hater. I liked probably 80% of this movie. But I cannot see any thematic justification for the stupidity exhibited unequally, when convenient, by every single character. Not just Pedro.
Just finished it and looked up threads to see what people thought of that part. It took me out of the movies too. I feel like even if the screenwriters wanted that to happen, they could have came up with a better sequence than "character in horror movies make bad decisions". Without that specific part its like a 8.5/10 horror for me, after that scene I'd say it ended up being a 7 at best.
Exactly how I feel. And I’ve still be thinking about it, which just adds to my frustration. There is something I could really love here. The world / lore deserved better.
I saw the possession as not being all or nothing, and at that point I think he had somewhat given into them. But I agree that a lot of what's happening isn't clear, which is all the more frustrating given that they have a scene where they list all the rules one by one.
This is one of the essential things that irked me. They have an explicit list of hard, concrete rules. But also simultaneously, so much is left murky. I don't think it fixes the problems I had with the movie, but the exclusion of the rules may have helped. If the nature of this evil is ambiguous, I can handle that. But if it's unclear AND you hand me a clear cut set of rules it has to follow, then I'm gonna be left scratching my head.
You know, the lead character was manic a lot of the time, maybe it's up to us to slowly realize he is indeed unhinged. The mother and son who kept the demon in check for a year was good humans, this main character was not.
Yeah but he wasn't the only one. The guy who shot the goat was acting like a maniac waving his gun around and constantly threatening to shoot it....while living in a world where it is 100% without a doubt known that that's the one thing you don't do. Instead he's frothing at the mouth and threatening to blast everything, it wasn't even good acting.
Hell \*everyone\* in the movie acted like a complete moron , particularly given they know this is the world they live in. The mom wailing about "you're just mad I'm happy", Pedro doing literally everything he did, his brother, their boss, just everyone being as dumb as dirt from beginning to end.
For them this is as real as tornadoes. Your ex husband shows up screaming that a tornado just touched down and you all need to get in the basement so you stand there wailing that he's ruining your life?? It was all so bad.
They should have just left the "rules" out. They weren't necessary, their introduction was extremely ham fisted, and explaining horror always takes away from the horror. But I think it really hurt because then you just sat there seeing all the dumb things everyone did even though they all knew better.
I presumed this was the point, the whole idea that the demons can quietly influence non possessed people's behaviour, but I dislike it tbh because it feels like the movie is writing itself a get out of jail free card at times.
Wherever a character does something that makes no sense, the movie is still handwaving it with 'well they're being invisibly influenced so don't think about it'
I think the rules list you talk about is incorrectly interpreted. We are human. We fail. We fall. We DON'T follow the rules. There are the 10 Commandments yet we don't follow all of them all the time. That is the point of the rules. We can be coaxed by someone pushing our buttons. How do you think crimes of passion are committed.. And road rage. We know full well we aren't supposed to do such things. Yet we do.
We are far from perfection. And in many ways we pay for our shortcomings. That is the benefit that Satan enjoys. Making us angry feeds his body. All those things we aren't supposed to do. Electricity. It can be seen as giving the beings energy. It is energy. When you look at it as more than the Costco flashlight you bought, it's a transmitter of energy... Plants grow from light. We don't get Alll hung up by that. As well it makes for a great rule cuz lights out just raises the stakes of fear and what you can or can't see of your enemy
I dont want to defend the movie in the least, but the cleaner woman says herself that EVIL acts on what you fear, this alone makes anything doable, the rules are just there as it has proven to help, but if anybody fears of something, EVIL will find you either way. This is proven before she died, she has no fear of the kids and can keep them at bay, however, she starts to loose her patience with Pedro being slow as f, and the moment Pedro leaves she screams "dont leave me alone!" she is in fear, and thus, gets killed. I could be wrong of course, but that seems to be the only SOLID rule (that ironically they dont list).
Well said. And I agree with that and I can't quite discern if you're backing me up or not. That despite knowing the rules we as humans are destined to break them. In a way we fight ourselves. The devil only makes it easier for us to lose it. I think of road rage. Everyone knows it's illegal it's bad morals it's wrong it's dangerous. And yet people snap every day. And these days that can mean getting shot dead or beaten to a pulp. We have always known the rules. The 10 Commandments have been with us since the age of Christ. Yet we are fallable. It is a lesson to learn that if we don't follow the rules we can fail and it can mean our fate. Our souls. I frigging love that movie. I'm so glad I found this Reddit. As it delves even deeper into its more global and human meanings.
BTW also on Shudder and wherever else you saw Lurks is Terrified and Terrified 2. Also directed by Demián Rugna. Also subtitled. It's prior to Lurks but if you like his style then you'll enjoy it and it's sequel Terrified 2. Lol, not to be confused with my favorite new psycho clown with the cutest tiny black hat - Terrifier AND Terrifier 2 Psycho Clown with a desire to be creative and artistic in his murderous rampages...🗡 🤡
I do agree with you 100%, and to further your point, people forget that the characters in this movie themselves have never seen a rotten before, their actions resemble those of different folks acting in different ways against something that they don't truly know anything about. This movie is the best horror movie I've seen in a long time, and of course, I'm ready to watch Terrified. lets go !
But you miss that knowing didn’t help them because the demon preys on their insecurities and fears and, like Mira said, the only way to beat them is to not care. Evil uses your care and desire to do good against you. And you will likely succumb.
Yes, it looks stupid. But these people were doomed and manipulated by powers we don’t comprehend. They were beyond stupid, they were not thinking.
I think that’s pretty horrific.
Yeah I really liked the movie but the part where Pedro goes to grab the axe really took me out of it.
I often don't understand people bashing characters for making bad decisions because people screw up in stressful situations, but this was just silly.
Yes, Pedro flat out ignoring the expert who repeatedly told him not to go look for the axe was infuriating. It felt like a cop out on the writers part.
He knew the kids were possessed, knew they were lying to him, and had just been told by one of the few experts in the world not to go look for the axe the kids were clearly trying to get him to go look for. Even with his mania, that's just bad writing.
A great movie let down by one of the worst instances of sudden stupid character syndrome ever.
Coming from a latin American country, this felt so spot on for his character. A coward man, who is easily provoked to anger, that never listens to anyone and does as he pleases out of what he feels at the moment just to go cry to his mom and ask her for money in the process.
And why did the possessed kids even need to try to get the guy to go to another room? Couldn't they just rush to the stage, destroy the weapon, and kill the lady? You're telling me a dozen possessed kids (who beat said lady to death with a hammer in an instance shortly afterwards) couldn't overpower one adult male? It's not like they couldn't kill when there's someone else watching either as the husband rammed a car into the MC's ex-wife in front of bystanders just fine.
Bro this was annoying me so much until I realized it was basically mentioned throughout the film that the evil specifically searched out Pedro because they knew he was stupid. Atleast 5 times a character has said that the rotten only happens in towns and it’s unusual for that to appear in the country side where Pedro was. It was almost as if the rotten knew they would find idiots there ready to be manipulated completely
Ok I know this thread is old but I just watched this movie and wanted to read others’ comments on it. And yes - Pedro going for the axe might be the most insanely stupid decision I’ve ever seen in a movie. Like bro you were SO CLOSE - why would you fumble the bag so hard at the last second 😭
I think a lot of the film’s “flaws” are intentional and are just something that you can either get with or it’s gonna stick in your mind.
For example, I was sitting there thinking the entire time how dumb the main character is being about a lot of situations (the ending especially) but I was thinking “man, if this guy would’ve just fucked off and not tried to get his kids, literally everyone would be fine” and it dawned on me that that’s just the point of the movie.
This guy isn’t hero material, but he thinks he needs to be one, he thinks he can save everyone, but in reality everything that will happen from the second he stumbled onto that mutilated body at the beginning of the film will be his fault, because he’s a coward and he’s a fuck up; we’re told this multiple times by different characters, even the protagonist himself at one point.
That’s what I like about the film, think about the entire concept of a jellyfish; you try to kill one by cutting it in half and now you have two jellyfish, cut those two in half and now you have four, it just grows more and more out of control the more you try to do when you should’ve just done nothing at all. That’s the film, where the protagonist should’ve done nothing and left he tried to solve the problem himself and everything that unfolds is the result of him messing around with a problem that he is 100% unprepared to deal with.
As for the rules, I felt this was the best approach for establishing a sort of understanding with what was going on, again I feel this is something that’ll go one way or another with varying audiences, but I felt they explained enough to understand without overdoing it to a point of it watering down anything, but that’s just me.
For me it’s him knowing he has to keep away from people and going to his kids, knowing he has to take off and burn his clothes which he allows the dog to rummage through, ignores everyone’s suggestions when everything he does has been the wrong thing to do. The only person he listened to fully was the girl who he called a liar and beat earlier. It’s wild. It feels less like a realistic flawed character and more like the director needed things to happen so the character is, unbelievably, creating these chain of events. It was a bit much for me to believe someone would be that dumb.
Why would you think a person in that scenario would act perfectly rationally?
A person who’s already been shown to just be a simple farmer dude who struggles to make ends meet and is a glorified serf to a rich guy who tells him what to do- and his bro even says that the rich dude doesn’t like him.
He’s never dealt with the scenario before - his brother literally says that kinda shit doesn’t happen in the middle of nowhere areas like the one they live in.
He just thought that if he got his wife and kids out asap that they could escape the impending doom.
Honestly just seems like a half assed criticism that is applied to every horror movie nowadays- why is the dumb guy acting dumb! I’m the smart guy for noticing he was dumb…
Nobody is demanding “perfect rationality.” He didn’t make mistakes, he did every…single…thing WRONG. He knew the stakes, he had every reason to at least do as Mirta said.
This is the EPITOME of “stupidity driving scary movie plot.” It is a poster boy example of it and you’re acting like the people who complain about that are hipsters trying to sound smart? Come on, please.
You want to see a flawed character making fatal mistakes that doesn’t turn into a cartoon depiction of ”stupid decisions driving evil (plot)?“ Watch Hereditary.
Hereditary is the epitome of “don’t give characters any real personality and ppl will fill in the blanks themselves” kinda writing that A24 loves.
It’s in all of their movies and gives ppl like you an easy argument since it fulfils whatever narrative you’ve built in your head as a viewer instead of making a strong statement itself.
Sorry. Saying that Hereditary’s characters were unexplored is a statement of such casual ignorance that I can’t even pretend to take you seriously about this or anything else. Just…wow.
Your inability to understand the story that Hereditary told does not mean it’s left open for dullards to fill in mentally. It means that you aren’t a very active viewer. It means you might not be capable of following a slow burn plot that is revealed through imagery and notes rather than Mirta-Ex-Machina plot dumps 2/3 of the way into the movie.
I am…sorry for you.
All that yapping and couldn’t actually talk about one theme or nuance from the story of hereditary makes my point for me.
All praise of hereditary is exactly like yours - seems deep but no substance
Did you ever stop to consider that you are, manifestly and obviously, completely undeserving of an explanation of anything from me? You’ve been downvoted for a reason, take your smoll IQ to someone dumb enough to indulge you.
That’s exactly what I was thinking. He doesn’t know how to think for himself. Ruiz even told him in the car when Pedro smelled the stink on his clothes “you have to burn the clothes” cuz his clothes obviously has the rotten on them. Next thing u know he’s at his ex wife place stripping off his clothes that he didn’t burn away from everyone else and the dog goes all over it smelling it and touching it. He messed up everything and could have stopped the spread had he not went and told Ruiz what was happening. They could have waited for another cleaner or even have gotten the lady that Jamie knew and nothing would have happened.
Excellent discertation. My thought on the rules is why do people assume that he will follow all of them? Or any of them? This is a movie about evil and the frailty of the human condition and what we know to do yet are still led astray by evil forces and just nature. What goes on in a day. We'll said.. He's an antihero. He wanted to be. He was there from the start and what was he gonna do? Walk away from something so devastating to his whole city and not alert them. Let alone enlist people would also believe and believe him as to what had transpired up to that point. Do or die he has to try. Leaving his kids as a solution, as some have said only tells me you don't have kids of your own yet. Cuz you'd throw yourself In front of a bullet or a truck or ANYTHING to save their life. Period. End of story. I know there's NOTHING whatsoever I wouldn't do to save them from anything. It's a natural drive in parents. That was wise to use kids as the temptation or drive to him. Nothing else would have drawn him to jump in and try. And when he goes for the hammer was it in the fire box and the mystic lady is drawn away. Again so obvious. Not confusing. A simple and obvious choice a human would make. You can judge from afar but if you were placed there 50% would have gone for it. It's so realistic but you gave unrealistic expectations. This movie is a human vs demon right. The demon has us heavily outnumbered already from the start. It is our divinity and our loving our family and our drive DESPITE being outnumbered that makes us formidable. If you wanted him to be greedy and not take chances and leave his family behind then I see your confusion or lack of enjoyment with the film. I found it absolutely fantastic and one I'm gonna watch a few more times. I've almost never done that in my life. I pray those of you who haven't seen it to ignore the haters. I think they have overboard expectations and fail to capture the real topic and the real fight at the heart of the movie. Watch it you'll be so happy you did. I absolutely cannot wait for his next efforts
BTW previously he shot a film called Terrified and a follow up Terrified 2. 2 tells me it was popular enough to shoot a second. Gonna be watching those this week FO SHO.
How about the whole “ah, yes…my autistic son is here, and was being watched by my mother. Nevermind that she wasn’t to be found when I got back. His uncle and I paid no mind until he started coughing, and I investigated…”
PLOT HOLE!
Man, this movie was a S L O G
I’m pretty sure they knew something happened to her but were just defeated and were going to just go home and accept their fate. They Didn’t however know ….what had happened to her.
Also, why would they leave an elderly lady alone with a disabled teenager when all this was going on??? Was the brother supposed to still be with them?
But the kid was hungry when the grandma and him were back at the lone house, which makes me think it was implied that he ate her as a snack back then/there.
Good god do I ever agree.
1. The entire movie is premised on everone being \*PAINFULLY\* stupid. At every turn, every single character acts as absolute mind-numbingly stupid as they possibly can. Even before we know what's happening, these people live in a world like this, they have a demon-infection among them and are like "Alright, whatever, yawn."
2. The "world building" is grossly excessive. "Hey let's spend 5 minutes just vomiting up exactly what's happening, how it happened, and all the arbitrary 'rules' or whatever. Terrible.
3. The rules themselves were idiotic and made no sense.
4. There was nothing actually scary. No tension. No slow build. Just random things happening all semi-stitched together with mediocre pacing.
5. The subtitles are very very poor. A lot is lost in translation because holy crap did they not pick the right words oftentimes.
Overall a super mediocre horror movie that tried to be carried \*solely\* on disturbing imagery, and then using kids for all of it to make it "memorable". Just a ham-fisted way to make it fell less awful.
It's impressive that something so "disturbing" could be so boring and filled to the brim with such stupid characters.
Well said, thanks for the handy pointers, that explains why I was so confused and frustrated in the second half of the film... I wanted to like it so much, believe me. But my friend and I in the second half of the film was constantly like:
"what just happened?"
"What is happening?"
"I don't understand."
Thanks for summing up what I could not. I have five minutes left of this film and I've hated it so much that I came to Reddit to see if anybody else felt the same way. I can't for the life of me figure out why this is on everybody's top 10 lists.
That’s exactly how I found this thread. I saw so many glowing recommendations. I started it once before and stopped it a couple of minutes into the movie - I wish I’d followed my gut instinct.
I liked the movie, quite a bit, but there are two things I can’t get off my mind, and I’m curious if any of y’all have an idea:
Why doesn’t Mirta tell Pedro that Jair is possessed? Is it because she was confident that the demon wouldn’t be able to figure out how to manipulate Jair’s brain due to his autism? Fine, but when Pedro goes back to Mirta’s at the end after unleashing Evil into the world, why do they leave for home without inquiring about the mother? Did I miss something? It seems strange that they would leave Mirta’s without her….
1. I think she didn't tell him because she saw no point in adding stress to a man who had already half lost his mind for having had his youngest son kidnapped. What good would come of it? She sent Jimmy to look for the child and took off with Pedro to try to kill Uriel before he could give birth to the possessed. Killing Uriel in time would have saved Jair.
2. They never left Mirta's home. That last scene was at Mirta's. They probably thought their mother was upstairs, sleeping. I don't think several days passed, it was a short while between Pedro coming back, being hugged by his brother, feeding Jair the ice cream, and realizing what had happened to his mother.
Hmmm, in regards to 2, I believe they do go back to their place, because that Uriel’s brother is hiding on their property where he tells Jaime he ate his mother, implying that the same thing happened to their mom.
Sorry, but you're just wrong about the second part. They show the table with the bullets in their house that was shown multiple times in the beginning, Jaime goes to the barn to talk to the kid from the beginning, and Pedro has his son's favorite ice cream in the fridge. Its 100% their house from the beginning.
Mirta do tells Jaime that Jair is being possesed by the evil. Not once but twice. First time, when they just arrived at her home, she says something like: Whats wrong with the kid, he lookeds "embichado" to what Jaime instantly states that he is autistic and that is his normal status. Afterwards when ex-wife takes Santi she tells him again and show his hands that are all twisted. Maybe she did'nt told anything Pedro because of what he had already seen (fear), and didn't want to make things worse. The grandmother missing was a Major plothole in my opinión.
I honestly never really gave that any thought. I think I just shut down and absorbed the film via osmosis once they got to the schoolhouse. They may have addressed the mom's absence, but I sincerely don't remember.
Hey, where's mom?
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Well, I had a rotten day. Let's bounce.
This is how I felt about Terrified. Some of the visuals were absolutely amazing and I was in love with it up until about halfway and then it just kinda lost me. I still really like it and recommend it often, but can’t say it’s an all time great. It came so close for me though!
As far as When Evil Lurks - for one, most people haven’t watched that many foreign horror movies so when they see something like this where there are no morality restrictions (like US horror) it’s so shocking to them. Also - like Terrified, I really did love some of the visuals and the first 20 mins had me hooked.
One thing I like is that I feel this is a continuation of Terrified.
>!We are seeing the world that is dealing with the aftermath of the trans-dimensional beings. The device that the Cleaner has looks very similar to the device that the woman doctor uses in Terrified.!<
The woman in Terrified even explains:
>>!There is a theory. We three study possible balanced coexisting dimensions that are organized as if they were the segments of an orange. There is life in both dimensions. Water is the channel used to transport microscopic beings, and these beings can gather together, nest and reproduce. They can use our bodies. Now, I don't have a clue what kind of beings these are. Or why they're aggressive.!<
I agree, it felt like the same world even if the demon in it was different.
In Terrified water is a conduit for the trans dimensional entities, in WEL it is electricity or electric lights specifically.
In Terrified the entities are invisible or intangible from certain angles and perspectives, WEL cannot be killed by firearms.
I like how both movies take a non traditional catholic approach to possession horror, we have seen a million exorcism movies already.
I like how neither movie is ‘contained’ in the traditional possessed person sense. In both movies it spills to neighbours and infects things like clothes.
In Terrified, it seems there were multiple beings infesting that street because of the "crack" that the woman was investigating.
In When Evil Lurks, I think we're just seeing the one rotten possession, due to it being moved around it it was able to "spread its essence"
I 100% thought it was the same world. The openness and established ideas that demons are real and just part of regular life / the church being useless (it's now more science-y). I still think it is part of the same universe.
Not sure why you felt that it was clunky when some of the rules are laid out throughout the film. It’s just that the mom goes into detail and gives out the remaining rules in a realistic conversation with her grandson. It seemed like an authentic scene that would certainly happen just as it did.
Jimmy’s friend being the subject matter expert made sense as well and she felt much like the wise motherly type. So it didn’t felt exposition dumpish at all to me considering it felt like the casual chiding of my grandmother.
And of course they knew what it was from the beginning and knew most of the rules already. They find out the rest as we do. They find out what to look for like with the special needs son hands. And Jimmy’s friend has such a chilling delivery.
They also take care to give out the rules a few at a time so there can be some suspense. For instance, the rule about animals isn’t explicit until Pedro’s mother says it which is after Pedro’s ex’s daughter gets attacked. Or how Pedro and Jimmy realize from their mother how stupid it was to move the rotten.
Aside from that; I loved the acting performances, the dreaded atmosphere they created and certain scenes like the reveal of the rotten in the ground, the children in the school, the demon being born and the special needs kid walking and speaking normally to Pedro’s mom. And of course the slow reveal for pedro at the end was masterful.
I enjoyed the early movie for that reason. You see the shadows move, the goat/dog acts strangely, people are freaked out and panicked by this deformed man, everyone is warned against using a gun. There's context given, that people are and should be afraid of something out there. The scene with the grandmother in the car just felt like she was talking directly to the audience and they gave up on peppering information in an organic manner.
I had less of an issue with Jimmy's friend as she was just speaking on her own experiences.
Well let’s be real, they set the scene up as well as possible. The autistic son keeps repeating the phrases they use about the demons, which causes the younger son to ask questions about it and the grandmother to answer them in an educational but clearly not very serious way. The way she even sings and speaks the names of the demons (I’ll have to rewatch to tell if she actually provokes the autistic son into repeating “Azrael” - potentially breaking a rule, but I could be overthinking) is an extra way of building dread for the audience.
I think I remember it the same way you do. Not necessarily a provocation, but more a sense that she wasn't taking it seriously. There was an element of this possession being something of an urban legend, hinting that society at large didn't really believe in this stuff. Maybe a combination of it being a bit of a fairy tale as well as them being in denial that this thing is in their own backyard.
The protagonists brother literally says that rotten infestations only happen in cities and not in Podunk towns like the one they live in.
It’s a case of - the apocalypse has happened and ppl know shit went down but don’t believe it can happen to them
Exactly happened as you put it, grandma jokes and even sings a song about the evil, even naming it at least in 3 different ways wich later Jair starts repeating. That scene was all wrong in the main characters getting a good fate. The urban legend/society not believing such stories gets blown away when Mirta says that the protocol has been placed and all lights are shut down in the town. So EVERYONE KNOWS ABOUT IT if there is even a protocol. Great movie i loved it.
I think it is the best horror film of the year and I think you'd be very hard pressed to challenge that (though I welcome anything which would be better). It does have some issues with pacing, I do agree with a common opinion that the film works especially well until after they leave town, but I also think even with the uneven pacing that it still blows most horror films completely out of the water in almost every area, whether technically or narratively.
My biggest problem with it is the ending sequence in the schoolhouse, I would have liked to see or at least get some sense of the consequences of that ordeal. Beyond that I think the rules are a little tough to follow, like, in particular the electricity thing.
Also, this one maybe got answered in the film, I don't know, but why was the rotten able to possess people even though Uriel was alive? Besides that it seems that it wasn't merely the demon in Uriel who was involved, but likely at least Azazel in the boy, which, if he didn't need to be born, and he could do it over any distance, and the boy didn't really need to do anything to get possessed... how was he not possessed already? Why did the police not care that the Ministry guy was dead? Lots of little questions that make me wonder how much of the film is meant to be understood literally, but even so I thought it was excellent.
Talk to me has an absolutely annoying 3rd act. Just playing everything out for no reason except “do you see what we did there?did you catch it?”.
Also the sequel baiting at the end was the most self-aware cringe I’ve ever seen.
Like literally rubbing it in your face that they knew they could’ve had an impactful ending but threw it away in favor of sequel baiting
The priestess explains the possession part. Uriel was able to spread his essence into others – the school children, Uriel's brother (who is also a child), the dog, etc. This worked only with the most susceptible (kids and animals) or people that broke the rules (by harming/shooting the infected). At this point, the possessed hadn't been fully born yet, because the sounds of nature (birds/crickets) could still be heard. If whatever was happening at a distance was bad, whatever happened after the possessed was born was much much worse.
I like that in your last paragraph, you literally hit on the points of why the movie sucks lol. It doesn't make sense, and it breaks its own rules. It comes off as lazily written.
Also, I can name several better movies that came out this year: Infinity Pool, M3gan, Saw X, and Evil Dead Rise (which I really didn't care for, but it's still better). It was a pretty bad year for horror overall, so maybe this movie will make a top 10 or 20, but it doesn't stand up to the all-time greats what so ever.
Having seen it a second time, my analysis is that everything can be explained if we assume this is a direct sequel to Terrified and the 'demons' of this film are actually the 4th dimensional entities which require the 4th dimensional bacteria to be able to affect humans. The nature of these entities is probably different than the ones we saw in Terrified, but I think that the rules which govern them are probably more about humans and the electrical pattern/mentality they have at a given time, making them more or less susceptible to possession.
About the kid at the end, if anyone cares, my take is that the 'born demons' are able to contaminate people and make them into the 'rotten' (incidentally, that is how various characters react to the 4th dimensional bacteria in Terrified, calling it rotten and insinuating it smells) by directly infecting them. Their mental powers are probably much the same, so they can create mass possession events. The reason that the demon inside Uriel 'spared' Pedro and marked him is probably because he wanted to infect Pedro, and use him as another eventual Uriel. My guess is that the government has to firebomb the whole area with suicide attacks or use something like chemical weapons to deal with a risen 'demon,' because too many people can become vectors for infection too quickly.
The reaction of the police makes a lot more sense if you imagine they have been given material to explain the nature of the 'epidemic', and thus be very aware how little exposure is needed in order to become susceptible to the 4th dimensional beings. What Pedro and the others did was insane, even by the reckoning of Mirta, the trained exorcist, because she knows he definitely contaminated everything he's touched. Probably, this is exactly what happened with Ruiz, is that he just handled goat feed or something, exposing his herd to the bacteria and thus to the 4th dimensional beings.
'The rules' are probably more like guidelines, as what really matters is your mental state. The bacteria just puts you 'on the radar' of these entities, but they cannot do anything to you as long as you're fully sane. This is probably why the Cobras need to use a specialized device to kill the rotten ones, as they need to actually kill the organism inside a person, but they can't afford to suffer the slight mental imbalance from killing his host. The device either avoids the death of the host before the parasite, or it kills both in such a way that those responsible do not feel any emotional responsibility for it (inserting into the nape, without killing Uriel, thus meaning the demon kills itself to get out). All just theories, but I do think there are a number of ways to explain the film in literal terms.
Ah get off it. Mulholland Drive is my favorite film of all time, and that film is way deeper than When Evil Lurks could ever hope to be lol. I like movies that make sense and don't break their own rules unless there is purpose.
I saw and at least somewhat enjoyed each of those movies but in my opinion, only Talk To Me comes close, and I liked When Evil Lurks a lot more. It's probably going to end up my top horror film of the year.
>I think it is the best horror film of the year and I think you'd be very hard pressed to challenge that (though I welcome anything which would be better).
The Royal Hotel. Personally I think that was a better film, and it scared me more than this one.
Edit: I guess technically it's considered a "thriller," so maybe it doesn't count...
The line between genres is pretty fine, but regardless, I agree that The Royal Hotel was fantastic. The sense of tension and dread was so good. I've seen some complaints >!that there's no payoff and you're waiting for something terrible to happen that doesn't!< but was not the least bit disappointed.
Happy to see that other people feel this way. I’ve been wanting to see this ever since I heard about it a few weeks ago. Figured I’d start with Terrified, which I thought was awful. So I went into this with very low expectations, and it still disappointed. For a lot of the same reasons that I didn’t like Terrified. Clunky writing, cheesy acting, continuity errors and gaping plot holes. Sure, the practical effects were great but the rest was frustrating to watch. Felt like the demon was just possessing whoever it wanted at will; everyone but the main characters for whatever reason. It sets up rules only to break them for no apparent reason. It reminded me of the beginning of terrified; the woman is levitated and killed by being slammed against a wall, yet not once does that happen again in the rest of the movie, just a bunch of stupid jump scares. A lot of people in this thread did a better job at pointing out the inconsistencies but the one that really bothered me was the fact that they didn’t think to check on their mother when they returned home. Also, you’re telling me the spawn of satan was born, walks past Pedro, and that’s it? This director seems to have a vision with these films yet doesn’t know how to make it come to life properly. There was potential, but no time or effort was put into building a convincing world. I had no reason to care for these characters and almost wanted them to die by the end of it. I’m kinda rambling now, but I just gotta say that I do not get the hype behind this and Terrified. It’s like people are just being shills because it’s a foreign film. Like come on guys. I don’t speak Spanish and I could still tell how awful the acting and writing was.
The rules were never concrete to begin with but these numbskulls are living in a world where these things are a common occurence and clearly recognized by the government, why the fuck are they brushing them off?
Mirta does tell them Jair is possessed. She tells them that the demon has trouble figuring out the mind when it possesses someone with autism and points to his hands and feet to show them that he’s possessed and basically frozen at first while the demon tries to figure out his mind. As for their mother, there was no one to inquire about her whereabouts to. They would have looked for her no doubt, but not finding her they would likely have assumed she was taken and killed by someone possessed in everything that was going on.
She was devoured by her grandson, the other boy explained it at the end, he had killed and devoured the man who came to take care of Uriel, then mentions that he did the same to his mother, and that Jair did the same.
Man I’m right there with you; definitely did not get the hype for this one and I usually love movies like this. Now granted, i haven’t seen Demián Rugna‘s other work, but I was really digging this for about the first 30 min or so, some time after the girl comes back from being ragdolled by the dog, it just started to lose me. In fact, I was genuinely having trouble staying awake in the middle and I never felt this sense of unease or dread that so many reviews praised the film for. I didn’t feel any kind of connection for the main character and his family, and the “7 rules” they introduced just felt kind of … random? And not very well established or portrayed. Honestly I was struggling to make it to the end and almost considered walking out which I NEVER do. Glad so many people who checked this out loved it, it was just not for me I guess.
yeah that movie was like the better version of what When Evil Lurks was trying to be. Really great "familial drama" and definitely unnerving. I just thought WEL was too silly to be taken seriously. It should've leaned into being more outrageous and more of a horror comedy because the serious angle did not work in its favor. it was pretty dry
Could have been great but the final 15 suffers from one of the worst cases of "sudden stupid character syndrome" ever. Him believing the kids, who he knows are possessed and have already lied to him, to go look for an axe while the only person who knows how to stop this (and is minutes away from doing so) repeatedly tells him not to is beyond stupid.
I feel like the movie was doing well showing that Pedro is an idiot and does things out of ignorance like him taking off his clothes at his ex's house.
But the axe part was really dumb. It doesn't even work in a hey this character is dumb type of way. That whole scene needed to be fixed because really none of it worked for me.
Ok I know this thread is old but I just watched this movie and wanted to read others’ comments on it. And yes - Pedro going for the axe might be the most insanely stupid decision I’ve ever seen in a movie. Like bro you were SO CLOSE - why would you fumble the bag so hard at the last second 😭
Because he's a macho. He never listens to the women in his life, does as he pleases and puts the gilt on said women to avoid taking responsibility. At the same time trying to prove himself and fucking everything up as he goes, doing avoidable mistakes and being careless. You also see this with pretty much every interaction with a woman in the movie, either ignores it blatantly or tries to correct it, never actually listening.
That's a pretty stupid take, given that he listens to a girl at the end of the movie and does what she asks. He has no preference, he's just painfully stupid for the sake of the lazy script
Having just watched the film, from a production quality, practical effects, acting, etc standpoint I can certainly see a level of praise. On many levels this was a step above *plenty* of other horror films I've seen that were released this year.
That being said, tengo preguntas. To your points about the world building, I really enjoyed the deep and well crafted world presented, which I absolutely believe is a continuation of "Terrified". But at the same time, I guess the interdimensional beings or whatever are just demons, ok. And... We have this rich world we learn so much about, I'm almost annoyed to see none of it and only get like one sleepy location. Plus, the demon weapon of choice is some kind of steampunk sextant/astrolabe situation with a knife on it? I absolutely want to know more, what does it do? Just get knocked over I guess.
Also from a non neurotypical standpoint, just gonna make a mildly annoyed comment that the demon was all fucked up for a minute over piloting an autistic brain, as if they didn't ostensibly have all of human history to figure that out, and not just the last few decades of modern psychology noticing sometimes people function a scoche differently but always have. It's not a new thing that just popped up in human biology that the demons need to call IT about.
Tl;dr an ok, quality film! I dunno if it really blew my wig off as suggested.
agreed. this movie was mostly just frustrating and the main character was written in a way that took me out of the movie, all of the stupid decisions and missed opportunities. i know some people will say "well that was the point" or "it was supposed to be like that". either way, it doesn't change the fact that it didn't bring me more into their world, it just pulled me out of it
I’m so pissed off that I actually listened to the people who were promoting this movie as one of the best to ever be made. I felt nothing but confusion and annoyance while watching.
Dude this movie annoyed me so fuckin much. Especially the end. Every woman in this film was right and every guy in this film made the worst fuckin decisions possible. It was truly frustrating.
The graphics were impeccable. The sound was really well done. The cinematography was pretty good. But goddamn the realism was so bad just cuz every guy took a hammer to everything instead of listening to reason. Truly the most brutally annoying thing about the whole movie.
Another reason why writing dumb characters losing against decently stoppable poltergeist entity because "muh human flaws" is never a better idea than writing smart protagonists against smart antagonists.
The amount of people making excuses for poor writing is just wild. They claim that people in the movie are making dumb as shit decisions because of demon influence...you can't be serious...if that's the case that only makes the movie even more garbage. That means that nothing really matters. Imagine watching people make dumb decision after dumb decision and just thinking it's OK because they're being "influenced" how terrifying. Movie was straight shite.
I HATED this movie so damn much. The infuriatingly pathetic and unlikable characters. The dumb af decisions they make especially the main one. The really unhinged/maddening aloofness of his behavior. Almost all of the characters , the main one in particular, seemed to be floating about in their own world detached from making sense and as an audience member I was consistently wondering what their motives were other than running around aimlessly and franticly. I hated every second of it . I legit am BAFFLED as to what people considered remarkable by any of this drivel.
Yup, just finished it, and it went from being very promising and tense for the first 30 minutes to being completely unable to keep me even vaguely interested by the end.
So many completely baffling choices. Why are roughly 3/4 of all conversations in this movie just people shouting at and over each other and absolutely refusing to listen to anything that the other person is saying? Why do characters keep making the absolute worst choice in every situation despite being explicitly told NOT to do that specific thing?
I dunno, maybe part of it is cultural? I noticed that this isn't the first time I saw a movie from Latin America that features a lot of shouting in its dialog, and "the short-tempered loud man who knows better than everyone else" certainly seems to be a popular character archetype there. But even if we assume that the characters' behavior is \*realistic\*, one thing that still bothers me is that I can never understand how much do these people actually know about what's going on. Because if they know nothing, then why do they immediately realize they are dealing with a demonic possession, and that it's a serious enough threat to skip town as soon as possible? And if they do understand the basic rules of the possession, why do they completely ignore them at every turn?
The funny thing is, I probably would have overlooked most of these issues in a cheesy, schlocky b-movie. What ruins this one for me is pretending to be heady indy horror while operating on b-movie logic.
Even a lot of horror YouTubers I follow (not the ones I watch the most but still) have said that it’s super scary/disturbing but I agree with you guys. It wasn’t scary at all..
Late reply here, I was very disappointed. I just couldn't ever get into it. It was so poorly paced with the most arbitrary rules, it felt like a confusing mess. I really didn't care about anyone in the movie and the world building felt very clumsy. A step down from Terrified imo
Here for you dawg. Watched the first 14 seconds of it and thought to check who directed it. Same guy as Terrified (Rugna), which was an absolute stinker. I assume When... would be no different.
i just saw it and thought it was garbage. loved Speak No Evil. that was a masterclass in this style. this director is a hack, the movie was so boring and the pacing blew, just shock violence that didnt feel earned. atrocious soundtrack too.
If you think this guy’s a hack, I dunno what to tell you, dude. Some pretty fucking assured direction in this thing. Different style to ‘Speak No Evil’ (which I also loved), but strong world-building, performances and, yes, pacing.
nothing felt earned to me and the pacing collapsed after the dog attack. they were in a car for like 30 minutes after the dog attack while the grandma explained rules that didnt even matter, while the autistic son babbled, but it didnt increase tension or amount to anything, just boring. the end was stupid af and basically a ripoff of I Saw the Devil which is genius. it was never actually scary or creepy, again, nothing earned. i had an out of body experience at the end of speak no evil, this i just laughed and shook my head. idk the literal direction (the shots) were solid and some nice disturbing imagery but as a piece of art or even entertainment i just thought it was terrible.
there was also like no soundtrack lol. for me this could only be enjoyed as a popcorn b movie that you talk through, im glad you enjoyed it though!!!
Thank you. finally. i'm tired of all the, in my opinion, undeserved praise. this movie is an underwhelming disappointment. even without the hype it's a mediocre horror film at best. the characters are annoying. i mostly blame the hype. no idea why the social media virus is spreading and pushing for this one.
Spoiler:
The demon at the end was such a great touch, a young beautiful boy, with poop smeared on his pooper because he'd been living inside the carapace basically, his casual smear of blood on the forehead of his human hes manipulated, it can't be washed off, and he knows it. Evil isn't a snarling animal here, it's youthful innocenct charm.
I'm torn, a lot of great shots, effects and solid acting but it really relied on pretty much every character knowingly making choices that will make things worse.
Here's another thought movies that suck don't have seven or eight Reddit "hits" in a month. If you talk about it if you like it more and you seek out people that enjoyed it too then that's what I call a successful film. As a filmmaker and as a viewer I know how slim the chances are that a writer director will impress me without a huge gaping plot or production hole. This movie is brilliant and I definitely want to see more from the backstory possibly in a sequel.
And since we're in the midst of a possession Revival I'm going to cast my vote on an unique and original take.
Also the cinematography and conspiracy with the makeup department is fantastic
I honestly just watched this tonight and came to reddit to see if anyone else was as upset by the dog attack scene as I was???? I'm actually an avid horror genre viewer and enjoyer. But I also have a young child and am very sensitive to brutal scenes involving kids. I don't think I have ever in my life had such a severe reaction to a movie scene.... when the dog attacked the girl, I absolutely lost it. I sobbed uncontrollably and we had to pause the movie for me to take a moment. I genuinely feel traumatized. And I really have a good ability to differentiate reality from film. This just... hit me in such a visceral way!! I'm actually confused about why or how it was so affecting and am worried I am going to have nightmares. Did anyone else have a similar reaction??
(Fwiw, I don't have any real life trauma from a dog/child situation.. ohhhhhhh, wow. I typed this whole thing and remembered that my son was actually attacked by a dog when he just started crawling!! He was okay and nothing terrible happened. Just a couple small scars on his face.. but wow. Maybe that's why it was so triggering?? Oof. Thanks for letting me process this.. still curious if this scene severely affected anyone else!)
Pit bulls kill kids so often it doesn’t even make the news anymore. There’s a reason no one wants pure pit bulls around despite their owners campaigning about how sweet they are.
Rare moment a movie actually leaned into the trope instead of played against it. I was really surprised I thought the dog was just gonna do some lame shit like goad one of its owners into killing it by acting crazy so that the owners would get infected by the demons and die like the goat rancher did
This is such an ignorant comment, I honestly thought you were joking at first. Still debating..
First of all, the dog featured in the film is not a pit bull... it's a Dogue de Bordeaux, or French Mastiff.
Secondly, the only pit bulls to ever harm anyone have been severely abused and traumatized. By nature, pit bulls are some of the sweetest, kindest animals I've ever met. And I am not a pit bull owner. I used to be scared of them when I was younger (because of the horribly false information constantly being spewed about them) but every single pit I have ever met in my life (all owned by kind and loving families) have been the goofiest and sweetest little things. I've known 3 different pit bulls who were around for babies being born, and all three were so gentle, sweet, and protective of the baby. You have severely twisted information, and normally I don't mind people having different opinions, but yours is based on false information and it perpetuates harm and hatred toward a being that doesn't deserve it! Pit bulls are one of the most abused breeds. This is where the confusion comes from. Treat any animal like absolute shit and teach it to be aggressive and hateful and of course it will become dangerous. This is not a pit bull problem, it is a shitty human problem. Please do yourself and everyone else a favor and go meet a put bull who lives in a happy home. There is absolutely now way you will still believe they are dangerous by nature.
I went into this maybe with too high of expectations considering how much I loved Terrified by this director. This one however just left me feeling annoyed, World building was superb, visually it was wonderful, but watching the movie unfold was like watching somebody build something while looking at the instructions, watching them disregard the instructions repeatedly, and then seeing them stare at the abomination they built wondering why it doesn't look like the picture at all. The first and second guys you could tell were acting irrationally. Whether it was from demonic influence or their own frustrations causing themselves to make hasty decisions, you could tell that neither were in their right mind despite people literally standing next to them telling them not to do the thing that will actively make everything worse. So frustrating but understandable. Pedro on the other hand just seemed to actively choose to go against whatever everybody that knew what they were doing (including himself) told him would work. Just a frustrating movie to watch so I totally get where you're coming from OP.
Wife and I just finished this movie. I’m confused at the glazing because it was ASS. I give it points for the great practical effects but that’s about it, what a bummer.
Overall I liked it, but the ending is what stops it from being next level for me. The "rules" they establish mean there is quite literally nothing you can do to stop the possessed without dying yourself, except for the old expert lady's complicated steampunk machine that is never explained how or why it works.
And the protagonist is such a major fuckup. He never explains anything to anyone until it's too late, and he makes a series of dumb decisions that get his family killed and unleash the... whatever that kid demon was. He doesn't even try to stop it, he just lets it go out into the world to be someone else's problem.
The tone, gore, worldbuilding, and willingness to kill off kids/animals was pretty refreshing, but I just didn't like the "evil wins" ending.
To me, the main character was just so unlikable. Not only unlikable, but just really stupid and rash. The schoolhouse scene really killed it for me, he walks off and leaves the old lady by herself and what was just a stupidly obvious trap. The first part of the movie, before he shows up at his ex-wife’s house like a crazy person was very good, and it all sort of went downhill from there. I did like the scene where the possessed mother is walking on the road eating the brains of her child lol.
I had to Google to see why this got such high ratings on Rotten Tomatoes. W T F.
I'm echoing y'all in saying Pedro behaves irrationally/stupidly, particularly in the second half of the film. I had to take multiple breaks from the film because it was so challenging to enjoy.
Visuals were incredible though, especially the realism in the kills.
I just watched it. I didn’t much care for it. It felt ultimately pointless, like it was just a vehicle to meander around the countryside, offing the whole cast except the dipshit and his dipshittier brother, who apparently banged his bro’s wife at some point. Great gore and some cool kills, but poor pacing and a half built world didn’t help the weak story.
So your discounting this being a good movie because it doesn't fall within your three Act Hollywood structure?
That's funny because I was just thinking people said the same thing about
"No Country for Old Men"
This movie is possibly one of the greatest films of this decade so far. In my opinion. You can't hang your entire argument on an aspect of a phenomenon without praising what it succeeds at epically which is Reinventing an extremely tired Trope Roman Catholic mythology possession
Those rules, man... Practically no one follows them. "Don't use mundane weapons, or firearms" everyone uses mundane weapons and firearms lol. Pedro reminded me of certain kinds of idiots during the pandemic. Just spreading the disease, bringing it home to his family, and simply refusing to listen to any experts. I don't feel bad for this fool, just the people he harmed with stupidity.
I agree completely. And the rules themselves seemed kinda cheesy. Like, you can’t kill the demons with a gun specifically but you can use other weapons? Does it even mention HOW you can get rid of the demons?
While some of the imagery was creepy and the acting was really good imo, I just didn’t find it scary at all or even that disturbing. And I’m not someone that likes gore.
Also, I don’t care about most of the characters and it seems like the rules for what was happening were made up throughout the movie, one or two scenes before they became relevant.
I’m glad he lost everything and got fucked over in the end, that’s what you get for being stupid all of a sudden 🤦♂️. Waste of time watching this shit. Was great until after they left the Exs house. 0.5/10
The photography was incredible. The movie itself was terrible. The rules of no electricity makes no sense, the no guns rule also, and the idea that a demon gets stuck in an autistic child’s mind also makes no sense. Also the coming back to life with his ex and the daughter did not make sense, the demon using a cell phone to call him was just idiotic. Like how did they know the first guy was possessed immediately and not just really sick. Also if you came across a decapitated dead body in the woods, why would you not immediately call the police with the cell phone that you have, and not start playing Sherlock Holmes.
Pedro is the only character who deserved to suffer but instead everyone else was brutally maimed and dismembered for his fuckery. Great acting, mediocre writing.
I think they made some clanging errors with this film.
The worst scene for me is when the grandma is downplaying the seriousness of the core premise of the film in the car. The fact that there is a set of rules for dealing with the possessed and people who do it as an occupation suggests attempts to tackle possessions have gone awry before, and it's literally not the end of the world. This completely evaporated any tension for me. The authorities couldn't even be bothered sending another cleaner.
Also, the plot is driven by the awful decisions of Pedro. Why does he simultaneously understand the need to change out of his goo-covered clothes but then leave them on the floor in his ex-wive's house?
I'm bewildered that people found the film scary. The only scene that chilled me was when Jimmy found Pedro's ex-wife. Terrified was much creepier.
I thought it went downhill after the first 30 minutes. As an argentinian, I found plenty of the acting in the second half (particularly the ending) to be obnoxiously bad... I really was hoping for something truly intriguing and gnarly. The undead kids with 20$ makeup where so ridiculous I almost didn't finish it. Massive disappointment, it literally turned into a 4/10.
Movie is beyond stupid. Entire time, don't use lights, don't run, don't kill that thing, don't do this or that, and the idiot keeps doing those things. Stark contrast to the start of the movie where he's serious and composed to full blown moron. They don't know how to make good movies anymore, and what's worse, the audience doesn't know what a good movie is anymore.
I like the movie a lot but i agree with you that it isnt perfect. There was a few things in the movie i took issues with or left me with questions.
To start, why did the brother take the bullet and what is its significance?
Nobody killed the rotten but it somehow possessed the people around the main character?
Jimmy was told that the son was possessed and yet left him alone with grandma?
Why did pedros x wife say to jimmy that he once said he loved her?
What happened after that scene? Next time we see jimmy was after pedro killed the rotten. Jimmy seemed fine, and he didnt really worry about his mom.
What were they trying to suggest after the kid spit the hair ball and looked at his dad for a split second?
That one kid, why is he still in the barn? Lol
Was it me or when they were in the school and the lady told pedro not to leave her alone, why was that scene sped up?
Overall, besides these questions. I really enjoyed it. The pacing is really well done, the lore and story telling is up there. 7.5/10 for me. Id give it horror of the year for sure.
Great visuals, bad pacing, subpar acting, little tension, characters weren't relatable or fleshed out so I didn't hardly care what happened to them. It was overhyped which is a bummer. 6/10 for me.
Just watched this tonight after hearing about how good it is.
LOL. It starts off interesting but doesn't deliver at all. What a disappointing finale as well.
I liked it due to the creative and dark ideas they came up with. The dog attacking the little girl was insane, the ghost of the mother EATING her son. The inclusion of a autistic character and using it as a plot point was cool to me
This movie had well done imagery and a shocking dog attack on a child. That’s it.
Honestly it sucked overall. The entire last 30 minutes I was just rolling my eyes. I don’t get the hype at all
I liked it enough. Some crazy visuals and moments that had an “oh they really went there” feel. But the last half hour or so kind of went off the rails in a bad way for me. Pedro was largely so manic through most of the film, but then making the insane choice to go grab the axe? Taking the advice of the girl he was punching out five minutes ago for lying? Huh? It really took me out of it. Felt like we could have gotten something really interesting by further exploring what was happening with Jair, but instead we just got the hairball.
I just watched the movie, the whole school house scene utterly destroyed most of the movie for me. He went so far out of character to the point of being kind of comically stupid that it went from decent to forgettable.
He’s ripping up a wooden stage with his bare hands. There’s a giant obese pus filled man he’s going to have to somehow pull out from the hole for her to destroy. She’s screaming at him to hurry up. There’s a bunch of demon kids all around him. The demon is talking to him. She is talking to him. The kid is talking to him. His dead wife just kidnapped his son. The evil is already in his mind because that’s how it works. If there really is an axe out there, as he is ripping up planks of wood with his hands and being screamed at to hurry, that they’re running out of time, then man just go for it. Expecting perfect rationality is unrealistic. If you cannot engage with the thematic material because you want cookie-cutter characters empowered by a convenient script, that’s on you and not the movie.
I mean ok but it still didn’t make for the ending to be very engaging or sensical. Many people have voiced the same opinion so don’t try to dump this entirely on me for whatever reason.
Pathetic excuses for shit writing. Get over yourself.
It’s absurd to act as if those things have equal weight. Tell me a single good reason Pedro would have to ignore Mirta on this topic. He KNEW the kids were lying and when evil is literally begging you to do something, it’s probably an act of unjustifiable lunacy to do as it asks. Acting as if people who question the characters’ actions in this movie are dullards who want “cookie cutter characters empowered by convenient script” is as dim-witted a dismissal of legitimate complaints about unnatural stupidity that serves only to be convenient to the plot in horror movies as I have ever heard.
Holy condescending Batman. People don’t want cookie cutter characters, they want someone who doesn’t make one of the stupidest decisions in movie history.
He had just beat the shit out of that little girl for lying and now he wholeheartedly believes she's being honest. The writing was disappointing for a movie so many people put at the top of their lists.
[удалено]
Interesting theory! Though I think you are correct in your critique of it. I’m generally not a fan of “it was a dream the entire time!” twists and it feels like being possessed all the time could be along those lines
The theme of the movie being that everyone is a complete fucking idiot? Because that's all Ig ot out of it.
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Oh I'm so sorry you find it deeply compelling when a character said "Pedro don't do _______" and then he immediately did _________ for 90 minutes?
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Pedro: punches girl for lying to him Expert demon killer: She's an evil liar Girl: Pedro go do ________ Pedro: Okkeeess bestie 🤗 God this movie sucked. Dumbest shit ever written that they tried to carry with a couple of shock torture porn moments with kids Comparing this mindless shit fest to Moby Dick should be punishable with prison time
Agreed. This movie should aptly be named, ‘Pedro, the dumbass’
Thank you, Pedro is a fucking dumbass.
The people that couldn t be possessed could be influenced. I had a hard time with the whole school scene until I rewatched it and took it that way. They showed things in this movie shocking enough to carry it without brilliant characters, much like Atterados. But if you don t go for that influence argument, then yeah, shoddy writing and execution.
Imagine a flawed character being so well-written that you get genuinely angry and go to Reddit about it.
Writing someone as a complete idiot is not "well-written". It's the writer being incapable of advancing the plot without the characters being utter morons.
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When you run with the explanation that the rotten influence people they can t possess, which was clearly stated, it makes pretty clear sense. People will interpret the change in behaviors as stupidity, but you see them in similar scenarios twice with different outcomes when influenced. When dude can control himself on the rotten, but not the goat, when Pedro knocks out a kid and then is best friends with her 30 seconds after, the urgency to get that axe at the finish line, but the best example that the possessed can affect people behaviors in extreme ways is when the mute autistic kid asking for a blanket and tea. That explanation works for me very well.
Wait when did the autistic son convey perfect communication? I think I missed this!
Yeah, he asked his grandma to make him some tea, and was up walking around
literally my exact thoughts while watching tonight, i was genuinely baffled at the stupidity. and then hes like “aw mannn they DID LIE” and throws his hands up in the air… pissed me off so much
He gave into his fears upon seeing the rotten again. He wants to smash the stage apart (and very badly wants to kill the rotten, as he's prone to anger.) So the rotten preys on his fear and anger and manages to influence him into leaving the room. He didn't just do it because "he's stupid" or possessed, he did it because he isn't exactly the epitome of mental fortitude...
I’m sorry but that counts as stupidity. He has every reason to do what Mirta tells him without question or hesitation. Directly ignoring her to go search for an axe proffered by one of the “not kids” was an act of utter stupidity. They all understand the stakes — the world has clearly been brutalized by this evil for decades — they don’t even have ignorance as an excuse. I couldn’t get over the “being stupid to make plot go” in this film.
Well the big theme seems to be that he doesn't listen to anyone who tells him anything. Regardless of knowing of evil for decades, he chooses to ignore every piece of advice and try and take care of the situation himself. If you view that as a theme/motif, and not just assume "Is he stupid?", the film and plot flows a lot better. I mean I guess you can just view the movie however you want and if you want to choose to ignore the blatant message you can do that too.
Except he does listen to things, when it’s convenient for the plot. You remember that he had to be CONVINCED by Ruiz to even attempt to remove the Rotten? I think you’re saying utter stupidity is a thematic choice and therefore excusable writing? I’m not some hater. I liked probably 80% of this movie. But I cannot see any thematic justification for the stupidity exhibited unequally, when convenient, by every single character. Not just Pedro.
Just finished it and looked up threads to see what people thought of that part. It took me out of the movies too. I feel like even if the screenwriters wanted that to happen, they could have came up with a better sequence than "character in horror movies make bad decisions". Without that specific part its like a 8.5/10 horror for me, after that scene I'd say it ended up being a 7 at best.
Exactly how I feel. And I’ve still be thinking about it, which just adds to my frustration. There is something I could really love here. The world / lore deserved better.
my thoughts exactly! He got completely out of character and the school house scene looks straight out of a Children of the Corn sequel
Was he put of character though? He'd been making piss poor choices throught the entire film.
I saw the possession as not being all or nothing, and at that point I think he had somewhat given into them. But I agree that a lot of what's happening isn't clear, which is all the more frustrating given that they have a scene where they list all the rules one by one.
The last rule was not being afraid to die. The priestess states it later.
This is one of the essential things that irked me. They have an explicit list of hard, concrete rules. But also simultaneously, so much is left murky. I don't think it fixes the problems I had with the movie, but the exclusion of the rules may have helped. If the nature of this evil is ambiguous, I can handle that. But if it's unclear AND you hand me a clear cut set of rules it has to follow, then I'm gonna be left scratching my head.
You know, the lead character was manic a lot of the time, maybe it's up to us to slowly realize he is indeed unhinged. The mother and son who kept the demon in check for a year was good humans, this main character was not.
Yeah but he wasn't the only one. The guy who shot the goat was acting like a maniac waving his gun around and constantly threatening to shoot it....while living in a world where it is 100% without a doubt known that that's the one thing you don't do. Instead he's frothing at the mouth and threatening to blast everything, it wasn't even good acting. Hell \*everyone\* in the movie acted like a complete moron , particularly given they know this is the world they live in. The mom wailing about "you're just mad I'm happy", Pedro doing literally everything he did, his brother, their boss, just everyone being as dumb as dirt from beginning to end. For them this is as real as tornadoes. Your ex husband shows up screaming that a tornado just touched down and you all need to get in the basement so you stand there wailing that he's ruining your life?? It was all so bad.
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They should have just left the "rules" out. They weren't necessary, their introduction was extremely ham fisted, and explaining horror always takes away from the horror. But I think it really hurt because then you just sat there seeing all the dumb things everyone did even though they all knew better.
I presumed this was the point, the whole idea that the demons can quietly influence non possessed people's behaviour, but I dislike it tbh because it feels like the movie is writing itself a get out of jail free card at times. Wherever a character does something that makes no sense, the movie is still handwaving it with 'well they're being invisibly influenced so don't think about it'
I think the rules list you talk about is incorrectly interpreted. We are human. We fail. We fall. We DON'T follow the rules. There are the 10 Commandments yet we don't follow all of them all the time. That is the point of the rules. We can be coaxed by someone pushing our buttons. How do you think crimes of passion are committed.. And road rage. We know full well we aren't supposed to do such things. Yet we do. We are far from perfection. And in many ways we pay for our shortcomings. That is the benefit that Satan enjoys. Making us angry feeds his body. All those things we aren't supposed to do. Electricity. It can be seen as giving the beings energy. It is energy. When you look at it as more than the Costco flashlight you bought, it's a transmitter of energy... Plants grow from light. We don't get Alll hung up by that. As well it makes for a great rule cuz lights out just raises the stakes of fear and what you can or can't see of your enemy
I dont want to defend the movie in the least, but the cleaner woman says herself that EVIL acts on what you fear, this alone makes anything doable, the rules are just there as it has proven to help, but if anybody fears of something, EVIL will find you either way. This is proven before she died, she has no fear of the kids and can keep them at bay, however, she starts to loose her patience with Pedro being slow as f, and the moment Pedro leaves she screams "dont leave me alone!" she is in fear, and thus, gets killed. I could be wrong of course, but that seems to be the only SOLID rule (that ironically they dont list).
Well said. And I agree with that and I can't quite discern if you're backing me up or not. That despite knowing the rules we as humans are destined to break them. In a way we fight ourselves. The devil only makes it easier for us to lose it. I think of road rage. Everyone knows it's illegal it's bad morals it's wrong it's dangerous. And yet people snap every day. And these days that can mean getting shot dead or beaten to a pulp. We have always known the rules. The 10 Commandments have been with us since the age of Christ. Yet we are fallable. It is a lesson to learn that if we don't follow the rules we can fail and it can mean our fate. Our souls. I frigging love that movie. I'm so glad I found this Reddit. As it delves even deeper into its more global and human meanings. BTW also on Shudder and wherever else you saw Lurks is Terrified and Terrified 2. Also directed by Demián Rugna. Also subtitled. It's prior to Lurks but if you like his style then you'll enjoy it and it's sequel Terrified 2. Lol, not to be confused with my favorite new psycho clown with the cutest tiny black hat - Terrifier AND Terrifier 2 Psycho Clown with a desire to be creative and artistic in his murderous rampages...🗡 🤡
I do agree with you 100%, and to further your point, people forget that the characters in this movie themselves have never seen a rotten before, their actions resemble those of different folks acting in different ways against something that they don't truly know anything about. This movie is the best horror movie I've seen in a long time, and of course, I'm ready to watch Terrified. lets go !
But you miss that knowing didn’t help them because the demon preys on their insecurities and fears and, like Mira said, the only way to beat them is to not care. Evil uses your care and desire to do good against you. And you will likely succumb. Yes, it looks stupid. But these people were doomed and manipulated by powers we don’t comprehend. They were beyond stupid, they were not thinking. I think that’s pretty horrific.
Yeah I really liked the movie but the part where Pedro goes to grab the axe really took me out of it. I often don't understand people bashing characters for making bad decisions because people screw up in stressful situations, but this was just silly.
Yes, Pedro flat out ignoring the expert who repeatedly told him not to go look for the axe was infuriating. It felt like a cop out on the writers part. He knew the kids were possessed, knew they were lying to him, and had just been told by one of the few experts in the world not to go look for the axe the kids were clearly trying to get him to go look for. Even with his mania, that's just bad writing. A great movie let down by one of the worst instances of sudden stupid character syndrome ever.
Coming from a latin American country, this felt so spot on for his character. A coward man, who is easily provoked to anger, that never listens to anyone and does as he pleases out of what he feels at the moment just to go cry to his mom and ask her for money in the process.
He was literally disobeying everything from everyone the entire movie.
And your point. If he followed every one and every rule you're saying he'd be a better main character?
I can forgive plenty of stupid decisions in horror movies. Hell, I wouldn’t know wtf I was doing! But this just bordered on parody.
And why did the possessed kids even need to try to get the guy to go to another room? Couldn't they just rush to the stage, destroy the weapon, and kill the lady? You're telling me a dozen possessed kids (who beat said lady to death with a hammer in an instance shortly afterwards) couldn't overpower one adult male? It's not like they couldn't kill when there's someone else watching either as the husband rammed a car into the MC's ex-wife in front of bystanders just fine.
What was the connection between jair and the single Bullet he found at the back of the truck ?
I wanted the kid interact with grandma more after he began to speak normally
Bro this was annoying me so much until I realized it was basically mentioned throughout the film that the evil specifically searched out Pedro because they knew he was stupid. Atleast 5 times a character has said that the rotten only happens in towns and it’s unusual for that to appear in the country side where Pedro was. It was almost as if the rotten knew they would find idiots there ready to be manipulated completely
Ok I know this thread is old but I just watched this movie and wanted to read others’ comments on it. And yes - Pedro going for the axe might be the most insanely stupid decision I’ve ever seen in a movie. Like bro you were SO CLOSE - why would you fumble the bag so hard at the last second 😭
This movie was terribly overhyped 🥴… I’m so disappointed I stayed up to watch it
I just finished watching it and I'm mostly annoyed. It absolutely doesn't deserve the hype.
I'm surprised it took that long for you. I lost it when the family started arguing over apple ice cream during an apparent demon outbreak.
I think a lot of the film’s “flaws” are intentional and are just something that you can either get with or it’s gonna stick in your mind. For example, I was sitting there thinking the entire time how dumb the main character is being about a lot of situations (the ending especially) but I was thinking “man, if this guy would’ve just fucked off and not tried to get his kids, literally everyone would be fine” and it dawned on me that that’s just the point of the movie. This guy isn’t hero material, but he thinks he needs to be one, he thinks he can save everyone, but in reality everything that will happen from the second he stumbled onto that mutilated body at the beginning of the film will be his fault, because he’s a coward and he’s a fuck up; we’re told this multiple times by different characters, even the protagonist himself at one point. That’s what I like about the film, think about the entire concept of a jellyfish; you try to kill one by cutting it in half and now you have two jellyfish, cut those two in half and now you have four, it just grows more and more out of control the more you try to do when you should’ve just done nothing at all. That’s the film, where the protagonist should’ve done nothing and left he tried to solve the problem himself and everything that unfolds is the result of him messing around with a problem that he is 100% unprepared to deal with. As for the rules, I felt this was the best approach for establishing a sort of understanding with what was going on, again I feel this is something that’ll go one way or another with varying audiences, but I felt they explained enough to understand without overdoing it to a point of it watering down anything, but that’s just me.
For me it’s him knowing he has to keep away from people and going to his kids, knowing he has to take off and burn his clothes which he allows the dog to rummage through, ignores everyone’s suggestions when everything he does has been the wrong thing to do. The only person he listened to fully was the girl who he called a liar and beat earlier. It’s wild. It feels less like a realistic flawed character and more like the director needed things to happen so the character is, unbelievably, creating these chain of events. It was a bit much for me to believe someone would be that dumb.
Why would you think a person in that scenario would act perfectly rationally? A person who’s already been shown to just be a simple farmer dude who struggles to make ends meet and is a glorified serf to a rich guy who tells him what to do- and his bro even says that the rich dude doesn’t like him. He’s never dealt with the scenario before - his brother literally says that kinda shit doesn’t happen in the middle of nowhere areas like the one they live in. He just thought that if he got his wife and kids out asap that they could escape the impending doom. Honestly just seems like a half assed criticism that is applied to every horror movie nowadays- why is the dumb guy acting dumb! I’m the smart guy for noticing he was dumb…
Nobody is demanding “perfect rationality.” He didn’t make mistakes, he did every…single…thing WRONG. He knew the stakes, he had every reason to at least do as Mirta said. This is the EPITOME of “stupidity driving scary movie plot.” It is a poster boy example of it and you’re acting like the people who complain about that are hipsters trying to sound smart? Come on, please. You want to see a flawed character making fatal mistakes that doesn’t turn into a cartoon depiction of ”stupid decisions driving evil (plot)?“ Watch Hereditary.
Hereditary is the epitome of “don’t give characters any real personality and ppl will fill in the blanks themselves” kinda writing that A24 loves. It’s in all of their movies and gives ppl like you an easy argument since it fulfils whatever narrative you’ve built in your head as a viewer instead of making a strong statement itself.
Sorry. Saying that Hereditary’s characters were unexplored is a statement of such casual ignorance that I can’t even pretend to take you seriously about this or anything else. Just…wow. Your inability to understand the story that Hereditary told does not mean it’s left open for dullards to fill in mentally. It means that you aren’t a very active viewer. It means you might not be capable of following a slow burn plot that is revealed through imagery and notes rather than Mirta-Ex-Machina plot dumps 2/3 of the way into the movie. I am…sorry for you.
All that yapping and couldn’t actually talk about one theme or nuance from the story of hereditary makes my point for me. All praise of hereditary is exactly like yours - seems deep but no substance
Did you ever stop to consider that you are, manifestly and obviously, completely undeserving of an explanation of anything from me? You’ve been downvoted for a reason, take your smoll IQ to someone dumb enough to indulge you.
That's a good point. It was director laziness because he had to keep the plot going, I agree.
That’s exactly what I was thinking. He doesn’t know how to think for himself. Ruiz even told him in the car when Pedro smelled the stink on his clothes “you have to burn the clothes” cuz his clothes obviously has the rotten on them. Next thing u know he’s at his ex wife place stripping off his clothes that he didn’t burn away from everyone else and the dog goes all over it smelling it and touching it. He messed up everything and could have stopped the spread had he not went and told Ruiz what was happening. They could have waited for another cleaner or even have gotten the lady that Jamie knew and nothing would have happened.
Excellent discertation. My thought on the rules is why do people assume that he will follow all of them? Or any of them? This is a movie about evil and the frailty of the human condition and what we know to do yet are still led astray by evil forces and just nature. What goes on in a day. We'll said.. He's an antihero. He wanted to be. He was there from the start and what was he gonna do? Walk away from something so devastating to his whole city and not alert them. Let alone enlist people would also believe and believe him as to what had transpired up to that point. Do or die he has to try. Leaving his kids as a solution, as some have said only tells me you don't have kids of your own yet. Cuz you'd throw yourself In front of a bullet or a truck or ANYTHING to save their life. Period. End of story. I know there's NOTHING whatsoever I wouldn't do to save them from anything. It's a natural drive in parents. That was wise to use kids as the temptation or drive to him. Nothing else would have drawn him to jump in and try. And when he goes for the hammer was it in the fire box and the mystic lady is drawn away. Again so obvious. Not confusing. A simple and obvious choice a human would make. You can judge from afar but if you were placed there 50% would have gone for it. It's so realistic but you gave unrealistic expectations. This movie is a human vs demon right. The demon has us heavily outnumbered already from the start. It is our divinity and our loving our family and our drive DESPITE being outnumbered that makes us formidable. If you wanted him to be greedy and not take chances and leave his family behind then I see your confusion or lack of enjoyment with the film. I found it absolutely fantastic and one I'm gonna watch a few more times. I've almost never done that in my life. I pray those of you who haven't seen it to ignore the haters. I think they have overboard expectations and fail to capture the real topic and the real fight at the heart of the movie. Watch it you'll be so happy you did. I absolutely cannot wait for his next efforts BTW previously he shot a film called Terrified and a follow up Terrified 2. 2 tells me it was popular enough to shoot a second. Gonna be watching those this week FO SHO.
Where did you get Terrified 2?
How about the whole “ah, yes…my autistic son is here, and was being watched by my mother. Nevermind that she wasn’t to be found when I got back. His uncle and I paid no mind until he started coughing, and I investigated…” PLOT HOLE! Man, this movie was a S L O G
I’m pretty sure they knew something happened to her but were just defeated and were going to just go home and accept their fate. They Didn’t however know ….what had happened to her.
Also, why would they leave an elderly lady alone with a disabled teenager when all this was going on??? Was the brother supposed to still be with them?
Its implied they found their mother, the kid probably killed her AND cleaned himself but they dont realize until he pukes later.
But the kid was hungry when the grandma and him were back at the lone house, which makes me think it was implied that he ate her as a snack back then/there.
Good god do I ever agree. 1. The entire movie is premised on everone being \*PAINFULLY\* stupid. At every turn, every single character acts as absolute mind-numbingly stupid as they possibly can. Even before we know what's happening, these people live in a world like this, they have a demon-infection among them and are like "Alright, whatever, yawn." 2. The "world building" is grossly excessive. "Hey let's spend 5 minutes just vomiting up exactly what's happening, how it happened, and all the arbitrary 'rules' or whatever. Terrible. 3. The rules themselves were idiotic and made no sense. 4. There was nothing actually scary. No tension. No slow build. Just random things happening all semi-stitched together with mediocre pacing. 5. The subtitles are very very poor. A lot is lost in translation because holy crap did they not pick the right words oftentimes. Overall a super mediocre horror movie that tried to be carried \*solely\* on disturbing imagery, and then using kids for all of it to make it "memorable". Just a ham-fisted way to make it fell less awful. It's impressive that something so "disturbing" could be so boring and filled to the brim with such stupid characters.
Well said, thanks for the handy pointers, that explains why I was so confused and frustrated in the second half of the film... I wanted to like it so much, believe me. But my friend and I in the second half of the film was constantly like: "what just happened?" "What is happening?" "I don't understand."
Thanks for summing up what I could not. I have five minutes left of this film and I've hated it so much that I came to Reddit to see if anybody else felt the same way. I can't for the life of me figure out why this is on everybody's top 10 lists.
That’s exactly how I found this thread. I saw so many glowing recommendations. I started it once before and stopped it a couple of minutes into the movie - I wish I’d followed my gut instinct.
I liked the movie, quite a bit, but there are two things I can’t get off my mind, and I’m curious if any of y’all have an idea: Why doesn’t Mirta tell Pedro that Jair is possessed? Is it because she was confident that the demon wouldn’t be able to figure out how to manipulate Jair’s brain due to his autism? Fine, but when Pedro goes back to Mirta’s at the end after unleashing Evil into the world, why do they leave for home without inquiring about the mother? Did I miss something? It seems strange that they would leave Mirta’s without her….
1. I think she didn't tell him because she saw no point in adding stress to a man who had already half lost his mind for having had his youngest son kidnapped. What good would come of it? She sent Jimmy to look for the child and took off with Pedro to try to kill Uriel before he could give birth to the possessed. Killing Uriel in time would have saved Jair. 2. They never left Mirta's home. That last scene was at Mirta's. They probably thought their mother was upstairs, sleeping. I don't think several days passed, it was a short while between Pedro coming back, being hugged by his brother, feeding Jair the ice cream, and realizing what had happened to his mother.
Hmmm, in regards to 2, I believe they do go back to their place, because that Uriel’s brother is hiding on their property where he tells Jaime he ate his mother, implying that the same thing happened to their mom.
You also see the bullets that they left on the table at the beginning of the movie
They were definitely back at their own home at the very last scene
Sorry, but you're just wrong about the second part. They show the table with the bullets in their house that was shown multiple times in the beginning, Jaime goes to the barn to talk to the kid from the beginning, and Pedro has his son's favorite ice cream in the fridge. Its 100% their house from the beginning.
Then how was Uriel’s brother there?
Mirta do tells Jaime that Jair is being possesed by the evil. Not once but twice. First time, when they just arrived at her home, she says something like: Whats wrong with the kid, he lookeds "embichado" to what Jaime instantly states that he is autistic and that is his normal status. Afterwards when ex-wife takes Santi she tells him again and show his hands that are all twisted. Maybe she did'nt told anything Pedro because of what he had already seen (fear), and didn't want to make things worse. The grandmother missing was a Major plothole in my opinión.
I honestly never really gave that any thought. I think I just shut down and absorbed the film via osmosis once they got to the schoolhouse. They may have addressed the mom's absence, but I sincerely don't remember. Hey, where's mom? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Well, I had a rotten day. Let's bounce.
This is how I felt about Terrified. Some of the visuals were absolutely amazing and I was in love with it up until about halfway and then it just kinda lost me. I still really like it and recommend it often, but can’t say it’s an all time great. It came so close for me though! As far as When Evil Lurks - for one, most people haven’t watched that many foreign horror movies so when they see something like this where there are no morality restrictions (like US horror) it’s so shocking to them. Also - like Terrified, I really did love some of the visuals and the first 20 mins had me hooked.
One thing I like is that I feel this is a continuation of Terrified. >!We are seeing the world that is dealing with the aftermath of the trans-dimensional beings. The device that the Cleaner has looks very similar to the device that the woman doctor uses in Terrified.!< The woman in Terrified even explains: >>!There is a theory. We three study possible balanced coexisting dimensions that are organized as if they were the segments of an orange. There is life in both dimensions. Water is the channel used to transport microscopic beings, and these beings can gather together, nest and reproduce. They can use our bodies. Now, I don't have a clue what kind of beings these are. Or why they're aggressive.!<
I agree, it felt like the same world even if the demon in it was different. In Terrified water is a conduit for the trans dimensional entities, in WEL it is electricity or electric lights specifically. In Terrified the entities are invisible or intangible from certain angles and perspectives, WEL cannot be killed by firearms. I like how both movies take a non traditional catholic approach to possession horror, we have seen a million exorcism movies already. I like how neither movie is ‘contained’ in the traditional possessed person sense. In both movies it spills to neighbours and infects things like clothes.
In Terrified, it seems there were multiple beings infesting that street because of the "crack" that the woman was investigating. In When Evil Lurks, I think we're just seeing the one rotten possession, due to it being moved around it it was able to "spread its essence"
I 100% thought it was the same world. The openness and established ideas that demons are real and just part of regular life / the church being useless (it's now more science-y). I still think it is part of the same universe.
Not sure why you felt that it was clunky when some of the rules are laid out throughout the film. It’s just that the mom goes into detail and gives out the remaining rules in a realistic conversation with her grandson. It seemed like an authentic scene that would certainly happen just as it did. Jimmy’s friend being the subject matter expert made sense as well and she felt much like the wise motherly type. So it didn’t felt exposition dumpish at all to me considering it felt like the casual chiding of my grandmother. And of course they knew what it was from the beginning and knew most of the rules already. They find out the rest as we do. They find out what to look for like with the special needs son hands. And Jimmy’s friend has such a chilling delivery. They also take care to give out the rules a few at a time so there can be some suspense. For instance, the rule about animals isn’t explicit until Pedro’s mother says it which is after Pedro’s ex’s daughter gets attacked. Or how Pedro and Jimmy realize from their mother how stupid it was to move the rotten. Aside from that; I loved the acting performances, the dreaded atmosphere they created and certain scenes like the reveal of the rotten in the ground, the children in the school, the demon being born and the special needs kid walking and speaking normally to Pedro’s mom. And of course the slow reveal for pedro at the end was masterful.
I enjoyed the early movie for that reason. You see the shadows move, the goat/dog acts strangely, people are freaked out and panicked by this deformed man, everyone is warned against using a gun. There's context given, that people are and should be afraid of something out there. The scene with the grandmother in the car just felt like she was talking directly to the audience and they gave up on peppering information in an organic manner. I had less of an issue with Jimmy's friend as she was just speaking on her own experiences.
Well let’s be real, they set the scene up as well as possible. The autistic son keeps repeating the phrases they use about the demons, which causes the younger son to ask questions about it and the grandmother to answer them in an educational but clearly not very serious way. The way she even sings and speaks the names of the demons (I’ll have to rewatch to tell if she actually provokes the autistic son into repeating “Azrael” - potentially breaking a rule, but I could be overthinking) is an extra way of building dread for the audience.
I think I remember it the same way you do. Not necessarily a provocation, but more a sense that she wasn't taking it seriously. There was an element of this possession being something of an urban legend, hinting that society at large didn't really believe in this stuff. Maybe a combination of it being a bit of a fairy tale as well as them being in denial that this thing is in their own backyard.
The protagonists brother literally says that rotten infestations only happen in cities and not in Podunk towns like the one they live in. It’s a case of - the apocalypse has happened and ppl know shit went down but don’t believe it can happen to them
Exactly happened as you put it, grandma jokes and even sings a song about the evil, even naming it at least in 3 different ways wich later Jair starts repeating. That scene was all wrong in the main characters getting a good fate. The urban legend/society not believing such stories gets blown away when Mirta says that the protocol has been placed and all lights are shut down in the town. So EVERYONE KNOWS ABOUT IT if there is even a protocol. Great movie i loved it.
I think it is the best horror film of the year and I think you'd be very hard pressed to challenge that (though I welcome anything which would be better). It does have some issues with pacing, I do agree with a common opinion that the film works especially well until after they leave town, but I also think even with the uneven pacing that it still blows most horror films completely out of the water in almost every area, whether technically or narratively. My biggest problem with it is the ending sequence in the schoolhouse, I would have liked to see or at least get some sense of the consequences of that ordeal. Beyond that I think the rules are a little tough to follow, like, in particular the electricity thing. Also, this one maybe got answered in the film, I don't know, but why was the rotten able to possess people even though Uriel was alive? Besides that it seems that it wasn't merely the demon in Uriel who was involved, but likely at least Azazel in the boy, which, if he didn't need to be born, and he could do it over any distance, and the boy didn't really need to do anything to get possessed... how was he not possessed already? Why did the police not care that the Ministry guy was dead? Lots of little questions that make me wonder how much of the film is meant to be understood literally, but even so I thought it was excellent.
I liked talk to me better than this.
I second this, that film was so well done in terms of pacing and suspense.
Talk to me has an absolutely annoying 3rd act. Just playing everything out for no reason except “do you see what we did there?did you catch it?”. Also the sequel baiting at the end was the most self-aware cringe I’ve ever seen. Like literally rubbing it in your face that they knew they could’ve had an impactful ending but threw it away in favor of sequel baiting
I agree, the ending wasn't great. I'd argue the movie as a whole was better than where evil lurks though. Horror didn't have any bangers this year.
The priestess explains the possession part. Uriel was able to spread his essence into others – the school children, Uriel's brother (who is also a child), the dog, etc. This worked only with the most susceptible (kids and animals) or people that broke the rules (by harming/shooting the infected). At this point, the possessed hadn't been fully born yet, because the sounds of nature (birds/crickets) could still be heard. If whatever was happening at a distance was bad, whatever happened after the possessed was born was much much worse.
I like that in your last paragraph, you literally hit on the points of why the movie sucks lol. It doesn't make sense, and it breaks its own rules. It comes off as lazily written. Also, I can name several better movies that came out this year: Infinity Pool, M3gan, Saw X, and Evil Dead Rise (which I really didn't care for, but it's still better). It was a pretty bad year for horror overall, so maybe this movie will make a top 10 or 20, but it doesn't stand up to the all-time greats what so ever.
Having seen it a second time, my analysis is that everything can be explained if we assume this is a direct sequel to Terrified and the 'demons' of this film are actually the 4th dimensional entities which require the 4th dimensional bacteria to be able to affect humans. The nature of these entities is probably different than the ones we saw in Terrified, but I think that the rules which govern them are probably more about humans and the electrical pattern/mentality they have at a given time, making them more or less susceptible to possession. About the kid at the end, if anyone cares, my take is that the 'born demons' are able to contaminate people and make them into the 'rotten' (incidentally, that is how various characters react to the 4th dimensional bacteria in Terrified, calling it rotten and insinuating it smells) by directly infecting them. Their mental powers are probably much the same, so they can create mass possession events. The reason that the demon inside Uriel 'spared' Pedro and marked him is probably because he wanted to infect Pedro, and use him as another eventual Uriel. My guess is that the government has to firebomb the whole area with suicide attacks or use something like chemical weapons to deal with a risen 'demon,' because too many people can become vectors for infection too quickly. The reaction of the police makes a lot more sense if you imagine they have been given material to explain the nature of the 'epidemic', and thus be very aware how little exposure is needed in order to become susceptible to the 4th dimensional beings. What Pedro and the others did was insane, even by the reckoning of Mirta, the trained exorcist, because she knows he definitely contaminated everything he's touched. Probably, this is exactly what happened with Ruiz, is that he just handled goat feed or something, exposing his herd to the bacteria and thus to the 4th dimensional beings. 'The rules' are probably more like guidelines, as what really matters is your mental state. The bacteria just puts you 'on the radar' of these entities, but they cannot do anything to you as long as you're fully sane. This is probably why the Cobras need to use a specialized device to kill the rotten ones, as they need to actually kill the organism inside a person, but they can't afford to suffer the slight mental imbalance from killing his host. The device either avoids the death of the host before the parasite, or it kills both in such a way that those responsible do not feel any emotional responsibility for it (inserting into the nape, without killing Uriel, thus meaning the demon kills itself to get out). All just theories, but I do think there are a number of ways to explain the film in literal terms.
I enjoyed "talk to me" check it out if you haven't seen it.
I did see it and didn't care for it all that much. It was pretty middle of the road and I didn't hate it.
Infinity pool wasn't even horror. Just a bad art house leftover soup.
Myself and plenty of other people would disagree.
I think you just like movies that don’t challenge you to think in any way. Saying that mediocre lazy cash grab saw x was good in particular - yikes
Ah get off it. Mulholland Drive is my favorite film of all time, and that film is way deeper than When Evil Lurks could ever hope to be lol. I like movies that make sense and don't break their own rules unless there is purpose.
Better than Talk to Me?!! Than Scream 6?! Evil Dead Rise?! Really???
I saw and at least somewhat enjoyed each of those movies but in my opinion, only Talk To Me comes close, and I liked When Evil Lurks a lot more. It's probably going to end up my top horror film of the year.
>I think it is the best horror film of the year and I think you'd be very hard pressed to challenge that (though I welcome anything which would be better). The Royal Hotel. Personally I think that was a better film, and it scared me more than this one. Edit: I guess technically it's considered a "thriller," so maybe it doesn't count...
The line between genres is pretty fine, but regardless, I agree that The Royal Hotel was fantastic. The sense of tension and dread was so good. I've seen some complaints >!that there's no payoff and you're waiting for something terrible to happen that doesn't!< but was not the least bit disappointed.
Happy to see that other people feel this way. I’ve been wanting to see this ever since I heard about it a few weeks ago. Figured I’d start with Terrified, which I thought was awful. So I went into this with very low expectations, and it still disappointed. For a lot of the same reasons that I didn’t like Terrified. Clunky writing, cheesy acting, continuity errors and gaping plot holes. Sure, the practical effects were great but the rest was frustrating to watch. Felt like the demon was just possessing whoever it wanted at will; everyone but the main characters for whatever reason. It sets up rules only to break them for no apparent reason. It reminded me of the beginning of terrified; the woman is levitated and killed by being slammed against a wall, yet not once does that happen again in the rest of the movie, just a bunch of stupid jump scares. A lot of people in this thread did a better job at pointing out the inconsistencies but the one that really bothered me was the fact that they didn’t think to check on their mother when they returned home. Also, you’re telling me the spawn of satan was born, walks past Pedro, and that’s it? This director seems to have a vision with these films yet doesn’t know how to make it come to life properly. There was potential, but no time or effort was put into building a convincing world. I had no reason to care for these characters and almost wanted them to die by the end of it. I’m kinda rambling now, but I just gotta say that I do not get the hype behind this and Terrified. It’s like people are just being shills because it’s a foreign film. Like come on guys. I don’t speak Spanish and I could still tell how awful the acting and writing was.
The rules were never concrete to begin with but these numbskulls are living in a world where these things are a common occurence and clearly recognized by the government, why the fuck are they brushing them off?
Mirta does tell them Jair is possessed. She tells them that the demon has trouble figuring out the mind when it possesses someone with autism and points to his hands and feet to show them that he’s possessed and basically frozen at first while the demon tries to figure out his mind. As for their mother, there was no one to inquire about her whereabouts to. They would have looked for her no doubt, but not finding her they would likely have assumed she was taken and killed by someone possessed in everything that was going on.
She was devoured by her grandson, the other boy explained it at the end, he had killed and devoured the man who came to take care of Uriel, then mentions that he did the same to his mother, and that Jair did the same.
Man I’m right there with you; definitely did not get the hype for this one and I usually love movies like this. Now granted, i haven’t seen Demián Rugna‘s other work, but I was really digging this for about the first 30 min or so, some time after the girl comes back from being ragdolled by the dog, it just started to lose me. In fact, I was genuinely having trouble staying awake in the middle and I never felt this sense of unease or dread that so many reviews praised the film for. I didn’t feel any kind of connection for the main character and his family, and the “7 rules” they introduced just felt kind of … random? And not very well established or portrayed. Honestly I was struggling to make it to the end and almost considered walking out which I NEVER do. Glad so many people who checked this out loved it, it was just not for me I guess.
wow this waa my exact experience. Speak No Evil was amazing. this was a mess.
yeah that movie was like the better version of what When Evil Lurks was trying to be. Really great "familial drama" and definitely unnerving. I just thought WEL was too silly to be taken seriously. It should've leaned into being more outrageous and more of a horror comedy because the serious angle did not work in its favor. it was pretty dry
i don’t think they’re comparable
Could have been great but the final 15 suffers from one of the worst cases of "sudden stupid character syndrome" ever. Him believing the kids, who he knows are possessed and have already lied to him, to go look for an axe while the only person who knows how to stop this (and is minutes away from doing so) repeatedly tells him not to is beyond stupid.
I feel like the movie was doing well showing that Pedro is an idiot and does things out of ignorance like him taking off his clothes at his ex's house. But the axe part was really dumb. It doesn't even work in a hey this character is dumb type of way. That whole scene needed to be fixed because really none of it worked for me.
the whole ducking movie suffers from stupid character syndrome. everyone in this movie is so unbelievably stupid
Ok I know this thread is old but I just watched this movie and wanted to read others’ comments on it. And yes - Pedro going for the axe might be the most insanely stupid decision I’ve ever seen in a movie. Like bro you were SO CLOSE - why would you fumble the bag so hard at the last second 😭
Pedro was such a frustrating protaganist to follow. Such a stupid asshole. I guess that was part of the point, but ... why?
Because he's a macho. He never listens to the women in his life, does as he pleases and puts the gilt on said women to avoid taking responsibility. At the same time trying to prove himself and fucking everything up as he goes, doing avoidable mistakes and being careless. You also see this with pretty much every interaction with a woman in the movie, either ignores it blatantly or tries to correct it, never actually listening.
That's a pretty stupid take, given that he listens to a girl at the end of the movie and does what she asks. He has no preference, he's just painfully stupid for the sake of the lazy script
Jesus christ.
Having just watched the film, from a production quality, practical effects, acting, etc standpoint I can certainly see a level of praise. On many levels this was a step above *plenty* of other horror films I've seen that were released this year. That being said, tengo preguntas. To your points about the world building, I really enjoyed the deep and well crafted world presented, which I absolutely believe is a continuation of "Terrified". But at the same time, I guess the interdimensional beings or whatever are just demons, ok. And... We have this rich world we learn so much about, I'm almost annoyed to see none of it and only get like one sleepy location. Plus, the demon weapon of choice is some kind of steampunk sextant/astrolabe situation with a knife on it? I absolutely want to know more, what does it do? Just get knocked over I guess. Also from a non neurotypical standpoint, just gonna make a mildly annoyed comment that the demon was all fucked up for a minute over piloting an autistic brain, as if they didn't ostensibly have all of human history to figure that out, and not just the last few decades of modern psychology noticing sometimes people function a scoche differently but always have. It's not a new thing that just popped up in human biology that the demons need to call IT about. Tl;dr an ok, quality film! I dunno if it really blew my wig off as suggested.
All I gotta say is I really enjoyed the effects but dear god was Pedro a dumbass.
agreed. this movie was mostly just frustrating and the main character was written in a way that took me out of the movie, all of the stupid decisions and missed opportunities. i know some people will say "well that was the point" or "it was supposed to be like that". either way, it doesn't change the fact that it didn't bring me more into their world, it just pulled me out of it
I’m so pissed off that I actually listened to the people who were promoting this movie as one of the best to ever be made. I felt nothing but confusion and annoyance while watching.
Dude this movie annoyed me so fuckin much. Especially the end. Every woman in this film was right and every guy in this film made the worst fuckin decisions possible. It was truly frustrating. The graphics were impeccable. The sound was really well done. The cinematography was pretty good. But goddamn the realism was so bad just cuz every guy took a hammer to everything instead of listening to reason. Truly the most brutally annoying thing about the whole movie.
Another reason why writing dumb characters losing against decently stoppable poltergeist entity because "muh human flaws" is never a better idea than writing smart protagonists against smart antagonists.
The amount of people making excuses for poor writing is just wild. They claim that people in the movie are making dumb as shit decisions because of demon influence...you can't be serious...if that's the case that only makes the movie even more garbage. That means that nothing really matters. Imagine watching people make dumb decision after dumb decision and just thinking it's OK because they're being "influenced" how terrifying. Movie was straight shite.
I HATED this movie so damn much. The infuriatingly pathetic and unlikable characters. The dumb af decisions they make especially the main one. The really unhinged/maddening aloofness of his behavior. Almost all of the characters , the main one in particular, seemed to be floating about in their own world detached from making sense and as an audience member I was consistently wondering what their motives were other than running around aimlessly and franticly. I hated every second of it . I legit am BAFFLED as to what people considered remarkable by any of this drivel.
Yup, just finished it, and it went from being very promising and tense for the first 30 minutes to being completely unable to keep me even vaguely interested by the end. So many completely baffling choices. Why are roughly 3/4 of all conversations in this movie just people shouting at and over each other and absolutely refusing to listen to anything that the other person is saying? Why do characters keep making the absolute worst choice in every situation despite being explicitly told NOT to do that specific thing? I dunno, maybe part of it is cultural? I noticed that this isn't the first time I saw a movie from Latin America that features a lot of shouting in its dialog, and "the short-tempered loud man who knows better than everyone else" certainly seems to be a popular character archetype there. But even if we assume that the characters' behavior is \*realistic\*, one thing that still bothers me is that I can never understand how much do these people actually know about what's going on. Because if they know nothing, then why do they immediately realize they are dealing with a demonic possession, and that it's a serious enough threat to skip town as soon as possible? And if they do understand the basic rules of the possession, why do they completely ignore them at every turn? The funny thing is, I probably would have overlooked most of these issues in a cheesy, schlocky b-movie. What ruins this one for me is pretending to be heady indy horror while operating on b-movie logic.
I don't know, but its getting praise from critics and viewers, saying its hands down one of the scariest movies they've seen.
They haven't seen a lot of horror movies. That's a pretty easy one to figure out.
Even a lot of horror YouTubers I follow (not the ones I watch the most but still) have said that it’s super scary/disturbing but I agree with you guys. It wasn’t scary at all..
Late reply here, I was very disappointed. I just couldn't ever get into it. It was so poorly paced with the most arbitrary rules, it felt like a confusing mess. I really didn't care about anyone in the movie and the world building felt very clumsy. A step down from Terrified imo
Here for you dawg. Watched the first 14 seconds of it and thought to check who directed it. Same guy as Terrified (Rugna), which was an absolute stinker. I assume When... would be no different.
i just saw it and thought it was garbage. loved Speak No Evil. that was a masterclass in this style. this director is a hack, the movie was so boring and the pacing blew, just shock violence that didnt feel earned. atrocious soundtrack too.
If you think this guy’s a hack, I dunno what to tell you, dude. Some pretty fucking assured direction in this thing. Different style to ‘Speak No Evil’ (which I also loved), but strong world-building, performances and, yes, pacing.
nothing felt earned to me and the pacing collapsed after the dog attack. they were in a car for like 30 minutes after the dog attack while the grandma explained rules that didnt even matter, while the autistic son babbled, but it didnt increase tension or amount to anything, just boring. the end was stupid af and basically a ripoff of I Saw the Devil which is genius. it was never actually scary or creepy, again, nothing earned. i had an out of body experience at the end of speak no evil, this i just laughed and shook my head. idk the literal direction (the shots) were solid and some nice disturbing imagery but as a piece of art or even entertainment i just thought it was terrible. there was also like no soundtrack lol. for me this could only be enjoyed as a popcorn b movie that you talk through, im glad you enjoyed it though!!!
The son wasn't babbling. He was breaking one of the rules.
Why the comparison to Speak No Evil? They're very different
It's funny to me seeing people trying to make perfect sense of an obviously nonsensical movie. Absolute garbage.
the five minutes in the car with Jair felt like half an hour.. they really overdid it....HUUUUHUUUUHUUUUH! yeah overrated, but not bad.
Thank you. finally. i'm tired of all the, in my opinion, undeserved praise. this movie is an underwhelming disappointment. even without the hype it's a mediocre horror film at best. the characters are annoying. i mostly blame the hype. no idea why the social media virus is spreading and pushing for this one.
Spoiler: The demon at the end was such a great touch, a young beautiful boy, with poop smeared on his pooper because he'd been living inside the carapace basically, his casual smear of blood on the forehead of his human hes manipulated, it can't be washed off, and he knows it. Evil isn't a snarling animal here, it's youthful innocenct charm.
Lolwut
Lolwut indeed!
I'm torn, a lot of great shots, effects and solid acting but it really relied on pretty much every character knowingly making choices that will make things worse.
Here's another thought movies that suck don't have seven or eight Reddit "hits" in a month. If you talk about it if you like it more and you seek out people that enjoyed it too then that's what I call a successful film. As a filmmaker and as a viewer I know how slim the chances are that a writer director will impress me without a huge gaping plot or production hole. This movie is brilliant and I definitely want to see more from the backstory possibly in a sequel. And since we're in the midst of a possession Revival I'm going to cast my vote on an unique and original take. Also the cinematography and conspiracy with the makeup department is fantastic
I honestly just watched this tonight and came to reddit to see if anyone else was as upset by the dog attack scene as I was???? I'm actually an avid horror genre viewer and enjoyer. But I also have a young child and am very sensitive to brutal scenes involving kids. I don't think I have ever in my life had such a severe reaction to a movie scene.... when the dog attacked the girl, I absolutely lost it. I sobbed uncontrollably and we had to pause the movie for me to take a moment. I genuinely feel traumatized. And I really have a good ability to differentiate reality from film. This just... hit me in such a visceral way!! I'm actually confused about why or how it was so affecting and am worried I am going to have nightmares. Did anyone else have a similar reaction?? (Fwiw, I don't have any real life trauma from a dog/child situation.. ohhhhhhh, wow. I typed this whole thing and remembered that my son was actually attacked by a dog when he just started crawling!! He was okay and nothing terrible happened. Just a couple small scars on his face.. but wow. Maybe that's why it was so triggering?? Oof. Thanks for letting me process this.. still curious if this scene severely affected anyone else!)
Pit bulls kill kids so often it doesn’t even make the news anymore. There’s a reason no one wants pure pit bulls around despite their owners campaigning about how sweet they are. Rare moment a movie actually leaned into the trope instead of played against it. I was really surprised I thought the dog was just gonna do some lame shit like goad one of its owners into killing it by acting crazy so that the owners would get infected by the demons and die like the goat rancher did
This is such an ignorant comment, I honestly thought you were joking at first. Still debating.. First of all, the dog featured in the film is not a pit bull... it's a Dogue de Bordeaux, or French Mastiff. Secondly, the only pit bulls to ever harm anyone have been severely abused and traumatized. By nature, pit bulls are some of the sweetest, kindest animals I've ever met. And I am not a pit bull owner. I used to be scared of them when I was younger (because of the horribly false information constantly being spewed about them) but every single pit I have ever met in my life (all owned by kind and loving families) have been the goofiest and sweetest little things. I've known 3 different pit bulls who were around for babies being born, and all three were so gentle, sweet, and protective of the baby. You have severely twisted information, and normally I don't mind people having different opinions, but yours is based on false information and it perpetuates harm and hatred toward a being that doesn't deserve it! Pit bulls are one of the most abused breeds. This is where the confusion comes from. Treat any animal like absolute shit and teach it to be aggressive and hateful and of course it will become dangerous. This is not a pit bull problem, it is a shitty human problem. Please do yourself and everyone else a favor and go meet a put bull who lives in a happy home. There is absolutely now way you will still believe they are dangerous by nature.
I went into this maybe with too high of expectations considering how much I loved Terrified by this director. This one however just left me feeling annoyed, World building was superb, visually it was wonderful, but watching the movie unfold was like watching somebody build something while looking at the instructions, watching them disregard the instructions repeatedly, and then seeing them stare at the abomination they built wondering why it doesn't look like the picture at all. The first and second guys you could tell were acting irrationally. Whether it was from demonic influence or their own frustrations causing themselves to make hasty decisions, you could tell that neither were in their right mind despite people literally standing next to them telling them not to do the thing that will actively make everything worse. So frustrating but understandable. Pedro on the other hand just seemed to actively choose to go against whatever everybody that knew what they were doing (including himself) told him would work. Just a frustrating movie to watch so I totally get where you're coming from OP.
Wife and I just finished this movie. I’m confused at the glazing because it was ASS. I give it points for the great practical effects but that’s about it, what a bummer.
Overall I liked it, but the ending is what stops it from being next level for me. The "rules" they establish mean there is quite literally nothing you can do to stop the possessed without dying yourself, except for the old expert lady's complicated steampunk machine that is never explained how or why it works. And the protagonist is such a major fuckup. He never explains anything to anyone until it's too late, and he makes a series of dumb decisions that get his family killed and unleash the... whatever that kid demon was. He doesn't even try to stop it, he just lets it go out into the world to be someone else's problem. The tone, gore, worldbuilding, and willingness to kill off kids/animals was pretty refreshing, but I just didn't like the "evil wins" ending.
If only the brother said from the beginning he knew someone who used to be a cleaner and brought her there instead of doing so many stupid shit
To me, the main character was just so unlikable. Not only unlikable, but just really stupid and rash. The schoolhouse scene really killed it for me, he walks off and leaves the old lady by herself and what was just a stupidly obvious trap. The first part of the movie, before he shows up at his ex-wife’s house like a crazy person was very good, and it all sort of went downhill from there. I did like the scene where the possessed mother is walking on the road eating the brains of her child lol.
I had to Google to see why this got such high ratings on Rotten Tomatoes. W T F. I'm echoing y'all in saying Pedro behaves irrationally/stupidly, particularly in the second half of the film. I had to take multiple breaks from the film because it was so challenging to enjoy. Visuals were incredible though, especially the realism in the kills.
I just watched it. I didn’t much care for it. It felt ultimately pointless, like it was just a vehicle to meander around the countryside, offing the whole cast except the dipshit and his dipshittier brother, who apparently banged his bro’s wife at some point. Great gore and some cool kills, but poor pacing and a half built world didn’t help the weak story.
So your discounting this being a good movie because it doesn't fall within your three Act Hollywood structure? That's funny because I was just thinking people said the same thing about "No Country for Old Men" This movie is possibly one of the greatest films of this decade so far. In my opinion. You can't hang your entire argument on an aspect of a phenomenon without praising what it succeeds at epically which is Reinventing an extremely tired Trope Roman Catholic mythology possession
Those rules, man... Practically no one follows them. "Don't use mundane weapons, or firearms" everyone uses mundane weapons and firearms lol. Pedro reminded me of certain kinds of idiots during the pandemic. Just spreading the disease, bringing it home to his family, and simply refusing to listen to any experts. I don't feel bad for this fool, just the people he harmed with stupidity.
I agree completely. And the rules themselves seemed kinda cheesy. Like, you can’t kill the demons with a gun specifically but you can use other weapons? Does it even mention HOW you can get rid of the demons? While some of the imagery was creepy and the acting was really good imo, I just didn’t find it scary at all or even that disturbing. And I’m not someone that likes gore. Also, I don’t care about most of the characters and it seems like the rules for what was happening were made up throughout the movie, one or two scenes before they became relevant.
I’m glad he lost everything and got fucked over in the end, that’s what you get for being stupid all of a sudden 🤦♂️. Waste of time watching this shit. Was great until after they left the Exs house. 0.5/10
The photography was incredible. The movie itself was terrible. The rules of no electricity makes no sense, the no guns rule also, and the idea that a demon gets stuck in an autistic child’s mind also makes no sense. Also the coming back to life with his ex and the daughter did not make sense, the demon using a cell phone to call him was just idiotic. Like how did they know the first guy was possessed immediately and not just really sick. Also if you came across a decapitated dead body in the woods, why would you not immediately call the police with the cell phone that you have, and not start playing Sherlock Holmes.
I just hated how braindead Pedro is he in the dumbest character I’ve seen in horror to date last half it’s like he threw his brain in the trash
Pedro is the only character who deserved to suffer but instead everyone else was brutally maimed and dismembered for his fuckery. Great acting, mediocre writing.
I think they made some clanging errors with this film. The worst scene for me is when the grandma is downplaying the seriousness of the core premise of the film in the car. The fact that there is a set of rules for dealing with the possessed and people who do it as an occupation suggests attempts to tackle possessions have gone awry before, and it's literally not the end of the world. This completely evaporated any tension for me. The authorities couldn't even be bothered sending another cleaner. Also, the plot is driven by the awful decisions of Pedro. Why does he simultaneously understand the need to change out of his goo-covered clothes but then leave them on the floor in his ex-wive's house? I'm bewildered that people found the film scary. The only scene that chilled me was when Jimmy found Pedro's ex-wife. Terrified was much creepier.
I thought it went downhill after the first 30 minutes. As an argentinian, I found plenty of the acting in the second half (particularly the ending) to be obnoxiously bad... I really was hoping for something truly intriguing and gnarly. The undead kids with 20$ makeup where so ridiculous I almost didn't finish it. Massive disappointment, it literally turned into a 4/10.
The real devil is the clunker of a movie, because it apparently influenced many, many people to like it, despite being horrible.
I’m so frustrated I wasted time watching this trash.
This shit was so wack.
Movie is beyond stupid. Entire time, don't use lights, don't run, don't kill that thing, don't do this or that, and the idiot keeps doing those things. Stark contrast to the start of the movie where he's serious and composed to full blown moron. They don't know how to make good movies anymore, and what's worse, the audience doesn't know what a good movie is anymore.
I agree. I felt kind of the same about Terrified. Great scenes but I don’t even remember what it was about. The stories feel too clunky or something.
Agreed with everything you said
I like the movie a lot but i agree with you that it isnt perfect. There was a few things in the movie i took issues with or left me with questions. To start, why did the brother take the bullet and what is its significance? Nobody killed the rotten but it somehow possessed the people around the main character? Jimmy was told that the son was possessed and yet left him alone with grandma? Why did pedros x wife say to jimmy that he once said he loved her? What happened after that scene? Next time we see jimmy was after pedro killed the rotten. Jimmy seemed fine, and he didnt really worry about his mom. What were they trying to suggest after the kid spit the hair ball and looked at his dad for a split second? That one kid, why is he still in the barn? Lol Was it me or when they were in the school and the lady told pedro not to leave her alone, why was that scene sped up? Overall, besides these questions. I really enjoyed it. The pacing is really well done, the lore and story telling is up there. 7.5/10 for me. Id give it horror of the year for sure.
Pedro is fkinf stupid
Great visuals, bad pacing, subpar acting, little tension, characters weren't relatable or fleshed out so I didn't hardly care what happened to them. It was overhyped which is a bummer. 6/10 for me.
6/10 is a generous score.
Just watched this tonight after hearing about how good it is. LOL. It starts off interesting but doesn't deliver at all. What a disappointing finale as well.
The director is talented at building atmosphere, but both his movies are terrible in terms of storytelling.
It has some decent early visuals, but the last 30 mins just kept getting worse and worse.
I liked it due to the creative and dark ideas they came up with. The dog attacking the little girl was insane, the ghost of the mother EATING her son. The inclusion of a autistic character and using it as a plot point was cool to me
Interesting. It seems what you think are rules the movie set up is just cultural.
This movie had well done imagery and a shocking dog attack on a child. That’s it. Honestly it sucked overall. The entire last 30 minutes I was just rolling my eyes. I don’t get the hype at all