After scaring audiences at Sitges with Aterrados in 2018, Argentinian director Demian Rugna returned to the festival with something even more unsettling. When Evil Stalks, featured in the Official Fantasy Competition, lands with a ferocity that lingers long after the lights come up. Veteran Sitges watchers may feel they’ve seen it all, only to be drawn into an unexpected bite that lingers in the memory.
Rugna makes it clear that his aim is not to churn out crowd-pleasing horror. He explains that his projects aren’t designed to be commercial products. When he writes a screenplay, anything can happen, and the danger can touch any character. This approach invites audiences to brace themselves for surprises they aren’t prepared for, moments that redefine what they expect from fear on screen.
Embichados
Early in When Evil Stalks, the Pedro brothers and their ally Jimmy uncover a disembodied figure split in half in an open field. If that image isn’t enough to unsettle, the film quickly escalates as it explores the grotesque forms assumed by those under demonic influence, and what happens when fear is confronted with ordinary, conventional methods.
Rugna, a devotee of cinema’s horror lineage, draws strong inspiration from brutality and visceral impact. The film nods to the era of Lucio Fulci while also echoing modern influences like Na Hong-jin’s The Strangers, shaping a rural narrative and an intricate structure that rewards attentive viewing.
The setting leans into a stark rural landscape, described by the characters as the backside of nowhere. This choice marks a shift from Rugna’s earlier work, which leaned toward urban nightmares. He explains that after Aterrados and its remake, he yearned to move away from a single-city frame. He wanted a road movie of sorts, a journey that mirrors the film’s own descent into darkness.
James Cameron already saw this
Bad Stalks began to take shape at Sitges as a project with international potential. The festival’s FanPitch program helped attract co-producers, and winning a prize in that arena opened doors to further development. The project soon found a wide audience in the United States when the streaming service Shudder became the main investor, releasing the film in U.S. theaters to broad acclaim for a small Spanish-language title. For Rugna, the experience marks a milestone: a debut that travels from Argentina to North American screens with notable success.
Rugna recalls that James Cameron personally attended a preview in Santa Monica, California, and even paid for his ticket. The director stayed through the Q&A session, an indication of the engagement and curiosity sparked by the film. It was a moment Rugna hoped for, and one that underscored the film’s capacity to provoke thoughtful discussion about horror’s possibilities and boundaries. (Citation: Sitges Festival archive)