Original subtitles

[Static crackles]

♪

[Thunder crashes]

[Static crackles]

-Welcome back to Joe Bob's Night Marathon,

and it's time to get serious, and it's time to get nasty.

And it's time to dive into some dark and dirty demon possession.

Back when I first started doing this,

people would interview me and they would say,

"Do you ever think of writing

or directing a horror movie of your own?"

And I would always solemnly tell them

that I had a passion project

that I would make one of these days,

and the title was "Please Don't Eat Grandma's Toes."

And little did I know that many years later,

a brilliant filmmaker from Argentina would take that theme

and run with it by making the greatest family oriented,

demonic possession,

vomit inducing thriller, kind of a Lifetime family drama

if the family members all had permanent brain damage.

But it happened. It's here.

But first, Darcy. -Yes.

-Why is everybody hanging out in the kitchen?

We are about to watch "When Evil Lurks."

-Yeah. Um, they started doing drinking games,

and, you know, Felissa had a head start.

Yuki kept getting penalized.

-Oh, my God, don't tell me you got Yuki drunk, not Yuki.

-I would say nobody's drunk yet.

Everybody's happy.

-Because you're playing funky duck or?

-Fuzzy Duck. -Fuzzy duck! Fuzzy duck!

Fuzzy duck! -Close the door, please.

Later. We'll hear about that later.

-You've never played Fuzzy Duck?

-No. -Oh, my God.

Okay, you sit in a circle,

and the first person either says fuzzy duck or ducky fuzz.

And if he says fuzzy duck, then the person to the left

has to either say ducky fuzzy, or does he?

-Ducky fuzzy or what? -Does he?

Like a question? -Right.

But if the first person says ducky fuzz instead of

fuzzy duck, then the next person to the right has to say --

-Darcy, I think we need to go over the rulebook

for Funky Duck right now. We've got this Argentinean work

of genius to examine.

-Fuzzy Duck. -All right. Whatever.

So we're about to watch a great movie.

Keep an eye on what's going on in there.

There are people who want to watch horror tonight.

All right? -It is not my fault.

Dave brought snacks. -Dave.

-Dave. -Dave Sheridan is here?

-Dave Sheridan's here. -How did Dave get in?

-We found him passed out on the picnic tables that are outside.

I'm not even kidding. -All right, when he starts

doing his Officer Doofy voice, take his snacks away.

-Got it.

-All right. Dave brought snacks.

Like you never brought snacks. All right.

-I mean, I have energy gummies,

if that's what you're referring to.

They're like Red Bulls, but way yummier.

Because, like, nobody wants to miss anything.

Everyone wants to stay up all night.

-Oh, yeah, Rhonda's in there too, right?

Are you guys annoying Rhonda?

-Oh, my God. She's doing just fine.

-Trust me. -I don't like the way

you said that. What do you mean?

-Oh, Rhonda is more than just fine.

-Darcy, you are responsible for that room

the rest of the night.

-Dude, that is like sending me to Disneyland.

Okay.

-But right now we're going to talk about demons.

-Rarr! -Okay, there's two kinds

of people that just love demons.

-Filmmakers and preachers.

-How did you know that?

-Oh, my God, because you were talking about it for, like,

a whole month after this movie came out.

I pay attention. -So filmmakers love demons

because of the special effects possibilities.

The demon can look like anything.

It's a chance for the art department to go wild.

And the art department in this case

is special effects master Marcos Berta of Buenos Aires.

And then preachers love demons

because it's the best material they have

when you need to scare the bejesus out of people.

If you want to learn about demons,

go to the website of a televangelist

because they know that if you can convince somebody

there's a demon nearby,

that cash register just goes ka-ching.

-I don't think there are ka-ching cash registers.

-Well, PayPal can't go ka-ching.

But you know my point.

And by the way, I'm not a fan of televangelists,

in case you haven't noticed. I'm not a fan of the nice ones.

I'm not a fan of the angry ones.

I'm especially not a fan of the smoothly sincere ones.

If you're raising money in the name of God

and you're using even one cent of that money

for anything other than feeding or clothing or housing the poor,

then fuck you, right?

-Wow, that's strong. -Okay, you know

they do, Darcy?

They try to get people to call in

on these things called prayer lines.

All right, who's going to call

something called a prayer line?

Somebody who is really, really weak.

They're fucked up in one way or another.

They just lost the closest person in their life.

They just got diagnosed with a terrible disease.

They just lost their business.

They just lost their home.

They just got sentenced to prison,

and the person on the prayer line prays with them

and also puts all their data into the computer.

So the next time they call in on the prayer line,

the new prayer line telemarketer,

because that's what they are,

the new telemarketer can know all the background,

you know, lost her husband in July of 2022,

living on Social Security in subsidized apartment,

downtown Detroit, has a cat named Mittens.

You know, they got this whole dossier so they can act

like they know you.

And then they encourage you to make a faith pledge

or a faith vow or some other crapola

that means send Pastor Ted some cash

and your life will get better.

But if you send Pastor Ted some cash and

your life does not get better, it was your fault!

Your faith was not strong enough.

But hang in there. Make your faith stronger.

Make another faith vow.

Then this stuff can go on for years.

Widows and orphans, people! Widows and galdang orphans!

All right. -Galdang.

-Sorry about the digression,

but the main thing televangelists used to scare

the crap out of people is demons.

It might be demons on the outside,

but even worse, you can have demons inside you.

And then you got to do something to cast them out.

Something involving money if you're a televangelist,

but in film, something involving vomit.

And we know this from the original

1973 demon possession classic "The Exorcist",

which is one of the favorite flicks of the director

of this film, Demian Rugna.

So anyway, the word "demon" is a Greek word,

and originally it just meant a spirit.

It could be a good spirit. It could be a bad spirit.

It's just some kind of force floating around the universe,

influencing your life. Christianity changed all that.

A demon became a fallen angel,

cursed by God to wander the earth.

Or if we go to the preachers and ask them what a demon is,

they are servants of the serpent,

children of the devil, agents of Satan.

But they're not entirely clear on the subject

of what does that demon want?

Well, he wants your soul. Okay, what does that mean?

What's he going to do with your soul?

In "The Exorcist", he wants Regan to cuss a lot

and spin around like a supernatural creature.

But for what reason?

Supposedly, the demon wants her body.

Demons need bodies. They're craving bodies.

But then what are they going to do with that body?

I mean, ultimately, there's no answer to the question,

what do demons want, other than to fuck with us.

And this is why preachers and filmmakers love demons.

So Demian Rugna, the writer director,

starts out with the Christian premise that demons need a body

to inhabit, but then he throws out Christianity.

He says churches are dead.

There are no churches in this universe.

There's no religion.

We're in a world where there are just cleaners

that are hired by the government to get rid of demons,

or what they call in the movie "rottens."

Now, the Spanish words used for "rotten" are "embichado",

which is more like infested, and sometimes "incarnato",

which is more like ingrown,

meaning something that has grown into your body

that should be expelled from your body.

So demon possession is like a disease,

and if you try to get rid of it

without knowing what you're doing,

you just spread it to the whole population.

So anyway, we'll get into all this later,

but I would just like to thank Sam Zimmerman

for Shudder getting involved with this movie,

because we don't talk about Sam enough,

but Sam is the curator and the acquisitions guy for Shudder.

And Shudder is one of the financiers of this movie.

We invested in it,

and we don't we don't often show Shudder originals on this show

because we assume that you've already seen them.

Um, but anyway, that's because Demian Rugna needed more money

than he usually has to make a movie.

He's a low budget guy, so -- And he needed the money

so he could do the visual effects involved in this flick.

And they are amazing visual effects.

And Sam advocated for the movie.

Shutter sent some coin down to Argentina, and it got made.

The movie won several best of 2023 horror awards,

but we kind of knew that would happen

because Demian Rugna's previous movie, "Terrified",

has always been a favorite on Shudder

and won several best of 2018 horror awards.

All right, since I know a lot of you have not seen this movie,

I'm not going to say a lot about it

because it's going to grab you by the throat and not let go,

and so I don't want you to know what is coming,

but there are two, or really there's really three sequences

that could qualify for the all time shock scare list.

Tell me if you agree with me, Darcy.

There's the reveal of the rotten.

-Yeah, agreed. -There's the goat scene.

-Agreed. Yes. -And there's the dog scene.

-Yes, agreed.

-And you're an animal lover, -I am.

-Do you have any warnings for animal lovers?

-Not really. Because the animals win.

-Okay. True.

I mean, I don't know if I would use the word "win."

Okay, let's go with the win.

Um, are you ready for this descent into hell?

-I am so ready.

-What we have here is the sensitive story

of brothers Pedro and Jimmy,

who head into the woods because they hear gunshots

and they stumble on a corpse cut in half

at the waist with a note on it.

Turns out the family at the address had sent for the guy

who ended up dismembered

because their oldest son has been possessed by a demon

and is rotting from the inside out.

Now, normally when this kind of thing happens,

you call a cleaner to take care of it.

Only the cleaner himself got dismembered

and the rotting son is really stinking up the place.

So Pedro, Jimmy and another neighbor

decide they'll take care of it

by hoisting the rotten into a pickup

and hauling him to the next county.

Except they mess it up big time,

and pretty soon, the evil is spreading.

When Pedro goes to try and save his kids,

the flick achieves the highest state of any horror movie,

which is anyone can die at any moment.

Sure, we've seen it before,

but have we seen it with seven rules

that need to be followed and memorized,

to keep the demons from controlling your brain

and telling you to take an axe to your forehead?

I think not.

Let's take a look at those drive in totals.

We have 13 dead bodies, two bewtocks,

27 tumorous growths,

one dead goat, one dead dog, 15 demonic children,

one slime glopola monster, multiple demonic possessions,

excellent rotting body effects,

one lame police force, inept rotting body transport,

one possessed goat showdown, axe to the cranium twice

one crazed search for apple ice cream,

demonic taunting, one hardcore emotional breakdown,

multiple cannibalism, head smashing,

one demonic birth, necklace regurgitation.

Motor vehicle fu, axe fu, hammer fu.

Drive In Academy Award nominations for

Ezequiel Rodriguez as Pedro for failing

his classes in rotting possessed body disposal and parenting,

and for saying, "Churches are dead."

Demian Salomon as Pedro's brother Jimmy

for looking confused for most of the movie and for saying,

"I'm not sure what we saw."

Um, Paula Rubenstein as the grandma

who knows the seven rules to avoid possession

but forgets one of them.

Silvina Sabater as Mirta for being the only one

who understands what's happening,

and for saying, "Evil loves children

and children love evil."

And to Demian Rugna, the writer director, for doing things,

the drive in way.

Four stars. Joe Bob says check this sucker out.

[Cheering]

-When you're possessed, I have this question.

Do you think you know you're possessed?

Or is it like the demon knocks you out?

You think you're just taking a nap.

But actually you're vomiting on children

and torturing cats and stuff,

and then suddenly somebody wakes you up

and slaps you around and says, "Hey, dude,

stop vomiting on the kids, and the cat is dead."

[Laughter]

-Is that a real question?

What? -I guess not.

[Static crackles]

[Thunder crashing]

[Static crackles]

[Insects chirping]

[Gunshot]

[Gunshots]

[Speaking Spanish]

♪

Blam, blam, blam.

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

[Dog barks]

♪

[Dog barks]

♪

[Dog barks]

♪

♪

[Dog barks]

[Dogs panting]

[Flies buzzing]

♪

♪

-[Scoffs]

[Dog barks]

-Ah.

Shoo.

♪

♪

-Yeah?

-Ah.

[Dog barking]

[Rooster crowing]

♪

♪

[Ragged breathing]

♪

♪

-No.

-[Chuckles]

-[Scoffs]

♪

♪

[Car dinging]

♪

♪

-Aah!

-No, no, no!

-Aah!

[Bang]

♪

[Snorting]

[Clucking]

♪

♪

[All grunting]

[All grunting]

♪

-Ah.

♪

♪

♪

[Tires squeal]

-[Shouts]

[Car door opens, closes]

[Engine starts]

♪

[Static crackles]

-So the rotten is gone.

But something tells me that taking Uriel 400 kilometers away

doesn't really affect his abilities.

It's brilliant the way as you watch the movie,

you're learning the rules of dealing with demons

without anyone coming right out and stating them.

Obviously, this has been going on for a while

in this particular neighborhood of Argentina

and the face of Ezequiel Rodriguez,

the bearded guy, Pedro,

is that the face of a movie star or what?

What a concentrated actor.

You cannot take your eyes off of him,

even when he's just thinking or walking

or contemplating his next move.

And we kind of sense the weaknesses in him, too.

When his brother is proposing some cockamamie theories,

you know, like the puma sliced Ruiz in half,

Pedro is quick to shut him down.

But when Ruiz is obviously acting out of anger and greed

and pride and proposing an unworkable solution,

Pedro goes right along with it.

So there's some supernatural reason

that you can't just kill Uriel.

You need to do it in an exorcist type way,

even if the churches are dead.

And so driving him to the next province

wouldn't be likely to work either.

But Pedro is ready to do anything

to get this giant pus creature out of his sight

and away from his life.

One thing you will notice throughout this movie

is that the women are always right,

and the men are almost always wrong.

Maria Elena knows that somebody is coming to kill her son,

but she also knows not to let the landowner know about it

because her whole family could be evicted and infected.

When this movie premiered last fall at Fantastic Fest

in Austin, Demian Rugna was asked

about the origins of the story,

and he said that he had moved from Buenos Aires

to the countryside,

and he noticed that there were these isolated houses

everywhere among the big plantations,

houses where the dirt poor hired hands lived.

And he also knew that there were remarkably high rates

of childhood cancer and other diseases in these families

due to the exposure to toxic pesticides,

but the families were unable to do anything about it

because they feared the landowners

who could get rid of them at any time.

So he was writing the script during the pandemic,

and he conceived the idea of demon possession itself

being a highly contagious disease with confusing rules

for its prevention.

Because one thing you can say about the whole COVID-19

thing is that the rules for prevention

were extremely confusing. -Oh, wow.

-People had the attitude of Pedro during the pandemic.

They just wanted it to be over,

so they would take any random advice

that might make it be over.

And the random advice is what made it spread farther

and farther and faster and faster.

So what did you think of the rotten

the first time you saw it? -Gross and beautiful.

-You know, it's hard to gross me out.

I've seen everything, but it grossed me out.

-Nice.

-I mean, it was actually a giant puppet,

and there were four technicians inside it making it move

like that giant blob of mucus that it was.

All right, are you checking on the partygoers?

Is Felissa in there holding court or something?

-Did somebody call my name?

I love you, Joe Bob.

-Felissa, we're watching a very serious movie here.

What happened to the strawberry daiquiris?

-Oh. Oh, did you want one? Because you know what?

I'll call Instacart to just bring us some more rum.

-We're in the middle of nowhere, Felissa.

Instacart is not going to come here.

-Oh, that's okay. Then I'll just send Clete to get it.

-Who's Clete?

-Oh, he's one of the Tankersley brothers, you know,

Cody, Clete, and what's your name, cutie?

It's Cody, Clete, and Cutie.

-[Laughter] -All right.

No need for strawberry daiquiris, Felissa.

-Okay, just just let me know if you change your mind.

-All right. Back to the movie. -Whoo!

-You need to take responsibility, Darcy.

-Everything is fine. We'll play scary games.

Loosen up. Man.

-I don't want to watch scary games.

I want to watch scary movies.

-But we can do both. Chill. You'll see.

-Don't you think Felissa is overdoing it a little bit?

-I mean, did you expect you to bring Diet Sprite?

-[Laughter] -I'm just saying.

[Static crackles, thunder crashes]

[Static crackles]

-[Sighs]

[Sighs]

[Water running]

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

-[Sighs]

[Thunder rumbles]

[Thunder crashes]

[Goats bleating]

[Breathing heavily]

♪

-[Whimpering] No. No.

♪

[Gunshot]

[Goats bleating]

[Breathing heavily]

♪

[Grunting]

-[Sobbing]

♪

[Bleats]

[Gunshot]

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

[Banging on door]

♪

[Cocks gun]

-Oh.

♪

[Dog barking]

♪

♪

[Knocking on door]

♪

[Doorbell buzzes] -Okay, okay.

[Doorbell buzzes] Okay.

-No.

[Fire catches]

-No.

[Panting]

-[Screaming]

[Roger snarling]

[Roger whines]

[Vicky whimpers]

[Arguing continues]

Leo! Leo! Leo!

[Roger whines, panting]

[Snarls]

-Ah! Ah!

-Vicky!

-No! -Leo!

-Vicky!

-Vicky!

Roger!

Vicky!

-[Crying]

♪

-[Moaning]

[Moaning continues]

[Moaning stops]

♪

[Moaning]

[Sabrina wailing]

-Leo.

-[Wailing]

Hey!

[Siren chirps]

[Woman talking into radio]

[Gunshot]

[Siren chirping]

♪

♪

♪

[Sabrina speaking indistinctly]

Eh? Eh? Oh.

[Sobbing]

-[Moaning]

[Keys jingling]

♪

-[Whimpers]

♪

[Engine starts]

♪

♪

[Tires squeal] -Oh!

♪

[Engine sputters]

[Engine starts]

[Tires squeal]

♪

♪ [Distant shouting]

♪

[Static crackles]

-Oh, man, this movie does not let up on you

for a single second. The goat scene.

One of the most disturbing scenes ever, right?

-That poor goat.

-What about the woman with multiple self-inflicted

wounds to the face?

-I mean, her too. But the goat.

-Oh, well, you'll be happy to know, Darcy,

that the actual owner of that goat --

Normally that goat would have been sent

to market and slaughtered.

But the owner decided that since the goat was now a movie star,

she would be allowed to live.

And she even gave birth to baby goats the following year.

-Well, she deserved it. It was an amazing performance.

-The director said it took 10 hours to get that performance.

The goats kept running away.

The animal trainers on the set

said the goats were basically untraceable, as was the dog.

Normally when you do a dog attack, you use a Rottweiler.

Because Rottweilers work well with actors.

They work well with trainers. They're very intelligent.

So the trainers tried to get Rugna to use a Rottweiler,

but Rugna said, "No, if it's a Rottweiler,

people might guess the attack is coming."

So he wanted to use this breed called the Dogue de Bordeaux,

a muscular French mastiff.

Um, but it has that hangdog face,

so people like it. Kind of a sweet face.

And the trainers said, "Please don't use that breed.

It is a stubborn dog, and it is a lazy dog."

And sure enough, it took forever to get the dog

to do anything remotely action oriented.

But damn, did they finally get those shots.

-Yes, they did.

-Uh, and then indicating he is a glutton for more punishment,

Rugna continued to violate the old Hollywood dictum

of never work with children or animals

by giving major action roles to six underage children

and quite a few underage extras

in a country that has some of the toughest child labor laws

in the world.

The children could only work three hours a day.

They were not allowed to touch a firearm.

Blood could not be placed anywhere on their body.

If you see blood on one of those kids,

it's actually blue paint that they turned red

in post-production.

And finally Rugna exploded the principle of forensics

that if a person has more than one stab wound to the face,

it cannot be suicide.

Apparently, Ruiz's wife knew that whatever happens to you

after you're infected

is far worse than the destruction

of your entire family, including your unborn child.

So now you're thinking, "Oh, boy, this is bad."

-Yes. -Now, if I'm reading this movie

correctly, and I may very well not be reading it correctly,

the demon went from being the rotten Uriel to a goat,

to somehow using the close of Pedro to infect the dog,

which became a demon and chewed up the little girl,

but then inhabited the body of the little girl

because Leonardo shot the dog

after being repeatedly told don't shoot the dog,

and then leaving the body of the girl

to inhabit the body of Leonardo long enough

for him to ram the reunited mother and daughter

into a brick wall.

My question, I guess,

is, are we creating multiple demons through this process,

or is it one demon going from host to host?

Darcy, what do you think it is?

-Oh, I'm not completely sure, but I think it's one demon.

-Okay, well, maybe grandma can help us out with the rules,

because the chaos brothers are now on their way

to pick up grandma before they flee the city.

So, back to the movie.

Now, what is your position, Darcy...

-Yes? -...on that level of violence

against elementary school students?

-I mean, it happens in life, so it can happen in movies.

-Yeah, I know, but when things that real and that close

to us happened in life, you know, brutal.

-That's horror. It's supposed to be.

-I feel like we're doing a yin and a yang thing because

"Slumber Party Massacre", about as old school as you can get.

And then this is sort of the brave new frontier of horror.

-Yeah, and it kind of makes "Nekromantik" look like

an afterschool special.

-And it is about to get worse.

-We love it.

[Laughter]

[Static crackles, thunder rumbles]

[Static crackles]

[Birds chirping]

Eh?

[Jair moaning]

[Singing]

[Chuckles]

-Azrael, Azrael.

[Jair moaning]

[Cellphone buzzing, ringing]

[Jair moaning]

[Buzzing, ringing continues]

[Buzzing, ringing stops]

-Eh?

[Sobbing]

[Jair moaning softly]

-[Clears throat]

-[Sighs]

-Mm-hmm.

-[Exhales sharply]

-¿Cómo estás? -[Moaning]

[Singing]

[Dog barking]

-Eh?

-Eh?

-[Sighs]

-[Moaning]

♪

♪

♪

[Dog barking distantly]

♪

♪

♪

-[Breathing erratically]

♪

♪

-[Moans]

♪

♪

[Floorboard creaking]

-Mm-hmm.

-[Whimpers]

♪

♪

[Thud]

[Static crackles]

Okay. Weird place to stop.

But it gives me a chance to say that these are the strangest

rules for not getting possessed that I've ever heard.

And despite what grandma says, they are not easy to remember.

I'm not even sure I can name them.

One is don't use electric lights.

What? In a demon possession? Why would that upset a demon?

What else?

-Um, don't get too close to animals.

-Yeah, like any animal? Everybody has pets.

So that one, it's not impossible,

but it would be easy to screw that one up.

-Don't touch anything that was near a possessed person.

-So that would be everything in Uriel's house.

And why use the word "near"?

It's too vague of a word. So how many is that?

How many rules is that? -Three

-Okay. -Then there's don't hurt

a possessed person.

-So once you know the person is possessed,

don't you automatically want to kill them?

So how does the cleaner deal with them

if you can't hurt them and there are no churches?

So that's four.

-Never call the evil by its name.

-Yeah, grandma says that.

And then she starts reeling off the names -- Lucifer, Beelzebub,

making the brothers super nervous.

Oh, never shoot rottens with firearms is one of them.

In a place where everybody has firearms.

-And don't be afraid of death. -Is that seven?

-That's seven.

-But grandma said she forgot one.

She says it's easy to stay out of the way of demons.

Just know the seven principles.

But then Santino notices she forgot one,

and grandma neglects to mention

that after the living person is occupied by the demon,

they can still use a cellphone to call you up

and tell you that your kids hate you

and your ex-wife fucked everybody

because you were a coward.

So I guess demons know exactly the worst things

to say to get under your skin.

So you think the danger is that they're going to occupy

your body, but the real danger

is they're going to occupy your mind.

And the brilliant thing about the Ezequiel Rodriguez

performance is that he realizes how weak he is

and how guilty he is,

and so he has no answer to the demon and he can't handle it,

and he breaks.

He's the guy we want to succeed,

but he's also the guy who's got the most weaknesses.

And so the demon finds it easy to work on him.

-Which one did grandma forget?

-What?

-The little boy says grandma forgot one.

Which one was that? -I think it was fear of death.

I think it was don't be afraid to die.

So the seven rules make it virtually impossible

to defeat the demon.

And yet everybody in this story apparently knows all the rules

because this situation has been around for so long.

And remember the reason Uriel weighs 600 pounds

and looks like every episode of "Dr. Pimple Popper"

in one single patient is that they reported him to the police

a year before, but nobody wanted to go out there.

And while we're on that subject,

I still don't understand who killed the cleaner

in the first scene where they find the body cut in half.

Did I miss that?

-They're going to explain it at the end.

-I don't even remember the explanation,

but I think the bottom line is, if one of these demon creatures

comes into your life, you're doomed.

Don't even try.

Max von Sydow is not going to show up and vacuum

your brain like in the '70s.

Absolutely no hope here.

-There has to be some hope, or nobody would keep watching.

-All right, let's see if we can find some.

-Hope. -Back to the movie.

You know, it got really quiet in the party room,

and that kind of scares me.

-Oh, yeah. The Tankersley brothers

went to go out and look for Bigfoot.

-Look for Bigfoot?

-Yeah. -Why would they do that?

Don't they live here? Can't they do that at any time?

-I have no idea.

I just know everybody went with them.

-Even Felissa? -Oh, she took a thermos.

[Laughter]

[Thunder crashes]

[Static crackles]

Jair!

♪

-Jaime.

[Engine sputtering]

♪

[Engine starts]

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

-[Gasps]

♪♪

[Car stops]

[Breathing raggedly]

♪

♪

♪

[Engages gear]

[Engine revving]

[Glass shatters]

♪

-[Groaning]

-[Gurgling]

[Inhales deeply]

♪

[Static crackles]

-Okay, you're watching "Joe Bob's Night Marathon",

and I got to ask you, as a person

who knows more about autism than anybody I've ever met.

What do you think of the character of Jair?

And the idea that if a demon gets inside an autistic person,

they can occupy the body,

but they can never figure out the mind,

so they stay inside there in a kind of gooey limbo.

Does it make sense?

I mean, as much as anything about demons can make sense.

-Yeah, but like 1,000%

because their minds work in such a unique way.

-So Demian Rugna, in this movie so far, has killed children,

he's killed pregnant women.

He's killed animals. He's killed grandma.

Uh, he's got a target drawn on an autistic kid.

He's shown a mom eating her own child.

He has basically made a list of all the never go

there places in horror and gone there.

And maybe why this movie is considered so revolutionary,

it was the first Latin American film ever

to win the grand prize at the Sitges Festival in Spain.

That's the oldest horror festival in the world.

And so a lot of people in recent years

have wanted to know, who is this guy?

And the answer is he's a pretty normal guy.

He grew up in Haedo, which is a suburb of Buenos Aires.

He started drawing comic books at the age of 8.

He got an audio visual design degree

at the University of Morón,

which is a private university near his home.

And he always had a passion for horror,

especially American horror.

And so he started writing scripts,

almost always horror scripts,

and he finally got his first one produced in 2006,

"The Last Gateway", about a portal to hell

that opens up in a man's stomach.

Um, most films in Argentina

have some government financial support,

but Rugna quickly discovered

that horror was a banned genre down at the film commission,

so he managed to put the money together from private investors.

But they insisted that he make the movie in English

to protect their investment,

so he felt a little constrained by that,

since, he said it's not that easy to find actors

who can perform his demanding roles

and also speak perfect English.

He then spent five years working

on an anthology film called "Cursed Bastards",

and his breakout came in 2017 with"Terrified",

which was shown all over the world.

Paranormal investigation film that is very popular on Shudder.

In fact, it was so popular

that Guillermo del Toro wanted to produce a remake of it,

and that is what Rugna was working on

when the pandemic happened.

So the remake got canceled,

and he switched over to "When Evil Lurks."

-Joe Bob, I don't mean to interrupt you or anything.

-Rhonda, you can interrupt me anytime you feel like it.

-I know you're doing your commentating thing,

and I don't want to interrupt that,

but I think there's something that you would really,

really like to see.

-Are you gonna be mysterious? What is it?

-Well, I think your friends from Atlanta,

they're very, very uninhibited.

Oh, fun!

-What?

-I don't have any friends from Atlanta.

My point about Rugna is he's this laid back guy,

very calm on the set.

And that's what actors like. So a natural as a director.

Back to the movie.

Do you have any friends from Atlanta?

-Yeah, of course,

but I don't think any of them are here tonight.

-Where are these people coming from?

-Atlanta, obviously.

-What do they want from us? -I'm not sure,

but we might need to burn our clothes

and turn out all the lights.

Just saying. Just saying.

[Thunder crashes]

[Static crackles]

-Huh?

[Sets down flashlight]

[Insects chirping]

♪

♪

♪

[Rustling]

♪

♪

♪

♪

[Rattling]

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

-Shh!

♪

Shh!

♪

♪

-[Coughing]

♪

[Shouts]

[Engine sputtering]

♪

-Huh?

-[Screams]

-[Sobbing]

♪

[Sobbing continues]

♪

♪

[Dog barking]

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

Por favor, no, no, no.

-[Grunts]

-No, no...

-[Gasps]

-No, no, no, no.

[Glass shatters]

-[Screaming]

[Clattering]

[Doorknob rattling]

♪

[Doorknob rattling]

♪

♪

♪

♪

-[Breathing raggedly]

♪

♪

[Laughs]

♪

♪

♪

[Wood creaking]

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

[Static crackles]

-So once again, everything the woman says is correct.

Everything the man does is wrong.

Uriel gets to Pedro, and Pedro

goes crazy and bashes in his head,

releasing him into the death and rebirth

that he has been working for all this time.

And evil walks off into the sunset.

This is the point

at which many people turned against this movie.

If you look at the IMDb comments on "When Evil Lurks",

there's actual rage against the director

for this moment in the film.

They are so offended that the rotten wins.

They say, "Well, why didn't Pedro listen to the only person

who had the experience? Everyone knows the rules.

Why didn't they follow the seven rules?"

And I can't speak for Demian Rugna,

but the answer would probably be

because people are weak and emotional and impulsive.

If you ask people in prison, would you do that crime again?

95% are going to say, "Of course not."

I mean, people are not in charge of themselves.

They don't do what's best for themselves.

They don't trust solutions

that do not promise immediate comfort.

But there are these endless essays by the raging fan base.

Why does Ruiz shoot the goat when he knows the rule

about firearms destroying his entire family?

Three avoidable deaths.

Why does Leonardo not listen to the warnings about guns?

Sabrina gets slammed into a wall with her daughter in her arms.

Two avoidable deaths.

Why did the brothers not tell Mirta everything

that's already happened, so she can tell them what to do next?

Two avoidable deaths.

Why do they leave grandma alone with a child

who's possibly possessed? Two avoidable deaths.

When they get to the school,

why does Pedro ignore everything Mirta says about who's lying

and how to prevent the demon from being born?

Why does he listen to one of the children

after being told straight out that she's lying

and end up leaving murder alone? Avoidable death.

So the answer to all these questions is human nature,

pride, anger, resentment, the need for quick resolutions.

So obviously that's what the filmmaker wanted to say.

But the people who love the film the most,

because they've been sucked into the narrative

and the characters 1,000%,

are the people who end up hating the movie the most, as well,

because their minds are searching for a square up,

a traditional ending,

a reassurance that the world can't possibly be that evil.

But this is a dark movie.

The reason there are seven rules and not three

is that he wants it to be virtually impossible

to fight the demon.

But everyone is like, "Yeah, I like dark movies,

but not at the end, you know, not in the final act."

And so they say,

"It could have been the greatest movie in the history

of the world, but now I don't like it."

And that means Demian Rugna has captured his audience.

He has captured them so completely,

they can become emotionally incensed

when characters don't act the way they think they should.

So pretty amazing achievement.

And before we get to the even more disturbing conclusion,

yes, there's another conclusion of "When Evil Lurks."

We can go even lower.

I want to remind you

that you are watching "Joe Bob's Night Marathon."

And we're going to be here all night and half the day.

So stick around for some old horror, some new horror,

and some batshit crazy horror. We have got it all.

-Yeah, we do.

-When a movie ends really dark like this,

do you think that's a setup for a sequel?

-In this case, I really don't.

I think if he was writing this during the worst of corona,

there really wasn't any rhyme or reason

to who died and who lived.

-That's true, and everybody broke the rules, like every day.

And so the evil got worse.

So back to the movie.

I actually think we were the only show

that acted like the pandemic didn't exist.

-Shh.

-We were too stupid to stop production.

And I still get those letters and people

still come up to the autograph table or whatever.

And they say, "You got me through the pandemic."

And, uh, you know, "We watched every show during the pandemic."

Why would you watch horror during a pandemic?

-I did.

-7 million people died from COVID.

1.1 million were in the United States.

Why would people want to watch more death in the movies?

-Because it gets resolved. The horror is contained.

-Unless you're watching "When Evil Lurks.

-[Laughter] -Fair.

-I think it's like that scene in "Nosferatu"

where everyone knows they're going to die.

I'm thinking of the Werner Herzog

"Nosferatu" especially.

They think they're going to die as the plague gets worse

and worse and the bodies are piling up.

So they decide to have a picnic and dance.

Remember that scene? -That's what I would do.

-Well, that's what we did.

We came to work, and we watched horror, and we told jokes,

and all the other shows shut down.

-Watching horror movies solves a lot of things.

-Apparently. -Really, it's like a magic pill.

-And speaking of magic pills,

would you please check on our guests?

-What?

-There are way too many guys showing up in the kitchen

with bulging pockets, if you know what I mean.

And I think you do.

-I'll be very happy to go check on the bulges.

[Laughter]

[Thunder crashes]

[Static crackles]

[Sheep bleating]

[Door creaks open]

♪

♪

♪

[Squeaking]

-[Coughing]

[Coughing continues]

[Gagging]

[Coughing, gagging]

♪

♪

[Coughing]

♪

[Gagging, gasping]

[Coughing]

♪

♪

♪

[Door opens]

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

-Aaaaah!

♪

[Sobbing]

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

[Man whispering in Spanish]

♪

♪

♪

[Man singing in Spanish]

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

[Static crackles]

♪

[Thunder crashes]

[Static crackles]

-So "When Evil Lurks" was released in theaters

on the same day the new "Exorcist"

movie was released in theaters,

so apparently demon possession is back.

"Exorcist: Believer" earned $137 million at the box office,

which sounds like a lot to me,

but Blumhouse considered that not enough,

so the next two films in the trilogy were canceled.

"When Evil Lurks" didn't even earn "Exorcist" money

at the box office,

in it's fairly wide release, 600 or 700 theaters.

My guess for why it performed poorly would be, A, the title.

The title is very vague.

And, B, very little marketing in the Halloween season.

People in horror forums were saying,

"What? That's in theaters?"

You know, people who actually wanted to see it.

IFC Films chose to just release it

with the literal translation of "Cuando acecha la maldad",

"When Evil Lurks", the film's original title instead of

the usual practice when you release a Spanish film,

which is Anglicize the marketing.

At any rate, I do not think the ending is a setup for a sequel,

even though you could easily do one now that Pedro and Jimmy

have lost everything.

They're totally broken men with nothing to lose.

So time for a little demon killing, don't you think?

And on that note, Darcy, I think we should move

on to something more optimistic.

-"Bloody Muscle Body Builder in Hell", baby.

-Whoo! -Yeah!

Whenever somebody says the '90s were not a horror decade,

I always say, I hope you're not including

"Bloody Muscle Body Builder in Hell."

in that assessment.

And of course,

they then concede that the Gary Oldman "Dracula"

and "Bloody Muscle Body Builder in Hell"

are the two exceptions. -[Clears throat]

-And "Scream", the immortal Wes Craven masterpiece.

-Thank you. Oh, and you should read this e-mail.

It poured in from Hollywood.

-All right. Uh...

Oh! It's from Richard Balin.

All right. Um, "Message for Joe Bob.

Thank you very much for mentioning me

during your airing of 'Graduation Day.'

It was a fun movie to make. And yes, I am still acting.

Thanks again. Richard."

Richard Balan is 84 years old

and still going out on those auditions.

So he was the music teacher in "Graduation Day."

You know, the guy in the leisure suit who sits at the piano

and hits on all the girls? -How can you forget him?

I'm not mistaken, he aardvarks with Linnea Quigley

after delivering the immortal line,

"I call this my little cobra."

[Laughter]

And, uh, Richard was also in, uh, "Dance Camp",

"Beverly Hood", "Speedway Junkie", "Schizoid",

and a whole slew of TV series and movies

going back to the early '70s.

So thanks for watching, Richard.

We'll get the word out that you are still available.

And that's a that's it for me, Joe Bob Briggs, coming to you

from the Night Marathon in Coweta County, Georgia,

where it's hotter than a $2 whore on dollar day.

The drive in will never die.

Old cowboy goes into a bar and orders a whiskey.

Young woman sits down next to him,

turns to him and says, "Are you a real cowboy?"

And the guy says, "Well, I've spent my whole life

on the ranch breaking horses, men and fences, branding cattle.

So I guess I am."

And the woman says, "I'm a lesbian.

I spend my whole day thinking about women.

As soon as I get up in the morning, I think about women.

When I shower or watch TV,

everything makes me think of women."

So a little while later,

a couple sits down next to the old cowboy

and they ask him, "Are you a real cowboy?"

And he says, "I always thought I was,

but I just found out I'm a lesbian."

[Laughter]

-It was cute.

[Thunder crashes]

[Static crackles]