When Evil Lurks is currently streaming on Shudder, and it seems critics are loving it more than audiences. It currently sits at a Fresh 99% Tomatometer critical rating, but the audience score is literally rotten, coming in at just 57%.
One amateur critic named Haley W gave it two stars and said: “There were a lot of terrifying moments, but as someone who cares a lot about endings, this movie just did not do it for me. Characters just refusing to listen to people who clearly know more than them just got incredibly frustrating, and overall the character decisions just didn’t make a lot of sense even when considering their situations. I really can’t understand why the critics love it.”
Another “verified” audience critic named Don’t Go gave it one star, saying, “I felt like it was all over the place.”
When Evil Lurks
On the other hand, professional critics aren’t being “rotten” and loving the bloody unpredictability of it all.
John Serba of Decider says, “‘When Evil Lurks‘ is inspired and immersive, thoughtfully composed visually, and, most importantly, crazy as hell.”
Even “family-friendly” site Common Sense Media’s critic, Jeffrey M. Anderson, lauded the film, “Kind of a zombie movie and kind of a demon-possession movie, though also quite unlike anything you’d expect from those genres, this potent chiller is truly shocking, as well as clever and knowing.”
One thing that might be causing the divide between the audience and the critics is the film’s brutality. Some pretty intense scenes require trigger warnings, but doing so would spoil the movie. Also, the film is in Spanish, and subtitles aren’t for everyone. Phone-scrolling movie watchers at home who don’t speak Spanish might miss plot points through captions, opting for the latest TikTok video instead.
When Evil Lurks is more critically acclaimed than the legacy sequel Exorcist: Believer which falls into the same sub-genre. Believer is at the bottom of the barrel, receiving a 22% Tomatometer Rating among professional critics. More interestingly, the audience score for that movie is 59%, two percentage points higher than When Evil Lurks.
Tell us what you think. Did the professional critics get it right, or did the audience? When Evil Lurks is currently streaming on Shudder.
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