#What Evil Lurks

[sffinsiders]

Review: What Evil Lurks by Mike Shackle — SFF Insiders

[bazedjunkiii]

lovecraftian horrors.

original photograph and colour grading by baze.djunkiii

[wuntrum]

bizarre to watch a horror film that came out this year that horror people seem to generally enjoy and one of the plot points of it being "yeah, the evil presence can't get into some people's minds. but autistic people? oh man, the evil just doesn't know WHAT to do in there, once its in there its trapped! just look at the way they move their hands, isn't that weird? that means the evil is in there!"

[yuridovewing]

so is wc twitter normal like at all

[nobodysdaydreams]

Giving a complicated tragic childhood backstory to your favorite character is all fun and games, until you realize you need to account for how old all the other adult characters would have been at the time and realize that scenes that would work perfectly if one character was twenty three and the other was fourteen stop working when you need other characters who are played by adult actors clearly younger than they are to be in college at the same time so your story beats line up thematically.

[ingoodjesst]

[light spoilers] "when evil lurks" (2023) was a thoroughly engaging horror movie with great direction, pacing, and lighting that complement its themes well. that said, it was also an intense and disturbing watch with a finale that frankly had my stomach churning. it's a film interested in the fear of losing control and what it reveals about its characters. though the catalyst for misfortune is a demonic presence that possesses and manipulates people, it's generally the characters' rash attempts to recapture a sense of control over their situations that cause things to spiral. their fear-striken actions are understandable in the face of a force they cannot predict the scope of or attack directly. but over and over again, we see our protagonists choose to run away or react with violence, even when they have both folk wisdom and mounting first-hand experience to advise them against such futile actions.

there's also an interesting lens of gender to view the film through, as we often see men choosing to exert violence in a desperate bid to feel powerful again against victims that - possession aside - are generally weaker than them: disabled folks, animals, women, children, etc. all this despite women pleading with them to remember how this violence will just guarantee the evil's spread. it's worth examining how the male characters feel the need to project themselves as protectors while overriding the feelings of the people around them, how their predominant emotions of fear and anger tend to preclude their ability to clearly communicate the stakes of their predicament, etc.

in a way, violence becomes synonymous with running away throughout the film. despite what their behavior would have you believe, our MCs always have options available to them (both in their personal pasts and in the present) that are less likely to lead to ruin… yet their fear always leads them to dig deeper holes. by seeking only the physical destruction of something that refuses to be destroyed, the rotten possession is never truly dealt with. it is simply put off and worsened. instead of engaging the root problem with care and deliberation, using the rules and expertise that are gradually presented to us, our MCs constantly fall victim to their insecurities, constantly fall back on maladaptive instincts that fool them into thinking that somehow their attempts at violence and domination will work this time. maybe the brief catharsis will be worth the consequences this time.

which isn't to say that the movie necessarily suggests that things could've ever been brought back under "control". but in the end, our protagonists fail every chance they have to confront their problems properly. in seeking shortcuts to regain an illusion of control, they sacrifice whatever possibility existed of reclaiming true agency.

it's also worth mentioning that it's not hard to find parallels to the ongoing covid pandemic, i.e. fighting an invisible enemy that cannot be directly eliminated, where violation of specific guidelines intended to keep you safe leads to further spread of the "possession" and therefore further tragedy. hell, even the way that government institutions (like the police in the film) absolve themselves of dealing with the problem properly, forcing citizens to fend for themselves…

the thing is, although the demon haunting our MCs manipulates their terror to its own ends, there's still a palpable sense that many of their losses could've been avoided, if only they didn't succumb to rage and dismay at their loss of control… in this way, i see parallels with the movie "the thing" too; once you let the terror into your heart, the path to destruction is paved with the resulting paranoia and panic. thus the film leaves you with a powerful sense of powerlessness, as you watch characters get progressively consumed by their fear (and uh, other more literal things), until their fates simply fulfill themselves.

[fisheito]

all us anons gathering to hear divine (rabid) fish wisdom, like a hungry pack of wolves waiting for a meal

Judging by how my loudest audience members are garukaru fans it certainly feels like I've got a congregation of wolves around me

[karmaismyfriend]

Sums it up doesn’t it iykyk

[popeyeotaku]

THE SHADOW

[fullmoonfireball]

i keep thinking about ideas for g3 Jackson and Holt,, i haven't even caught up with the latest eps of the Monster High cartoon so idk why that's on my mind

[risingsunresistance]

went back to the wizard to get more dialogue after i saw someone mention it on the forums. didnt realize he had so much to say

"I am now almost certain this breach leads to the Past. But to which point in time...? I must ascertain the answer!"

"I can tell this is the Era of Kaeman, when he was at the zenith of his power."

"Our knowledge of that era is minimal. But such an aura... I fear that even if I manage to open the breach, venturing through it would be a grave mistake."

"I believe this breach was created by Jythar during the Calamity. However, I doubt it will permit us to journey that far back. I suspect someone is altering its destination."

"I am making progress. I can now sense a great and formidable evil lurking beyond these threads of time."

[spoonyruncible]

I'm not gatekeeping, I just have some gates and I've sort of vaguely known they're there, I haven't kept them and the hinges are so rusty i doubt they'd close if I tried. But, like, for ages all that came through those gates were stray geese and a dog I think belongs to a neighbor but might just belong to himself and of course there's the hunching afflicted wrathbeast. That's just having a garden. Things grow there and random folks stumble in sometimes, mispronounce the names of my favorite varietals, say stunningly inaccurate things about them, and wander bemusedly back out.

As a surprise to probably no one I was a deeply lonely child. No one really got me or what my deal was, so when I found something I loved it was mine and mine alone to treasure. As I got older I found other people who liked 'my' things. Some of those people were horrible! But there was a kinship and it was okay to be a bit horrible so long as we could be odd together. Gardens are resilient things, they tolerate mistakes and abuse. It's absolutely wonderful to share, to dance to the same music, that imperfection becomes part of the joy of it, becomes a unique thing unto itself.

So imagine my shock when there is a garden party that rapidly becomes a festival. No one has ever really been here before, it's been me and the geese and that one dog and a few other weirdos. Suddenly my things, things people beat me for loving, are things everyone loves. All at once the landscape is unrecognizable and if I acknowledge that then I'm being a hipster. I don't mind the festival, it's nice, now it's much easier to get things I need without having to put on my trekking gear and hike out to the one obscure location that has The Supplies. It's not bad, it's just weird. It feels like there is something wrong with me instead of something wrong about liking what I like.

I'm not really talking about one specific thing here, there have been a lot of these moments where what used to be unusual or even shameful is now the big thing. And it's good, it's can be great sometimes even with the unforeseen bizarre bad parts. But there is this selfish little part of me that wants to cling to my unloved love, to put a raggedy LP on a barely working record player and lay on the wooden floor of my childhood home staring at a painting of a ship in a storm that is right beside a picture of a young man in a cap and a too large jacket and listen to sea shanties belted out by people not very good at singing while I drift and drift and drift away on the sound and the whitecaps to a place where there is only this. I love the new versions like a drowning man loves air, I am happy that people have found this beautiful thing and can enjoy it, but there is a tinge to it I don't like. A prick of pain every time I see this joy over my joy, over my joy that I was punished for, humiliated for, shamed for. I'm glad people can love these things without suffering but it makes my suffering seem so fucking stupid.

There is a certain temptation, a bitter agony, that makes me want to hiss like an abused cat and cling jealous to my silly little toys. It's not that I want them all for myself, it's that I can't let go of that little kid with a bruisy eye sulking because no one wants to play with him. It's the whisper of, "We can be friends but only in secret. I don't want people to know I'm like you." It's the enthusiasm that rapidly becomes muted because the whole world is demanding to know why you can't just be normal for once. But that same temptation to lash out is the one that makes me reach out my hand instead, especially to people who are like, "Wow! I've never been to a garden before. I'm gonna screw this up. How do I not screw it up?" because now they're that bruisy eyed kid no one wants to play with. I can't protect the person I used to be by becoming the exact thing that hurt me. Gotta keep the gate open, gotta get used to new things even if it takes noise cancelling headphones and an entirely rational amount of backsliding, gotta wake up every day and keep trying even though the world keeps throwing curveballs that no sane person could anticipate. It's all okay. We're in this together and we're all gonna be okay,

[tankgotstuckinthecircusgate]

eddie not having a partner and carlo getting married late bc "my homoerotic friendship is more important to me than regular sex"

[anza-redstar]

The rest of The Living Shadow doesn't really live up to its deranged opening sequence, but it has its points. For instance, Harry Vincent saying "Hey, that mysterious cloaked figure who prevented my suicide and to whom I swore my troth, is he, like, a good guy? Bad guy? Do we know anything about what that dude is actually trying to do?", receiving exactly zero answer, and just kinda going with it:

Working for a mysterious stranger whose motives are obscure, whose face you have never seen, and who has already sent you without explanation undercover into the 1920s-pulp-fiction black-market of Mysterious Chinese People doing Illicit Mysterious Chinese Business where you nearly got killed by a guillotine deathtrap: actually pretty relaxing! Basically this is a paid vacation.

Harry Vincent: if he's going to be the kept man of a mysterious cloaked figure still not proved to not be a criminal mastermind, he's not going to be irresponsible about it.