Who knew the season’s best possession film released last month wouldn’t be The Exorcist: Believer? Probably everyone who’s familiar with David Gordon Green. Still, between Talk to Me from earlier this year and now Demián Rugna’s When Evil Lurks, the subgenre still has plenty to give — and take, considering all the pets and kids that meet their end in this Spanish-language ride through hell.

Life moves slow for brothers Pedro (Ezequiel Rodríguez) and Jimi (Demián Salomón, Rugna’s Terrified) in their quiet farming community. That is, until the dismembered corpse of a state-appointed exorcist (aka a “cleaner”) winds up on the border of their property. With their neighbor (Luis Ziembrowski), the siblings investigate a nearby home, only to find an old acquaintance afflicted with a demonic possession under the care of his family. The trio resolve to drive the “rotten” hundreds of kilometers away and dump his body into field. Problem solved … until the demonic influence spreads throughout the town, kick-starting a shitstorm of homicide and suicide.

The film hemorrhages chaos and desperation. Dread creeps in the first act. One untimely goat possession later, and the pace hits a nonstop sprint. Rodríguez almost single-handedly carries this feeling, as if he’s been dragged through an abyss, simultaneously frantic and hopeless. Once the protagonist’s children join the mix, the unending violence strikes a different tone. Even as the film starts to lose itself in the second half, the stakes only climb.

The possessions themselves take an especially sadistic turn. You won’t find demonic voices or fiery visions of doom, but cold-hearted deception, self-harm and good ol’ fashioned cannibalism. The film carefully lays out logic for how possessions spread, like through animals and by gunpowder. Thankfully, Rugna refrains from clearly answering what the rotten looks like. It lures us into thinking the plight can be understood, only to quickly pull the rug out from under us with a rabid dog or a schoolhouse of manipulative children.

This disarray carries most of the film, but fuels its biggest weakness, too. Pedro’s knee-jerk response in the climax — to take advice from a possessed kid — makes little sense in retrospect. At least, it doesn’t without the appropriate build. Despite fleshing out the disaster in spades, Rugna doesn’t rein it in enough to earn an otherwise emotional conclusion. Yes, the film is bleak, but stoking what little hope it has just a little more could’ve made what should be a gut-wrenching finale also poignant and memorable.

When Evil Lurks is far from perfect, but its intensity, breakneck pace and unflinching brutality make it a great companion to high-octane gorefests like Yeon Sang-ho’s Train to Busan and Jung Bum-shik’s Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum. Check it out — and don’t let your bulldog lick the rambling man’s jeans. —Daniel Bokemper

Get it at Amazon.

Few slasher villains bear weaker origin stories than Mark, the killer of Hollowgate: As a child, he was nearly drowned by his alcoholic dad for lackluster apple-bobbling skills at a Halloween party.

Ten years later, to say the adult Mark (Addison Randall, Hard Vice) is an antisocial creep is an understatement, what with all his killing a girl for refusing a date and exploding a bully with flaming panties. Rather than lock Mark up, our exemplary justice system releases him to the care of his wealthy grandmother at her Hollowgate estate.

The next 10/31, en route to a party, two young couples stop for “submarine sandwiches” and a $9 sparkle wig. In exchange for the latter, which they can’t afford, the four agree to deliver 12 costumes to Hollowgate. See, Mark’s throwing a shindig of his own; all he needs are attendees, because being freshly murdered, Grandma can’t make it.

With this, one-time writer/director Ray Dizazzo gives his flick’s felon a good-enough gimmick: As the college-aged kids attempt to penetrate the mansion’s electrified perimeter for escape, Mark dons a different costume — soldier, cowboy, doctor and, um, fancy fox hunter — for each individual kill. (One involves a farm combine so slow-moving, of course the Dumb Hot Girl stands in front of it, ensuring doom.) Adopting the proper accent and (occasionally racist) vocabulary with every change, Mark’s a regular Pistachio Disguisey!

In his first of almost two dozen collaborations with PM Entertainment producers Richard Pepin and Joseph Merhi, Randall delivers an off-his-meds performance that’s a tour de force of, well, something. I know this much: I love his commitment. He tears into the material like an unneutered puppy to any stuffed toy concealing a squeaker.

Nearly matching his intensity is Richard Dry, 25% of the beleaguered victim pool. Resembling third runner-up in a Lewis Skolnick lookalike contest, Dry boasts a voice in the David Schwimmer octave (minus the timing) as he plays agitation and hysteria like a Juilliard monologue (minus the practice).

Hollowgate deserves status as a Halloween perennial specifically because of its shoddiness and a beguiling, complete misread of human behavior. For those who paid attention, Mark gets to use only four rented costumes, leaving eight others untouched. Legacy sequel, Mr. Dizazzo? A man can dream of things other than those submarine sandwiches. —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.