30 Perfect Horror Scenes Of The 2020s

Many horror movies have that one horrific scene you'll never, ever forget. In Hereditary, it was Charlie's decapitation. In Mother, there was the baby being devoured. And in this brilliantly nasty Argentinian horror, we've got a demonic presence possessing man's best friend into savagely attacking a little girl. 

In When Evil Lurks, a town in rural Argentina is being troubled by a demonic presence and protagonist Pedro (Ezequiel Rodriguez) arrives at his ex-wife's house to get her and their two sons away. Sensibly, he makes sure to burn his clothes so that the infection doesn't spread but... just before he does so, the family dog licks them. 

And then, this adorable pooch proceeds to viscously maul Vicky (Lucrecia Niron Talazac), the daughter of Pedro's ex and her new husband, and then drag her away to her death. Although Vicky does subsequently reappear, it's implied that this was a trick by the demon and that she was indeed killed. 

This was just shocking. The slaying of a young child is the kind of thing many American horror flicks would be too frightened to do, so this was already a startling taboo-buster as it was. Most of the attack is off-screen, with the bone-chilling sound design doing the heavy lifting - this honestly makes it even worse. As many a great horror film has proven before, your imagination is often even more terrifying than anything on-screen. 

It's absolutely horrible, but it's fantastic all the same.