Children are scary. Small versions of adult people who seem to have total confidence in their approach of constantly asking questions. They seem to know too much. They probably do. The concept of an ‘evil’ child has been used well in genre cinema. Whether that’s Damien in The Omen, the twins in The Shining or Esther in Orphan, not to mention any small Japanese girl, their presence is disconcerting. We have a new contender for the crown in Everyone Will Burn.
María José’s (Macarena Gomez) life has been going downhill since the death of her son, years before. Her husband (Rodolfo Sancho) has left her and she has become a figure of ridicule in the small Spanish village of Leon. She’s about to end it all when ‘Lucia’ (Sofía García) arrives. The strange little girl takes her under her spell. Rekindling a local prophecy of an impending apocalypse and triggering a chain of gruesome deaths.
It’s wonderful to see a film like Everyone Will Burn being made. It doesn’t even attempt to tackle plausibility. Instead, it’s a pressure-cooker of a Spanish soap opera, drenched in religious intolerance and Catholic superstition. Director David Hebrero turns up the dial to eleven, employing some inventive cinematography to increase the bombast and the feeling of otherness. Everyone Will Burn riffs off the Spanish Inquisition to create a fun, fantastical and furious supernatural horror.
Everyone Will Burn has its North American premiere at Fantastic Fest.
