{Fantastic Fest 2022}-Everyone Will Burn Review-Hell Hath No Fury Like A Mother Scorned

Few movies are as hard to define as David Hebrero’s Everyone Will Burn(Y todos arderán). Lots of films advertise they are genre-blurring, but few actually are. Lynchian surrealism, Aronofsky’s dark allegories, and even Shyamalan’s best are examples of true genre-bending. Everyone Will Burn is an unexpected delight of melodramatic soap operas, hell fantasy, and apocalyptic prophecy. In a sea of similar films, Hebrero’s vision is a unique one.

A grieving mother prepares to end her life after her son’s death. Then, a mysterious young girl appears as if from the Earth itself. Covered in mud and enigmatically quiet, she compels María José to choose a different path. Unfortunately, the new path pits her against her small village in Leon, Spain. The young girl gives María José purpose, but unfortunately, she might be heralding an end of days prophecy. As the town’s secrets are laid bare, the bowels of Hell open up to swallow their sins whole.

Initially intending on taking the disheveled girl to the authorities, plans change when the nearly silent child calling herself Lucia, exhibits the ability to protect María José. Instead of proceeding with caution as the situation should have warranted, she takes Lucia home, and eventually, all Hell breaks loose. The town tries hard to stem the cursed tide, but their past actions make María José and the entire town vulnerable.

Everyone has something to hide in this small town. Some are as simple as small white lies, while others are whoppers of religious impropriety, and then there is the constant bullying a boy took that resulted in his death. No one is innocent in this Spanish Peyton Place, where no one’s hands are clean. Maria Jose is a complex character that skirts the line between willfully ignorant, wrathful, and hopelessly desperate.

Hebrero’s film cleverly takes the overdone prophecy angle and flips it on its head. What if Damien was the protagonist? It’s hard to argue against María José and her plight given everything we see in Everyone Will Burn. This fresh angle keeps the story interesting but also helps gloss over some of the more ridiculous plot beats that could strain plausibility. By the end, it is hard to say if she made the wrong decision so mired is the town in petty squabbles, political intrigue, and bitter pancake battles.

There’s a comedic undertone, almost as if a telenovela found itself accidentally shooting on a horror film set. However, rather than detract from the overall cohesion of the movie, the end result is something so uniquely fresh you can’t help but appreciate it. There are shocking moments of violence punctuated by unexpected humor, and Everyone Will Burn reads like a great cursed movie, like Thinner, with tinges of classic possession movies.

Macarena Gómez(María José) throws herself with unbridled abandon into the title role, teetering between a fevered believer and an entitled bad actor. Life has not been good to her. Her fellow townsfolk are duplicitous turds leaving more stains than kindness in their wake. Sofía García(Lucia) is effective as a creepy child you can’t bring yourself to either hate or embrace. Gómez and García are a great duo of nervy energy and powerful ambiguity. The pair balance their duality perfectly. They exhibit both barely controlled power and fragile susceptibility.

The subtitles let the film down in places, and there is a decidedly non-inclusive undercurrent about dwarfism that will make North Americans uncomfortable but makes sense within the context of Everyone Will Burn. Nevertheless, those blunt choices help keep us firmly, if uncomfortably, on Lucia and María José’s side.

Camera work by Ona Isart makes good use of the color-drenched village. Some excellent overhead camera angles elongate the weirdness inherent in possession movies. It’s a pretty movie, if somewhat confounding, one, especially as the film drives towards its conclusion. Color saturation meant to inform the finale challenges our understanding of what is happening.

Sound work is particularly good, creeping up on you with disgusting frights and anxiety-inducing noises. They make something as mundane as a toilet flushing ominous. Musical choices by Joan Vilà tend toward the melodramatic and signpost what is happening. There are some pacing problems. Things stall a bit when they should be ramping up, and the entire film could have been cut by twenty minutes or so, but the throughline is so fun you forgive the indiscretions.

Premiering in North America at Fantastic Fest 2022, Everyone Will Burn never forgets its amusing side. Like some of the darkly comedic greats, The Witches of Eastwick and Parasite, there is a meanspirited nastiness to the laughs that play well off the horror. It’s a little scary, a little funny, and more than a little dramatic. The one thing it isn’t is expected.

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