Drafthouse Films Assures You: 'Everyone Will Burn'!
Less of a spoiler than a promise
In rural Spain, a suicidal woman encounters a dirty and disheveled little girl just before she plans on jumping off a bridge to her her death. Her maternal instincts override her suicidal urges as she drives off with the girl to get her help. They are immediately stopped by local police, who are summarily murdered by the little girl, who, by the way, has telekinetic powers. Then the credits start. This is the first scene of Drafthouse Films’ new release “Everyone Will Burn.”
The woman, Maria Jose (Macarena Gomez), has been mourning her son for who committed suicide after years of being bullied. The little girl, Lucia (Sofia Garcia) is as dangerous as she is mysterious, but she imprints on Maria Jose, referring to her as her mother. While this rightfully scares the bejesus out of Maria Jose, she still develops a bond with Lucia. Her ex-husband (Rodolfo Sancho) is having a baby with his new partner and the town’s inhabitants have ostracized Maria Jose, even when her son was alive. Of course, they believe Lucia is the key to an apocalyptic prophecy, and must be killed, but that doesn’t stop Maria Jose from gaining a new lease on life.
The town’s religious fanatics. Don’t worry, they’ll all certainly live through this.
Yes, it’s a lot. Director David Hebrero has been working on short films for almost a decade, and the opening feels like one that he and co-writer Javier Kiran extrapolated into a feature. It expands almost too much, writing a check that the rest of the film races to cash. It’s an incredible bit of table setting that’s fleshed out like the party at the end of “Society.” There are a TON of characters to keep track of, as the film shifts gears from creepy kid horror, to folk horror, revenge horror, and even a siege film. Joe Bob Briggs will have Drive-In totals to spare. Enduring the tonal whiplash is Gomez, who plays Maria Jose with a mix of curiosity and hysteria. You feel the potency of her pain and rage in every scene she’s in, even as she hilariously tries to parent a demon (“I’m a little rusty” she admits to Lucia early on). Though mostly silent, Lucia has a few secrets of her own, hidden behind Garcia’s piercing eyes. She has one of the freakiest stares in horror.
Lucia (Garcia) suggesting you don’t make her mad.
As dark as all this may sound, the film is occasionally funny. There’s some “Evil Dead” style camerawork courtesy of Hebrero and Ona Isart. With a premise as elastic as Hebrero’s, “Everyone Will Burn” could be a dark Ari Aster-like meditation on grief or a slapstick horror comedy about the challenges of single motherhood. It manages to land, strangely, somewhere in the middle. This is only Hebrero’s second full-length film, and while he has style to spare, one can’t help but wonder how much better it would be after 2 or 3 more features under his belt. Yet, it’s no small feat to make us root for the end of the world, especially one with neighbors like Maria Jose’s.
“Everyone Will Burn” is now playing in New York, Los Angeles, and Austin. It is available on Digital December 5th. For more info, check out Drafthouse Films.
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