--- name: "Demián Rugna" canonical: "https://film.one/person/demian-rugna" fi1m_id: "demian-rugna" imdb_id: "nm1899608" tmdb_id: 531105 wikidata_id: "Q104765198" roles: ["Director"] born: "13 September 1979" reviewed_on_fi1m: 1 average_as: "director" average_over: 1 updated: "2026-09-30T22:12:54.808023+00:00" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Demián Rugna ## Identity Demián Rugna - **Canonical:** https://film.one/person/demian-rugna - **Type:** Person - **Fi1m ID:** demian-rugna - **IMDb ID:** nm1899608 - **TMDB ID:** 531105 - **Wikidata ID:** Q104765198 - **Same entity:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demi%C3%A1n_Rugna, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q104765198, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1899608/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/531105 Director. Born 13 September 1979 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. ## Details - **Work:** Director - **Born:** 13 September 1979, Buenos Aires, Argentina - **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demi%C3%A1n_Rugna, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q104765198, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1899608/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/531105 ## Streaming the US now - **AMC+:** [*When Evil Lurks*](https://film.one/film/when-evil-lurks.md) (76) For United States; add `?region=XX` for another country. ## Fi1m on Demián Rugna > Demián Rugna makes horror in which the demon is a disease, caught in a field and mishandled by the people who find it. He builds a first hour as well as anyone in the genre; the last half hour still needs work. A demon, in a Demián Rugna film, is something you catch. It gets into a body and festers there for months, and the people who find it are not priests but farmers, who handle it the way farmers handle a sick animal: badly, in a hurry, and with a gun. That is the founding idea of *When Evil Lurks* (2023), and it tells you most of what you need to know about him. He has no interest in the crucifix or the Latin. He wants to know what happens to a village when the thing in the barn is contagious and nobody from the ministry is coming. He came to features slowly. After short horror films in the early 2000s there was *The Last Gateway* (2007), then *Cursed Bastards* (2011), co-directed with Fabián Forte, and *You Don't Know Who You're Talking To* (2016), none of which travelled far. *Terrified* (2017) did, and found him an audience outside Argentina; a segment for the anthology *Satanic Hispanics* (2022) followed. *When Evil Lurks* is his fifth feature and the one his reputation now rests on, and it deserves the weight. What he does well is the set piece that means it. Early in *When Evil Lurks* there is a scene involving a dog that we will not describe, and we watched it with a hand over our mouths, because Rugna neither cuts away nor lingers: his editor Lionel Cornistein holds the shot exactly as long as it takes to understand what has happened, then goes to the faces of the people who saw it. Rugna has said that the audience needs to know he is prepared to do something terrible, and that scene is the proof. After it, no rule he lays down feels safe, and that is the point. The effects are practical, the humour is black, and he will switch from one to the other without warning. He keeps the same small crew around him, with Mariano Suárez shooting, Cornistein cutting, Laura Aguerrebehere on design and Demián Salomón in the cast, and the consistency shows. Salomón, in *When Evil Lurks*, is the brother who keeps his mouth shut and his eyes open, and he is exactly the kind of actor Rugna's films need: someone who has heard the old warnings and half believes them. What he does less well is the ending. *When Evil Lurks* frightened us more than anything we had sat through in years and then loosened, the rules bending when the plot needed them to, a character knowing what he could not have known, a climax hurried through as if Rugna feared we might stop believing. Most reviews have said something similar of him, that strong openings are followed by uneven structure, and on the evidence we have they are right. He can start a horror film as well as anyone alive. If the next one holds its nerve past the ninety-minute mark, we will be telling strangers about it. ## Biography Demián Rugna is an Argentine film director, screenwriter and editor specialising in horror. Born on 13 September 1979 in Haedo, Buenos Aires Province, he graduated in graphic design from the Universidad de Morón in 2003. He began by making short films and directing his first feature, *The Last Gateway*, in 2007. Rugna’s second feature was the 2013 co-directed *Cursed Bastards*. He achieved wider recognition with *Terrified* (2017), which won Best Picture in the horror category at Fantastic Fest, and *When Evil Lurks* (2023), which he wrote and directed. The latter premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and won Best Feature at the Sitges Film Festival. He also directed a segment of *Satanic Hispanics* (2022). *Sources: en.wikipedia.org, imdb.com.* ## On Fi1m (1) - *When Evil Lurks* (2023), Fi1m 76, Writer, Director — [page](https://film.one/film/when-evil-lurks.md) ## Complete filmography (28) Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page. - *Mi mejor escena* (2025), Actor - *When Evil Lurks* (2023), Writer, Director — Fi1m 76, [page](https://film.one/film/when-evil-lurks.md) - *Satanic Hispanics* (2022), Director, Writer - *1 Million Zombies: The Story of Plaga Zombie* (2022), Thanks - *También Lo Vi* (2022), Director - *Welcome to Hell* (2021), Music - *Comando campeón* (2021), as Él mismo · Director, Producer, Editor, Music, Writer - *Limbo: la película* (2018), Editor - *Bruno Motoneta* (2018), Art Department Assistant - *Terrified* (2018), Director, Original Music Composer, Screenplay - *Veredas* (2017), Assistant Director - *You Don't Know Who You're Talking To* (2016), Editor, Writer, Music, Visual Effects, Director - *Alerta: recuento de cadáveres* (2014), Director - *El mate amargo* (2013), Writer, Editor, Director, Producer, Sound - *Cursed Bastards!* (2013), Director, Production Design, Camera Operator, Producer, Editor, Writer - *El balerazo* (2013), Director, Writer, Producer, Editor - *Plaga zombie: zona mutante: revolución tóxica* (2012), Additional Camera - *Deus Irae* (2010), Second Unit, Assistant Director - *Post: La aventura completa* (2010), Camera Operator, Special Guest Director - *The Sinister* (2009), Writer - *They want my eyes* (2009), Writer - *Death Knows Your Name* (2007), Writer - *The Last Gateway* (2007), Editor, Writer, Director - *Nido de Almas* (2005), Director, Writer, Editor, Sound Editor, Producer - *La Última Entrada* (2003), Director, Screenplay - *Tiene Miedo* (2002), Editor, Director, Sound, Writer - *When Evil Lurks 2*, Director, Writer - *Terrified*, Characters ## Gallery - ![Demián Rugna](https://film.one/media/person/4128936/gallery-fd04d9cfefa5.jpg) Demián Rugna — Alex Laney, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/66/Demi%C3%A1n_Rugna_at_TIFF_2023.jpg/1280px-Demi%C3%A1n_Rugna_at_TIFF_2023.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail) - ![Demián Rugna](https://film.one/media/person/4128936/gallery-96902dd3fa0d.jpg) Demián Rugna — Image via TMDB - ![Demián Rugna](https://film.one/media/person/4128936/gallery-496579a4f6d8.jpg) Demián Rugna — Image via TMDB --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/demian-rugna