EXCLUSIVE: ‘When Evil Lurks’ Director Demian Rugna Developing Vampire Horror Movie ‘Felix,’ Inspired by ‘Fright Night’ and ‘The Lost Boys’
After terrifying the entire world with last year’s When Evil Lurks, which I gave four stars straight out of its shocking TIFF Midnight Madness world premiere, Argentine filmmaker Demian Rugna is set to return with something completely different. Last month, we landed the exclusive first update and its full premise out of the Cannes 2025 international market. Read all of the grisly details below.
Currently in development with Buenos Aires–based production, financing, and sales label FilmSharks, Rugna’s upcoming project, FELIX: A Complex Puzzle, is set to shake up the horror landscape in a whole new way. This time, it’s with a heavy dose of blood, absurdity, and fangs.
The project is said to contain the humor-and-genre combo punch of recent horror-comedy classic Zombieland. Its script concerns a legendary ancient vampire who wakes up in a morgue after a night of debauchery to find his vital organs have been harvested and donated nationwide. With no memory of how he got there and an unlit cigarette between his lips, he quickly discovers the truth. If he wants to survive, he’ll have to hunt down every person who received a piece of him and fast to reassemble his body as a complex puzzle.
In his own words, Rugna describes FELIX as:
“…a super fun spooky comedy in the vampire world that plays a lot with horror and dark comedy. It features endearing characters and draws a lot of influence from films like Fright Night and Lost Boys. It explores my very peculiar comedy style without losing my genre director signature, as in every project.”
Part horror, part fantasy, part gonzo comedy, FELIX will likely also draw comparisons to cult hits like Shaun of the Dead and Little Monsters. But make no mistake, this still sounds like pure, original Demian Rugna chaos. The film follows Omin, a hard-partying vampire playboy and leader of the notorious “Blood-Suckers” clan. After falling into a river during a wild yacht bender, Omin is presumed dead and sent to the morgue, where doctors mistakenly harvest all his organs, including a lung.
Waking up the next morning, disoriented and dismembered, Omin rallies vampire bounty hunters from across the globe—from Romania to Indigenous American clans—to track down his missing body parts. Meanwhile, in the Big City, we meet Felix, a hypochondriac night tour guide, unknowingly about to become part of the bloody puzzle.
Rugna, whose filmography includes Terrified, When Evil Lurks, and Dread’s Satanic Hispanics, continues to prove he’s not just one of Latin America’s boldest horror voices but one of the most exciting genre filmmakers in the world. And it sounds like he intends to twist genre tropes in a very different way this time.
The film is being shepherded by producer Guido Rud, CEO of FilmSharks, who Variety has described as “a force in the crossover world of Latin American and Hollywood cinema.” Rud’s previous 35 credits include No Dormirás (released by 20th Century Studios) and Ferocious Wolf (Netflix).
“The script is complete,” Rud tells me of the film’s current development. “It’s a vampire comedy, and the script is masterful. It’s got fresh takes on themes like masculinity and excess. And elements of a road trip movie. It’ll be a masterpiece.”
With FELIX: A Complex Puzzle, Rugna looks to be trading his signature relentless dread for outrageous fantasy, while keeping the blood flowing and his knack for vicious social bite intact. Stay tuned as Dread Central continues coverage on this bizarre and brilliant new horror experience straight from the Cannes 2025 market floor.
Categorized: News
