“Evil Dead Burn” follows up 2013’s “Evil Dead” and 2023’s “Evil Dead Rise” as the non-Bruce Campbell installments for the beloved film franchise. Like those, this film forgoes the slapstick charm of “Evil Dead 2” in favor of holding up the comparatively straight-faced horror of the original “The Evil Dead” as its creative lodestar. Director Sébastien Vaniček delivers hyperviolent chaos that overstays its welcome but offers enough mayhem and carnage to satisfy fans of the franchise.
The lore is consistent with the previous films, in which reading an incantation from the Necronomicon, or Book of the Dead, unleashes demonic chaos agents known as Deadites whose sole purpose is to torment the living in ways horrific and hilarious. In a slight diversion from the previous films, the horrors of this film are let loose not from somebody unknowingly reciting the necessary incantation, but from finding and unwrapping a long hidden artifact, a dagger with the power to destroy the Deadites.
The Prices are a doomed family, not that they know that. “Evil Dead Burn” opens with the family’s youngest son, Joseph (Hunter Doohan), listening to recordings from his grandfather, an eccentric who explored the world for artifacts as part of a secretive cult. In the recording, the grandfather explains he found the Kandarian Dagger and has hidden it in the house, warning that to uncover the dagger will awaken the Deadite menace, who will feel its presence and stop at nothing to recover it. Joseph, of course, finds the dagger and unwraps it, setting a target on his family that will end with unimaginable bloodshed.
We meet the other players in short order, during Joseph’s birthday celebration at a nightclub with his girlfriend, Thya (Luciane Buchanan), his brother Will (George Pullar) and Will’s wife Alice (Souheila Yacoub). After a particularly bruising fight between Will and Alice, Will drunkenly drives off in anger, only to die in a horrible car accident caused by a Deadite.
After the funeral, Alice agrees to spend the night with Will’s exclusionary family – mother Susan (Tandi Wright), father Edgar (Erroll Shand) and the dementia-suffering grandmother Polly (Maude Davey). It doesn’t take long for the presumed dead Will to start torturing the family in search of the lost dagger.
The Deadites are here, and they will tear through everything and everybody until they get what they want.
What follows is the kind of extreme violence that has long defined this franchise, so over the top as to threaten to become cartoony. This movie isn’t just a bad choice for the faint of heart, it’s bad for the normal of heart, people who are generally fine with violent films but may be unprepared for just how sadistic and mean-spirited the mayhem in “Evil Dead Burn” will be.
From the opening scene, these characters are tortured and murdered in ceaselessly creative ways, with Vaniček relishing the gratuitous blood and viscera, basking in it, rubbing the characters’ and the audience’s faces in it.
Nobody is spared from over-the-top misery. Fingers are cut off, faces are smashed into a pulp, skin is peeled off. Some of the most innocent, sympathetic characters get some of the most unhinged deaths, including a family dog who just wants to comfort their troubled owner.
Vaniček establishes a madcap energy early on that seldom lets up, utilizing creative camerawork that harkens back to founding director Sam Raimi’s inventive cinematography in the early films of the franchise, in particular, the camera possessed by a Deadite spirit, flying through the woods and all over the house, visually reflecting the chaos onscreen. Continuing the franchise’s stylistic traditions, cinematographer Philip Lozano’s camera hardly ever stays still, dollying in and out, fast and slow, building tension, as if the characters are under attack not just by the hellish demons, but by the camera itself.
While Vaniček acquits himself well with the horror, he struggles more with the comedy and drama. There are a few fumbling attempts at humor, but the director lacks the internal rhythm to land a punchline as well as he can scare, resulting in jokes that are more awkward than funny.
“Evil Dead Burn” loses steam in the third act, when Vaniček decides the true villain was the domestic violence all along. These attempts at serious domestic abuse themes are incongruent with the Looney Tunes horror hijinks, and feels in poor taste in a way that the cartoony killing of innocent people onscreen does not.
Those who love the “Evil Dead” franchise for the playful comedy of the Campbell sequels may find “Evil Dead Burn” less fun than they would expect. Those looking for grotesque horror, filled with creative mutilations and delirious energy, will, on the other hand, be fully satisfied by this latest installment in one of Hollywood’s most unlikely franchises.
A version of this review was posted at Curt On The Movies.
“Evil Dead Burn” Rated R for strong bloody horror violence and gore, and language. Running Time: 1 hour and 50 minutes. Directed by Sébastien Vaniček. Written by Sébastien Vaniček and Florent Bernard. Starring Souheila Yacoub, Hunter Doohan, Luciane Buchanan, Tandi Wright, Erroll Shand and Maude Davey. Genres: Fantasy, Horror, Mystery.
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