Evil Dead Burn Review

The Evil Dead series has returned with its sixth entry, and it’s the nastiest film in the series so far.

Alice (Souheila Yacoub) is a recently widowed woman who is forced to spend time with her in-laws after her husband’s funeral. The tense atmosphere is made worse when the Prices start to become Deadites, and Alice has to fight for survival.

The Evil Dead series had a hell of a comeback with Evil Dead Rise. It was a film that bumped up from a straight-to-streaming film to a theatrical release, and it was rewarded with positive reviews and a healthy box office return. Evil Dead Rise had a more serious tone than the original trilogy, whilst also having plenty of violent catharsis. The climax involved a woman wielding a chainsaw and using a wood chipper to kill a monster. Evil Dead Burn attempted to double down on what made Evil Dead Rise work.

Like Evil Dead Rise, Evil Dead Burn plucked an emerging European filmmaker to direct. This time, it was Frenchman Sébastien Vaniček who made his second feature film. This entry was even darker and more serious than the previous entry. Tonally, Evil Dead Burn was closest to the 2013 remake, which was also a dark and gross interpretation of the Evil Dead universe.

From a thematic standpoint, Evil Dead Burn was one of the stronger films in the series. Alice was the victim of domestic abuse, and she was stuck with a toxic family. Alice’s mother-in-law, Susan (Tandi Wright), blamed the Frenchwoman for her son’s death. The family patriarch, Edgar (Erroll Shand), was a bully to his younger son, Joseph (Hunter Doohan). Joseph was kinder to Alice, but he was a coward because he was mentally beaten by his father. Alice wasn’t just fighting the living dead; she was also trying to reclaim her independence.

Alice was someone audiences could root for, considering what she had been through. Even before the supernatural monsters arrived, Alice was stuck in a nightmare situation. She had to put on a brave face, and her basic politeness was thrown back at her. Evil Dead Burn went for the slasher idea of making characters as unpleasant as possible so the audience could cheer on their violent deaths. It stands in contrast to Evil Dead Rise, which made the Bixler family sympathetic, making the film a tragedy.

Evil Dead Burn was the goriest film in the series, which was a massive achievement considering the series’ history. The moment that made me wince involved an expensive fountain pen. Like the 2013 film, Evil Dead Burn emphasised the grossness of bodily decay and had disgusting moments, such as one character who came back from a car crash. Despite the goriness, Evil Dead Burn wasn’t as stomach-churning as The Substance.

Vaniček crafted some excellent scenes. The trailer emphasised the moment Alice desperately tried to crawl away from the Deadites, and it was an excellent scene. A fantastic scene was the dinner sequence, where all the family tensions were boiling over. There were a lot of moving parts, which Vaniček and his editor were able to manage with skill. The Evil Dead series has been a great pipeline for directors: Sam Raimi became one of the most successful directors in Hollywood; Fede Álvarez went on to make Don’t Breathe and Alien: Romulus; and Lee Cronin recently released his version of The Mummy.

Whilst Evil Dead Burn was a grim film, it did have some moments of humour. The humour felt out of place and was in poor taste. An early joke involved a crematorium worker listening to rap music just before burning a body, which felt unnecessary. This was a film that used a character with dementia for some jokes, which I felt was distasteful considering my personal experience. The Evil Dead films have done comedy really well, particularly with Evil Dead II and Army of Darkness. Army of Darkness was the silliest film in the series, and it was my favourite.

Evil Dead Burn had some interesting ideas that used a toxic family as the backdrop for the horror and a central character that audiences want to see win. But Evil Dead Burn was nasty and mean, which will make it one of the divisive films in the series.

A MILD SPOILER WARNING: Evil Dead Burn ended with a post-credit scene, and it was mean-spirited, even by that film’s standards.