After the loss of her husband, a woman seeks solace with her in-laws. As one by one they transform into deadites, she comes to discover that the vows she took in life survive even in death.
As a child growing up in Dublin, Ireland, throughout the 1970s and 80s, I was thoroughly captivated by horror movies, and the proliferation of VHS releases played a significant role in shaping my adolescence. Some older friends showed a bunch of us younglings the notorious classics such as “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre,” “The Exorcist,” and most notably, Sam Raimi’s “The Evil Dead.” Even if we hadn’t invested in a VCR, I would linger over the covers at the local rental store, transfixed.
I have a distinct memory from age 10 of being equal parts enthralled and terrified by some of the cover artwork, particularly one VHS cover that is still burned into my retinas: the artwork created by Graham Humphreys for the UK and Irish release of “The Evil Dead,” which depicted a female Deadite with white eyes. It remains forever in my mind’s eye.
After the original “Evil Dead,” its subsequent sequels added slapstick to their terror, but the 2013 reboot saw the franchise return to its brutal, terrifying beginnings. With Lee Cronin’s “Evil Dead Rise” and now “Evil Dead Burn,” we’ve entered a phase of pure terror for the franchise, broken only intermittently by flashes of dark humor. But I, personally, vastly prefer this grimmer tone to any earlier flirtations the franchise had with black comedy. I hope this approach continues into the next movie, “Evil Dead Wrath,” which is currently slated for a 2028 release.
“Evil Dead Burn” centers on Alice (Souheila Yacoub), a young French woman living in America, who is having relationship troubles with her volatile nightclub-owner husband, William (George Pullar). After an angry evening of drinking and bickering, William leaves the house to cool down, but promptly strikes a woman in the middle of the road with his car. Trapped in his vehicle after the crash, William finds himself facing off against his female aggressor, who ominously informs him, “We finally found you.” What follows is a fire, with William perishing.
Following his funeral, Alice, along with her husband’s brother Joseph (Hunter Doohan), Joseph’s wife Thya (Luciane Buchanan), and their respective parents, Edgar and Susan (Erroll Shand and Tandi Wright), gather at their family’s country house, which has stood deserted for years. It is planned as a night of comfort and support, but instead, the family faces an onslaught as the father figure, Edgar, begins to lose control and turn violently against the family dog, culminating in his being locked out of the house. Soon, however, Edgar is not the only problem. As the dark envelops the isolated country house, the family’s struggle for survival commences and is far from over.
Each new EVIL DEAD installment since the 2013 remake has, seemingly, raised the ante in terms of pure gore and visceral terror. The 2013 film was particularly lauded for its unrelenting violence and brutal dismemberments, whereas “Evil Dead Rise” raised the bar further, and “Evil Dead Burn” has pushed the level of intensity even further, yet again. As a hardened horror movie watcher for many years, I found myself flinching several times during this movie, which is quite a testament to the filmmakers. In fact, so extreme at points that the violence becomes almost darkly funny to the extent where you are laughing involuntarily.
Sam Raimi’s decision to bring Sébastien Vanicek in as co-writer/director was a result of his experience with his previous film, “Infested.” It tells the story of a deadly spider infestation throughout Paris. Having watched that myself, I found it very clear why Raimi made the choice he did. The actors perform with a believability that holds up well against the onslaught of carnage, and one of the strengths of the series – especially the last two entries – is its unpredictability.
The sheer novelty of a new ensemble each time, with no character continuity, ensures that we can’t guess with any certainty who or what will fall victim to the Deadites. This is the hallmark of effective and truly terrifying horror. When “Halloween” hit screens in 1978, John Carpenter wished the franchise had become a kind of anthology series: a collection of stories of terrifying, unrelated nature. In many ways, producers Sam Raimi, Robert Tapert, and Bruce Campbell, with these more recent installments of their EVIL DEAD franchise, have achieved just that.
With the new stories largely standalone narratives – apart from the recurring Deadites and the cursed Book of the Dead – each new EVIL DEAD installment can build something entirely new before making room for a new vision the next time around. “Evil Dead Burn” will be a sure-fire hit for the franchise’s many fans. It is a vicious, unyielding, and thoroughly engrossing film that grips tightly for its one hour and fifty-minute duration. I’m already looking forward to the next movie, and, in fact, I hope that new EVIL DEAD movies are churned out every few years and provide an opportunity for a fresh take on pure, undiluted horror; and, for once, we will have no idea what’s coming next.
In Theaters Friday, July 10th
10k
20k
1.5k
2.2k