Never Trust the In-Laws

Generally speaking you want a film series to stick to a specific style and tone. I’ll complain when a film series goes way off the reservation, like when Freddy gets too funny in any one of the later Nightmare on Elm StreetThe brain-child of director Wes Craven, A Nightmare on Elm Street was his answer to the glut of Slasher films that were populating the multiplex. His movie featured an immortal character, Freedy, with a powerset like none other, reshaping the expectations for Slasher movies to come. films, or when ScreamWhat started as a meta-commentary on slasher media became just another slasher series in its own right, the Scream series then reinvented itself as a meta-commentary on meta-commentary. functionally loses the plot in Scream 7. Hell, one of the worst examples are the Rob Zombie directed films from the HalloweenThe franchise that both set the standard for Slasher horror and, at the same time, defied every convention it created, Halloween has seen multiple time lines and reboots in its history, but one thing has remained: Michael Myers, the Shape that stalks Haddonfield. series, both of which traded mounting dread and finely tuned scares for over-the-top violence and gore. A series, even a horror series, has to know how to stay within its own lane.

And yet, despite this, I’ve never had an issue with the Evil DeadStarted as a horror cheapie to get the foot in the door for three aspiring filmmakers -- Raimi, Tappert, and Campbell -- Evil Dead grew to have a life of its own, as well as launching the "splatstick" genre of horror-comedy. series wandering way off the reservation, largely because this was never a film series that felt like it even knew what it had to be. The films started off as splatter horror with The Evil Dead before slowly morphing into horror comedy with Evil Dead II and the fantasy comedy for Army of Darkness. It then wavered back and forth between true torture horror in 2013’s Evil Dead and comedy for the television series Ash vs. Evil Dead. What the films proved was that the movies could be anything and so long as you put deadites in the film it counted.

For me, the truest distillation of this came with 2023’s Evil Dead Rise, a movie that somehow managed to tap into both aspects of the series, the horror and the horror comedy, in equal measure. It was a film that showed us how a modern Evil Dead film could work, with writer / director Lee Cronin finding that perfect mix to make one of the best films in the series to date (if only he could have done the same with his Mummy movie). And now we have Evil Dead Burn, the sixth filmic entry in the series and the question that comes is what kind of Evil Dead will this be? Horror, comedy, or horror comedy? Anything can happen in this series, so it’s hard to know until the film begins to roll.

As it turns out, this film very much leans towards the horror side of the equation. This comes early as a couple of fishermen are caught out on a lake by a deadite girl who then goes about slaughtering them in gory fashion. We then cut from her to club-owner William Price (George Pullar). It’s his brother’s birthday and they’re celebrating at his restaurant-slash-club. His brother, Joseph (Hunter Doohan), is an aspiring writer so for his birthday WIlliam buys him a very expensive pen. But William’s French wife, Alice (Souheila Yacoub), also gets Joseph a very nice photo of Joseph and his wife, Thya (Luciane Buchanan). This sets William off, as he didn’t realize they were doing two presents, and he ends up drunkenly fighting with Alice before driving off.

Bad call, as it turns out, as the deadite girl from earlier throws herself into the road as William drives past. He crashes into her before rolling his car, and then she (despite being beheaded) says a demonic incantation that sets his car on fire, burning him within. The family gathers for his (closed casket) funeral, but after his father, Edgar (Erroll Shand), visits the body. Thumping within the casket causes Edgar to smash it open, and then William is able to infect his dad with the deadite curse. And then slowly, one by one, the family gets picked off and infected, all so the deadites can track back to Joseph’s house and find a special treasure he’s been hiding all along…

The Evil Dead films have always had a loose canon. From the second movie onwards, the films have had no issue retconning and rebooting any parts of the continuity they needed to. That’s how we can get multiple books of the dead floating around, different deadites with a host of powers, and no real worry about how any of this fits together because, well, who cares? Even with a couple of cameos in this film that hint are broader connections for the series, Evil Dead Burn takes the basic formula of the franchise – someone reads from the book of the dead and then deadites attack – to tell its own story its own way.

In fact, this is the first film in the series where the book itself doesn’t appear. We get someone’s notebook with scribbles and details about the book of the dead, but the actual incantations come from tape recordings (like in the very first film) without any book in sight. The deadites also aren’t concerned with getting the book (as they have been in many previous films). Instead they’re searching for a dagger that Joseph’s grandfather discovered as it has the power to release the possessed from the clutches of the deadites. It’s a twist to the formula that adds in some new wrinkles, but it’s clear this was done so that Evil Dead Burn could tell its own story.

And what we get is a very Evil Dead story at its core. Deadites attack people at a farmhouse out in the middle of nowhere, and then there’s a little over an hour of monsters, torture, gore, and screams. The deadites this time are pretty wretched, with the film going almost as hard on the violence as Evil Dead 2013 did. But it also lets the deadites play around with fire this time (thus the “Burn” in the title), which leads to melting, tearing, and mutilation of flesh. Evil Dead Burn is a very disgusting film, one that seemingly wants to take the crown away from the original movie when it comes to splatter and gore.

I think it works. Honestly, when you go into an Evil Dead film you aren’t expecting a ton of plot. We get some basic nods towards the family dynamics among the characters, how abusive William was, which he likely inherited from his father, and how his mother frequently turned a blind eye to it. That same abusive family dynamic turned Joseph into a coward (which gets him and his wife in trouble more than once). And all of this is dumped on Alice, the widow, who hated her dead husband and wishes she didn’t have to be near any of this, even before the deadites show up. It’s simple but effective storytelling, giving us just enough shading to understand the characters so that they don’t just feel like fodder… even though they’re really little more than fodder.

And then when the action starts up it never really stops. We get plenty of hallmarks of the Evil Dead series here, from a possessed girl getting locked in the basement of the house, to a new twist on the chainsaw weapon. The film is at its best when it simply lets the deadites terrorize the family and rip through them one by one. When you come to an Evil Dead film all you really want or need is deadites coming around and killing people, a simple and effective story that continues to work after all these many iterations.

Its nods towards a greater storyline for the series, though, aren’t quite as strong. The film adds in a new secret society studying the book of the dead, which in turn stacks more mythologizing into the series. Considering the cameos we get in this film, we have to assume some loose continuity between Evil Dead Burn and Evil Dead Rise, and maybe even Evil Dead 2013, which then means we have three different deadite cults, three different books (or more), and a magical dagger all floating around, all of which may play a factor in any of the future films that come around. For a series that has prided itself on not caring about continuity, these nods towards something bigger actually feels inessential. Is it fun to see the cameos? Sure. Do I care if a bigger plotline happens for these films? Not in the slightest.

Evil Dead Burn works best when it stops caring about being more than just a “monsters at a cabin” thriller. When it lets the deadites roam, torturing and slaughtering as they do best, the film is rip roaring (pun intended) fun. We don’t need more than that from an Evil Dead work, and the best films in the franchise have realized that. Evil Dead Burn is pretty great as an Evil Dead movie, but I find myself less excited at the idea of what could come next from it. I don’t need a next step; I just need more deadites. The series never seems to tire of throwing demons at people, and it’s a formula that works. Change the setting, change the characters, and we have a repeatable series that can just keep doing its thing.

Evil Dead Burn is a potent entry in the franchise, but not really its best. Fans of the series will probably want a little more comedy with their horror than this film provides. Regular viewers won’t care about the nods to the greater continuity (if there even is going to be one). And the rest of us just want solid deadite action. Evil Dead Burn provides a fair bit of that, so it’s not a bad entry in the franchise. But something about it, ironically, left me feeling just a little cold.