A tragedy brings a family together before Deadites and their own history tear them apart, literally in Sebastien Vanicek’s gorgeously nasty Evil Dead Burn.
TW: Violence against animals.
As I started the review for the recent Arrow release of the previous Evil Dead film, Evil Dead Rise, it’s astounding that after so many entries: 6 films and a TV show (that I have since seen and loved), Evil Dead remains a series with nothing but absolute bangers. As the number there would suggest, Evil Dead Burn, the sixth film in the forty-five-year franchise, keeps up the unbelievable track record. Sebastien Vanicek’s Evil Dead Burn, co-written with Florent Bernard, is a different sort of Evil Dead, but Evil Dead through and through. It may be a sequel to Evil Dead Rise, Evil Dead Burn is more in spirit with the 2013 Evil Dead by Fede Alvarez: it has a nasty, cruelity running through with an often humorless, at least not in the Campbell-fueled comedy, specificity of violence against anyone and anything.
But what Evil Dead isn’t different than the rest? That’s a strength of the franchise: The Evil Dead, Dead By Dawn, Army of Darkness, Evil Dead 2013, Ash Vs the Evil Dead, Evil Dead Rise, and Evil Dead Burn all have different tones, styles, and sensibilities, but fall under the same wide umbrella that says to any viewer: yeah, this is Evil Dead yet doens’t feel like a cheap copy of 1981. French director Vanicek shows incredible skill in building a character-driven but sufficiently nasty New French Extremism in 2023’s spider flick Infested (also co-written with Bernard). That’s the spirit he brings to Burn, a gorgeously shot spectacle with a solid character base(but not too much to distract) of sadness, grief, and abuse to build unrelenting horror upon.
The basis for the carnage this time is a family and their storied history, a more dramatic setup, again akin to the addiction of 2013 and the family history of Rise. An act of violence from a Rise Deadite forces a cracked family to regroup in a nearly abandoned mansion (fantastic production design), only used by Joe, the cowering younger brother of hot-head Will, following up on their dead grandfather’s research on Kandarian demons and a lore-expanding group. Also coming home are the asshole dad Edgar, cold and spiteful mom Susan, and her mother Polly, whose dementia is used for laugh buttons (maybe a few times too often). In the center is Will’s French wife, Alice, who no one likes but Joe, working on the rift within. Rounding out is Thya, Joe’s girlfriend. The setting of pieces is awkwardly handled at times, with the scripting of specific lines and movements not quite flowing, but it plays strongly once the film truly gets moving, so it’s all good, with some fun in seeing the wide variety of Chekov’s [insert sharp thing there] for use later. And they ALL get used.
The cast is wonderful before and during Deadites (no surprise, since One By One We Will Take You is a motif across the films). As Alice, Souheila Yacoub of The Balconettes is a strong heroine. Hunter Doohan’s Joe, best known from Wednesday, plays well against her and the family. Good to see Erroll Shand from Marama as another nasty piece of person, and Tandi Wright plays the mother with a hissable Alice Krige energy. Kudos to Maude Davey’s grandma working under a layer of make-up long before possession inevitability comes with a delightful sense of comic timing and movement.
Evil Dead Burn is a mean tear of movie. There’s the underlying horror that this is a family of abuse (lines like “look what you made me do” are never said only once in real life), made nastier with the supernatural influence of Deadites and the way they work. A specific scene where this comes home led to moments of shocked silence in what was normally a very reactive crowd at the screening. The oohs, ughs, and screams were wonderful punchlines to the depravity, yet oddly quiet (but just as edge-of-the-seat). This family-born nastiness pervades as they rip into one another emotionally (allowing a different sort of Deadite needling), mentally, and physically.
And by Ash’s chainsaw hand, do they! Evil Dead Burn delivers on all gory expecations. Blood flows from and into every orifice. Everyone and everything is ripped and torn with a brutal nastiness. Vanicek has an amazing sense of crafting effective and powerful possession and attack sequences. The car scene! Mwha. (double kudos to Maxime Caro’s editing here.) A dinner scene! Dishwasher! (take my vague!) Evil Dead Burn is 20 minutes longer than any previous edition (save the TV show), and it’s used incredibly well. Once going, it’s an unrelenting onslaught. However, in keeping the nature of the story, Vanicek and Bernard keep the deadites oddly grounded (again, not too far from 2013), avoiding the HOLY SHIT largess of where some of the entries go (so don’t expect 3-headed Ellie Monster in a Woodchipper) or blood geysers, keeping it darker and more painful.
Said gore is a mix of incredible practical effects with mostly solid, if not too noticeable, CG additions. The two mix well for the flesh-ripping gore; he loves to take us into the torn bodies for visceral appeal. In the effects and outwardly, Vanicek makes a damned good-looking film to watch and wince with. Some truly gorgeous shots: a person standing on a bed, shadows in front of fire (the title is true, so much burning and fire effects), the whole has a gauzy haze of the diseased family across, pushed along with smoke and snow. Additionally, Vanicek and DP Philip Lozano love the roving one-shot sequences, with plenty of highly impressive designed sequences.
I can’t wait for the next entry, with a 1972-set Evil Dead Wrath already wrapped and others ready to get moving. Evil Dead is going strong, and aspects of this film, setting up something bigger but not overdoing it, allow for an expansion of the story. But for now, Evil Dead Burn, directed by Sebastien Vanicek, continues the franchise tradition of twisting and turning the Evil Dead expectations in a brutal and destructive frenzy of furious frights, mixed with a (slightly less than normal) level of humor, more reveling in the horrific. Light the fire under your feet, read the Latin, and JOIN US in Evil Dead Burn.