The latest chapter in the decades’ old Evil Dead franchise might be its nastiest and meanest yet, and while that’s not inherently a bad thing, it does seem to stray further and further away from the franchises early-1980s origins under the direction of Sam Raimi. The first three Evil Dead movies were playful, bordering on silly at times, but they were so creative and full of energy that they became iconic. But with the 2013 soft reboot/sequel, Evil Dead, things got both darkly serious and ultra gory. Again, this seems to run counter to what the first three films did, but at least it did it with style and artistry—a trend that also ran through Evil Dead Rise and the latest, Evil Dead Burn (there at least one more of these bad boys coming, Evil Dead Wrath, set to be directed by The Last Stop in Yuma County helmer Francis Galluppi).
While it may seem that each of these newer chapters brings in a whole new round of characters, some of the story elements carry on from movie to movie, namely that each of these films has one of the three known Books of the Dead. When text is spoken from the books, demons from hell start taking over the bodies of humans, starting with the most vulnerable, either physically or mentally. Evil Dead Burn actually opens with the return of Evil Dead Rise character Jessica (Greta Van Den Bring, the stunt double of the actress who played her in the last film) rising out of a lake, killing two fishermen in the process, and walking onto a nearby road to deliberately get hit by a car being driven by Will (George Pullar), a club/restaurant owner who has just gotten in a massive fight with wife Alice (Souheila Yacoub) and driven off in a rage.
While Will lays dying in his crashed car, the demon inside Jessica moves into his burned body, which is quite deliberate because it eventually wants to infect his family. It turns out Will’s dead grandfather was a scholar on the Book of the Dead and possessed the only weapon that can actually kill one of the so-called Deadites. No one knows where this dagger is, but the Deadite is determined to use the family to do just that. And it’s that destroy-and-search mission that makes up the rest of the movie, although it helps to know that this family is a mess from top to bottom. It turns out Will abused Alice regularly, and his family knew about it and did nothing. His younger brother Joseph (Hunter Doohan) is a coward and unmotivated, although he is in the middle of writing a book about their grandfather and his dark research, which includes a familiar-looking reel-to-reel tape recorder.
Joseph’s girlfriend, Thya (Luciane Buchanan) is one of the only nice people in the group, while his mother and father (Tandi Wright and Erroll Shand) are two of the most spiteful, horrible characters in the film that aren’t born in hell. Like other recent elevated horror works, Evil Dead Burn is partly a family drama in the guise of a horror movie, but once the killings start, most of the more psychological aspects of the story go right out the window, which is a shame because there’s so much to explore within these maniacs. In full old-lady makeup Maude Davey played the family matriarch and widow to the man exploring these evil texts in his attic. As the story goes on, body parts begin to fly, faces get squished, and almost everyone turns into a Deadite, with Alice emerging as the hero determined to find the dagger and kill these undead fools.
The pacing is often relentless, and when there is a break in the action, it’s usually just a couple of minutes to give the Deadites time to fortify and think of grosser ways to torture and mutilate in their search for the dagger. The terrific French filmmaker Sébastien Vanicek (Infested) has taken over the reigns from Lee Cronin (Evil Dead Rise, and still a producer here) and shows he’s an accomplished and creative filmmaker, with wild camera movements and even wilder kills (the dishwasher full of sharp objects all pointed up will haunt me until the day I die). But so much of what made these movies fun is simply gone because those in charge decided to change up the tone and make these movies about torment. Admittedly, they do this quite well, with the actors also going some brutally physical work as they fight a losing battle against Deadites.
The film is now playing in theaters.
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