One of the notable things about the original Evil Dead series is the fact that its three equally beloved instalments are all very different movies. The Evil Dead is almost the Ur-example of a very violent, very low-budget horror movie which is executed with such talent that its limitations feel like strengths. Evil Dead II is a slapstick carnival of special effects which still manages to feel quite scary at times. Army of Darkness is a goofy shotgun-and-sorcery adventure movie. They’re all great; but if you are trying to make a successor film to the trilogy, the natural question is: well, what kind of film will it be?

The directors of 2013’s Evil Dead and 2022’s Evil Dead Rise answered this by making straight horror movies in the vein of Raimi’s debut. The effects were a lot glossier of course, but there wasn’t really any humour except for that which comes naturally from such an over-the-top quantity of violence. Fede Alvarez, who directed the 2013 movie, has established himself as a reliable hand for very competent, if overly cautious retreads of venerable horror properties – see 2024’s Alien: Romulus. Evil Dead Burn, by French director Sebastian Vanicek, doesn’t take things in a drastically new direction, but it’s not a carbon copy either.

Like the last two movies, Evil Dead Burn leaps straight into the violence. The young woman who was possessed at the end of Evil Dead Rise emerges from a lake, slaughters two young fishermen, and then walks out onto the road, where she is hit by a car driven by a drunk and emotional Will (George Pullar), who subsequently burns to death in the wreck. We then flash back and see Will and his partner Alice (Souheila Yacoub), out for birthday drinks with his nebbish brother. It turns out Will was a pretty unpleasant character in life – a violent, abusive bully. At the funeral, Alice is welcomed by Will’s mother (Tandi Wright) – but when they gather at the decayed family manor in the evening, it soon becomes apparent that she and her repulsive husband (Errol Shand) blame her for their son’s death. And while all of this goes on, the forces of evil are descending upon the family.

One of the elements that does set this movie somewhat apart from type is that it takes its time to develop this nasty family dynamic. It’s hardly a slow-burn, but there’s also more character development than you’d expect from an Evil Dead movie. The tension in an early dinner scene is so palpable that it’s almost a relief when it’s brought to a premature close by the destruction of a family pet. The performances are all good; Yacoub is engaging and sympathetic as Alice. And the film does have a mordant sense of humour that the last two movies were lacking.

When things do kick off, once the demons arrive and start possessing members of the family – well, it’s all good stuff. The gore effects are great, and the action scenes have an amount of slapstick which is entertaining without compromising the generally bleak tone. The film plays well on that universal experience of desperately needing to escape from an unbearable family situation. It’s a common trope in Evil Dead films for someone to be tormented by the sight of their loved one possessed – but Evil Dead Burn inverts it nicely by placing its protagonist in a situation where she hated the people around her even before they became literal monsters.

For me, Evil Dead Burn flew by until around the 80-minute mark, when there is a lull in the action before the climax, and with it a significant loss of tension. All of the catharsis in the film comes from watching Alice massacre her in-laws. After that, it’s hard to summon much of an emotional payoff. Still, Vanicek shows that he knows how to stage some genuine mayhem. And probably most importantly, Evil Dead Burn does stave off the sense that the franchise is only treading water. Now that the remakes have their own trilogy, however, it might be a good time for a change in tack.

 

Evil Dead Burn opened yesterday in cinemas.