Evil Dead Burn has a vicious mean streak that makes it the bleakest entry yet

Beginning with 2023's Evil Dead Rise, franchise creator Sam Raimi and its initial star, Bruce Campbell, moved to executive producers, allowing each new movie to have a different director. The last film was directed by Lee Cronin, who still maintained some of the campiness, while delivering a gory good time. French director Sébastien Vanicek, who directed the gnarly 2023 spider movie Infested, is the latest director to tackle the Deadites. The result is Evil Dead Burn, a film much grimmer in tone that could have desperately used a dose of humor or two, though it still delivers on the outlandish gore and some impressive camerawork and visuals.

The movie begins with some connective tissue between Rise and Burn, in that the Deadite Jess from Rise, this time played by Greta Van Den Brink, brutally kills two fishermen at a lake. She even boils one alive, and this sets the gruesome tone for what will follow. After that, she causes a car crash, which kicks off the movie in earnest. Her victim is Will (George Pullar), a young man who owns and runs a restaurant with his wife, Alice (Souhelia Yacoub). This brings the family together to mourn Will, and the whole time, Alice feels like an outcast, as the family frequently piles on her.

The Deadites target the family because the deceased grandfather knew the location of a magical dagger that could kill the demons, and he hid it. He was part of a secret cult that tracked and studied the Deadites and knew about the Book of the Dead. The villains want to find the dagger to prevent their own demise, which brings them to the rural and depilated house where the family stays to mourn Will. The other son, Joseph (Hunter Doohan), saved his grandfather's possessions, so it's clear the dagger is somewhere in the house. As a location, the house, in its falling-apart stage, is an apt metaphor for the trauma and issues that plague the family. To call this family dysfunctional would be too mild. We also learn quite early that Will was one abusive asshole towards Alice, and his family won't listen to her or respect her. Yet, it's unclear why, and the victim-blaming is tough to watch.

It doesn't take long for the Deadites to start possessing and picking off the family one by one. It begins with the patriarch, the gravelly-voiced Edgar (Erroll Shand), who already seemed like an abusive dude to begin with. From there, the movie is a punishing ride, with plenty of blood, guts, and gore. Some Evil Dead fans turn to this franchise because it paints the walls red so well, and there's plenty of that here. While it may not be the bloodiest film in the franchise or top 2013's Evil Dead, Vanicek really doesn't hold back. He certainly doesn't play it safe.

However, the film lacks some of the slapstick humor that's present in nearly every one of the movies, including Rise. The movie lacks levity, and it sorely needed at least a little bit of it. There's a running joke about the grandma's dementia, but it gets old rather quickly and also feels pretty mean-spirited. Meanwhile, some of the kills, especially of an animal, just feel a bit too icky for shock factor and nothing more. That said, this movie was made by a French director whose sensibilities and humor are likely different than that of American audiences. Keep that in mind when going into this film.

Additionally, there's not a whole lot of time spent developing these characters, so when the mayhem unfolds and the Deadites go on their usual rampage of possession, murder, and twisted violence, it's tough to care about who dies or who gets possessed. Hardly any of these family members are all that likeable. Heck, they don't even really have a good reason for disliking Alice, especially the matriarch, Susan (Tandi Wright), who acts cold towards Alice for little to no reason and launches one vicious barb after another. That said, Alice's character arc here works. The last few Evil Dead movies have had really great final girls, including Mia (Jane Levy) in the 2013 movie, Beth (Lily Sullivan) in Rise, and now Alice. She transforms from a woman who was trapped in an abusive relationship to a character who eventually kicks ass. The final girls have proven that Evil Dead can still work without Campbell's Ash as the lead.

Further, some of the movie's themes are handled well, including family dysfunction and abuse, though they are heavy-handed. As already stated, the run-down house where most of the film occurs is a good visual metaphor for deeper issues. There's also some great camerawork in this film that harkens back to what Raimi did in the earliest movies, and there's some truly stunning visuals, especially when the motif of fire is used. That said, the final big bad is a cheesy CGI-generated monster that's at odds with the film's practical effects, which have always been a staple of the franchise. It's a major misstep that dulls the ending.

Evil Dead Burn has vicious kills and unrelenting violence. It also has a memorable final girl in Alice and a solid performance in that role by Yacoub. That said, the movie desperately needed a bit more humor to balance its weighty themes and some of its most brutal sequences. This is the bleakest entry thus far that rarely plays it safe.

Make sure to stay for the mid-credits and post-credits scenes.

Evil Dead Burn is now in theaters.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnHby2cxJzs