Evil Dead Burn
Who knew there were so many ways to be burned, but Evil Dead Burn makes sure to incorporate a variety of ways. If being chased by deadites isn’t enough, Alice also has to deal with her in-laws, who are crazy but, once they turn, become deadly.
Evil Dead Burn follows Alice, who is stuck with her in-laws after her husband dies. What the family doesn’t know is that Will was killed by a deadite and the Kandarian curse was passed to him, and now his dad slowly infects the family as they are on the hunt for a dagger that can stop them. Alice must fight back and figure out how to stop them.
Evil Dead Burn is a horror film with a tiny bit of comedy. It stars Souheila Yacoub, Tandi Wright, and Hunter Doohan, and is directed by Sebastian Vanicek. It has similar vibes to any of the Evil Dead films for obvious reasons, Fear Street 1978 due to it also dealing with a curse that causes many deaths, or maybe even Alien: Romulus because they also stumbled upon something they knew nothing about and try to survive it. Like Ready or Not because a woman is dealing with her crazy in-laws, and it’s a fight to the death for her to survive, and not to mention it ends with both smoking a cigarette.
Evil Dead movies always seem to open with some scene that really sets the tone. The opening picks up from Evil Dead Rise, where they are at the lake, and the girl from that movie makes an appearance and makes the lake boil and burns two men alive. It’s crazy because I thought the deaths would be chill, but not at all. To put the nail in the coffin, she steps on one’s hand, and the skin just slips right off, which just reminds you this ain’t for the ones with weak stomachs.
Will and Joseph’s grandma is funny in this movie as she suffers from dementia and is giving the family hell. Her dementia led to her repeatedly saying that Thya was trying to steal from her, which eventually leads to deadite Thya getting out by using that against her. In the end, she gets out and keeps the curse alive by infecting someone else.
The entire stepfamily sucks in this movie. Will is Alice’s husband, and he was abusive and clearly had anger problems, which gets him killed. His brother Joseph is nice to Alice, but he is weak when it comes to standing up to his family; hell, he doesn’t even stop his dad from killing his girlfriend. So I knew the nice guy routine only got him so far, and he was a wimp and was not going to survive. Their mom, Susan, is the mother-in-law from hell who is just so rude to Alice because she doesn’t fit her standards. Susan was also aware that Will was abusive and chose to do nothing about it. Then there’s Edgar, who is very standoffish in the beginning of the movie, and he’s the first to get turned into a deadite, and he seems to hate his family, especially his son. It felt like the family in this film was the opposite of the family from Evil Dead Rise. Like in the last film, it really seemed like the family was trying to come together before the madness, and the attacks made them want to stay close to each other. However, this family is so broken that they can’t even work together to help figure out how to stop this. In Evil Dead Rise, the Deadites try to lure the youngest daughter, and the family comes in and saves her. This film has a similar moment, but the mom decides to give in and welcomes becoming a deadite because she is with her family. Location wise is different too: city vs rural area. It’s just interesting to see how the film feels like it flips so much from the last film.
One question I have had after watching the last film was if there was any way to stop this, and while I was really expecting an answer, I'm glad we do. There is a Dagger called the Kandarian dagger that can help stop them, but they are also drawn to it. The deadites are looking for it in this film, and the only person who knows where it is is Joseph. In the end, Alice finds it and uses it, which I must say I wondered if she could’ve saved Joseph if she stabbed him in a less lethal place on his body. Something that stood out was a callback to Evil Dead 2 when she’s trying to find the dagger because there’s a replica of the dagger from that film that she thinks is the correct dagger, but it is not. It seems that there are multiple daggers and that one could still be real, but it’s not the one that the grandfather acquired.
I feel like in every Evil Dead someone reads that god-forsaken passage from the book of the dead and all hell breaks loose. It’s great that in this film Alice starts and then says, " Nope, we are not going to do that. It’s about time that someone had some common sense.
The movie is called Evil Dead Burn, and they make sure to incorporate that Burn aspect as much as they can. One of the more important tie-backs was the burn that Alice has from Will burning her during a fight, which showed the domestic abuse and how he was not a good person. It’s a small thing, but I felt it was important how there was so much around heat or burning that was woven into the story that tied back to the title.
In the end, Alice sees a vision of Will, and he’s asking for her forgiveness as she stabs him with the Kandarian dagger. I love how she declines this because he was an abuser and he does not deserve her forgiveness; he actually deserves to rot in hell. Alice had been through hell, and it was finally time for her to have a break from that family.
This film made me interested to revisit the franchise. I saw people remarking on how gory it was, and I was curious about when that became the norm for the franchise. The blood has always been there, but it was more comical, and then with the 2013 reboot by Fede Alvarez, they made it more horrifying, but it works. In this film, they continue the gross, jaw-dropping moments that will make you question if you want to throw up, but you’ll keep it together because there’s so much more to see. The fingers scene stands out as an example in this movie, but there’s much more, like the impaling on the dishwasher, or the car seat head rammed into Thya’s head. Even with the violent scenes, some gross ones aren’t violent, like Thya licking the dentures and giving them to grandma, Susan kissing Edgar, or Edgar smashing Joseph's face into Thya’s disfigured one.
The chainsaw is a mainstay in the Evil Dead franchise, which they hint at in this film, but it ends up not getting used. It’s a nice detail that the lawn trimmer gets hinted at a couple of times, and it still comes into play as the main weapon of choice. It’s great to see the chainsaw, but allow this family to use another shed appliance to get rid of the deadites. It’s nice that they still make sure to call back to the long history of this franchise.
There are a lot of horrifying kills, but one that caught me off guard was the dog stabbed by Edgar. It was so violent, and I just wasn’t expecting a dog to be killed like that. It comes back eventually as a deadite, which was scary.
The film does some cool stuff with its camera work. They play around with angles, like one of my favorites when Alice is being hung from the ceiling, and the camera follows Susan drag her up the wall as she does it. Some flying drone shots help give a layout of the land and how removed from society they are. In some more tense moments, some close-up shots show how tense the scene is, whether that be in the house or in the car. One scene that was released early on shows Alice trying to escape while Edgar is tossing Susan and Joseph around in the background. This scene stood out to me because it chose to focus on her while showing the chaotic background and how they weren’t going to make it out alive. It’s just cool to see the film really taking a moment to film this way that makes the scenes stand out.
The film has some great transitions, some just cool to see while others were transitions that I never expected to see. The one that comes to mind is Will hitting the deadite and us jumping straight into some booty shaking at a club. It’s completely unexpected, especially since this is a horror film and not a comedy. Most of the other ones are more just some cool transitions that make you think about how sometimes going from one scene to another can stand out in this film.
Deadites love to have a little fun. This is one of the highlights of the Evil Dead franchise because while the non-infected are terrified, the deadites will be having a damn party. It starts early with Edgar, who is first infected, and Susan says Will is looking down on them, and Edgar is Shocked and says, “ Down? He’s looking up”. He wanted to make sure they knew his son was a loser and definitely burning in hell. Don’t let the comedy fool you, though, because once they get you in a fight, be prepared to get tossed around like a rag doll.
Evil Dead Burn proves that the franchise still has more to give. It brings the high-intensity scenes that are just so violent and gory with a cast that really elevates the stressful moments. By the end, you may be thankful that you don’t have in-laws like this.
