Evil Dead Burn review: A gory sequel caught between horror and camp

The Evil Dead franchise operates between two poles: slapstick humor and horror. There are the original movies, containing scenes like a possessed dead hand in pursuit of its owner. There are also the new films, which have taken a sharp pivot toward toe-curling gore with added emotional stakes. Sébastien Vaniček sets a high bar for himself with Evil Dead Burn, trying to blend all of the elements we know and love from the franchise. He ultimately bites off more than he can chew.

In 2023,Evil Dead Risetransferred us from the remote cabins typical of the franchise to a small apartment, following a family in the aftermath of an earthquake. It’s a movie that matches the tone of the 2013 remake: gory and terrifying but also dramatic, imbuing the franchise with gravitas and setting it apart from the gore-filled slapstick comedy that granted it its cult status.

While Evil Dead Burn, out this Friday in theaters,is a standalone film, it’s established fairly quickly as a canonical sequel with specific ties to Rise. It follows Alice (Souheila Yacoub), a woman who’s just lost her husband. After his funeral, she secludes herself in a remote and dilapidated home with the rest of his family. Their shared grief brings out the worst in them. As is the case with these movies, by the end of the story, most characters will be Deadites and the curse will find a way to spread further.

Directed by French filmmaker Sébastien Vaniček and co-written by himself and Florent Bernard, the film marks his English debut. Vaniček has experience imbuing horror with social commentary with his previous film, Infested, which follows a bug enthusiast who sparks an infestation in his neighborhood after bringing a lethal spider home. It’s a movie that’s drawn parallelisms with xenophobia and that landed Vaniček the job on one of the biggest horror franchises in the world.

Evil Dead Burn is less ambitious with its themes, but it does grapple with subjects like domestic and familial violence, to varying degrees of success. Alice is a French woman who marries into an American family and has never felt welcomed by them. From the minute she’s introduced, it’s clear that her relationship with her late husband was complicated, hiding a darker reality that his family is happy to ignore. Her relationship with his parents (Tandi Wright and Erroll Shand) only grows more fractured as the film develops. Rounding out the cast are the family’s younger son (Hunter Doohan), his girlfriend (Luciane Buchanan), the family’s grandmother (Maude Davey), and their dog, who distressingly isn’t spared any of the gore.

Before we meet all of these characters though, the story takes a while to get going. It kicks off with a gnarly opening featuring two fishermen, a lake, and a Deadite — a framing device that connects it to Evil Dead Rise. It’s a decision that highlights what doesn’t work in this movie: while the gore is admirable and the kills ingenious, the Deadite has no connection to our lead characters. Still, it somehow ends up being responsible for delivering the curse to the rest of our cast.

Vaniček wants Evil Dead Burn to be innovative. Instead of having a character doom the narrative by reading out the curse from a book, the curse has a generational tie to the family. While it’s smart for him to avoid repeating the same beats, having the curse seek the family out feels contrived and underdeveloped. It also takes a toll on the characters, whom we never fully connect with and end up serving as cannon fodder.

Image: Warner Bros

The script could use more work, but on a technical level, the film has some exciting moments. The camera flies through the sets like a demon on the prowl. A few sequences frame the classic encounters between our final girl and the Deadites in new ways: one is shot from above, allowing the choreography to shine; another is a long take, trailing a character on the floor as they try to escape the chaos caused by the undead. The sound design is worth noting, making numerous gory and nasty details shine brighter. One specific sound choice made my screening room wince and groan out loud.

The Evil Dead franchise has room for everything. It has room for camp but also for serious subject material like addiction and loss. Still, for these elements to work, the filmmakers need to have a firm grasp on the movie’s tone. Evil Dead Burn throws a bunch of guts against the wall to see what sticks. Filmmakers want the audience to laugh and cover their eyes in disgust. They want to deliver pathos when Alice reckons with her husband’s true nature. The movie ends up falling flat on all fronts.

Evil Dead Burn premieres in theaters this July 10.