With the release of Evil Dead Burn, there are now as many Evil Dead movies not directed by Sam Raimi or starring Bruce Campbell as those with the original team. The next film, Evil Dead Wrath, is set for a 2028 release, tipping the balance toward non-Raimi filmmakers. Unlike non-James Cameron Terminators or Spielberg-free Jaws sequels, these post-Raimi Evil Dead movies, with Raimi as an enthusiastic producer, have enjoyed box office success, decent critical notices, and horror fan appreciation.
Family Drama Meets Demonic Horror
Evil Dead Burn isn't a direct sequel to 2023's Evil Dead Rise but begins with the same lakeside setting, linking this family-centric story. After a gruesome crash, Alice (Souheila Yacoub) loses her husband, William (George Pullar). She may not be as devastated as his family expects, for reasons hinted early on. Yacoub makes a fine, moody anchor, though she never gets a Bruce Campbell-style square-jawed clowning moment. The non-Raimi Evil Dead movies share an attempt to flesh out characters before stripping that flesh away in undead skirmishes.
Alice's brother-in-law, Joseph (Hunter Doohan), and his girlfriend, Thya (Luciane Buchanan), are more sympathetic than William and Joseph's forbidding parents, Susan (Tandi Wright) and Edgar (Erroll Shand). At a post-funeral gathering at a dilapidated family home, seething tension boils over when characters become Deadites, the series' voracious cross between zombies and the demonically possessed.
Director's Vision and Gore
As producers, Raimi and Rob Tapert give relatively unknown filmmakers a shot at Evil Dead. Burn's French director and co-writer Sébastien Vaniček made only one other feature, the deadly-spider picture Infested. In ambition, this is a step up, juggling three or four fraught relationships even after some participants are dead. In gore, it reaches far beyond; Vaniček's bodily punishments, including a detachable car-seat headrest and a corkscrew, recall New French Extremity horror films in relentless flinch tests. Name a body part whose injury gives you anxiety, and Evil Dead Burn will aim something sharp in its direction.
Raimi's Evil Dead movies are gory, but even the less comedic first entry relies on cartoon abstraction; the worst stuff often happens to bodies already lost to Deadites. Vaniček's violence hits closer to home, with dark viscera providing the only color in a sea of mud-puddle grayness, shifting to a painterly palette in the grand finale. In Evil Dead Rise, a grimy sensibility muted black-humored punctuation; most attempts at fun felt like clunky fan service. Vaniček finds room for laughs, from guttural construction noises interrupting a eulogy to bloodlustier levels, and knowingly gooses the audience's impatience over Chekov's weed-whacker.
Technical Moves and Character Depth
While much horror action proceeds at a dutiful march, Vaniček and cinematographer Philip Lozano pull off clever technical moves, pivoting with characters until they're on the ceiling or pulling back for unbroken shots that invert Raimi's pinballing-camera technique. The writers succeed in giving undead versions of characters differently malevolent personalities, making Deadites less chaotic and more strategic. It's a tradeoff befitting a movie that engages with abusive relationships and long-festering family-inflicted wounds between gleeful exploitation.
On that level, the movie works better than its predecessor. It feels more like Vaniček fine-tuning an entirely different formula than the original trilogy. As generous as Raimi is to share his success, he's passing around a series made in his image. Less extreme Raimi movies like Drag Me to Hell and Send Help feel truer to the Evil Dead spirit. The new movies feel like Deadites themselves: too lively to be a zombie franchise, but not quite alive. Evil Dead Burn is out in Australian cinemas on 9 July and in the UK and US on 10 July.
