Evil Dead Burn review: A franchise vehicle that dares to hold its own
Sébastien Vaniček film tries its best to find evil in the society it inhabits and fashions itself as a compelling narrative. His characters are memorable and come with defined personalities and he infuses the instalment with a grammar that still encircles a formula without mindlessly confining itself to a barrage of scenes ticking off expected beats.
Swiss actress Souheila Yacoub seems to be slowly making a habit of one thing: literally crawling out of a hellmouth after nearly dying at least a few times. It was Gaspar Noe’s Climax (2018) that first showed her writhing in snow, oozing blood and insanity and she is back at it less than a decade later in Sébastien Vaniček’s Evil Dead Burn, dragging herself across concrete in another descent to madness.
Alice, her character in the new movie, faces the wrath of an entire American family to such a bruising effect that even the consolation of being alive must feel like a punishment to her, given the memory she has to live with. Of course, that is, if the Deadites (humans and animals possessed by ancient demonic forces) and the Book of the Dead do not get to her first.
Redefining horror for modern-day viewer
Vaniček helms the third instalment of the reboot of Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead franchise (the sixth in the overall Evil Dead series), which continues its predecessors’ restless pursuit of redefining horror to the modern-day viewer. His objective is simple: to tread the path of filmmakers Fede Álvarez (Evil Dead, 2013) and Lee Cronin’s (Evil Dead Rise, 2023) of plating up gore to borderline desensitising results, but the French filmmaker (of Infested, 2023, fame) somehow, in the company of his co-writer Florent Bernard, manages to find a semblance of relevance for his iteration. As something that inadvertently aligns with the ‘Obsession’ ethos of tackling toxic masculinity and its generational imbuement, Evil Dead Burn tries its best to find evil in the society it inhabits and fashions itself a compelling narrative.
The syntax he sticks to, or made to, is still recognisably Evil Dead, albeit with subtle variations. The literal cabin in the woods gives way to a deserted, rotting family home in a fittingly deserted, rotting United States industrial town. Alice, who is married into the family that owns the dilapidating home, runs a nightclub with her turbulent, problematic husband, William (George Pullar). She is French and boasts an energy and agency that William doesn’t get, so the troubled relationship leaves her with many scars over time.
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It doesn’t help that William runs amok after a drunken fight and sets off in his car, only to have an encounter with a Deadite that is still swirling in forests and under lake beds. He meets the expected fate and triggers a wave of demon possessions that takes little time to engulf his own family: volatile father, Edgar (Erroll Shand), the territorial and brainwashed mom, Susan (Tandi Wright), the inquisitive yet timid brother, Joseph (Hunter Doohan), the brother’s fiancée, Thya (Luciane Buchanan), and others.
Evil Dead Burn also expands the mythos of the franchise’s doctrine, the Book of the Dead, and fleshes out a backstory about a cult of 'Wise Men' and a unique dagger that can cause the demise of Deadites. The creatures want it so that they can remain safe from it and anyone wishing to survive them must get to it before they do. It’s a simple equation.
A world complete in itself
For Vaniček, though, the task isn’t just to fulfil the film's preordained demands, but to render a world that is complete in itself. And he succeeds in that regard, more than anything else. His characters are memorable and come with defined personalities, which helps the narrative be fuelled by a conflict that is both urgent and relatable. Sure, he does fit in a cold opening, a follow-up inciting incident that sets things in motion, and the whole works, but he doesn’t shy away from allowing the drama underneath to slowly breathe into a desired shape. Call it his ‘French’ tendencies or whatever, but he infuses a grammar that still encircles a formula, without mindlessly confining itself to a barrage of scenes ticking off expected beats.
A dining table sequence that feels like a leaf out of a Mike Leigh movie. A queasy romantic sequence that occurs at the unlikeliest of moments. A mini monologue by a declining Deadite who’s chained inside a bathroom. A characteristic blood-soaked sequence that squeezes in a revelation defining the whole film. Vaniček goes all in on the grotesque, but he nevertheless makes sure to lend a personal context to his film.
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Yet, if one were to overlook all the thematic facets of Evil Dead Burn, there’s still barely a moment they could catch without being besieged by its extremism. Philip Lozano’s camera is as growling and feverish as the creature itself and the cinematography manages to highlight the impending danger with such purposefulness that one cannot help but brace themselves. Cork openers, metal skewers, forks, car headrests, and practically everything with a sharp edge becomes a tool for carnage, unleashed with an abandon as the film goes about its spitting, spilling and screaming excesses. One also questions the glaringly daft and annoying decisions made by the characters in the situations they are put in, but the mayhem is a vibe of its own.
As a result, Evil Dead Burn comes across as a franchise vehicle that dares to be its own kind, and it only furthers what producers Sam Raimi and Rod Tapert are trying to achieve together. The latest entrant offers an opportunity to a newer, lesser-known filmmaker in Sébastien Vaniček, and he runs with it. So, it's now doubly exciting to wait and see what Francis Galluppi, who shot to fame with a crackling neo-western, The Last Stop in Yuma County (2023), will do with the upcoming instalment, Evil Dead Wrath (2028).
