written by: Sébastien Vaniček and Florent Bernard
produced by: Rob Tapert and Sam Raimi
directed by: Sébastien Vaniček
rated: R (for strong bloody horror violence and gore, and language)
runtime: 109 min.
U.S. release date: July 10, 2026

The Evil Dead franchise has lost its way. Or rather, since the horror franchise was resurrected in 2013 with “Evil Dead”, considered a soft reboot, it has chosen a different way. A decade later, “Evil Dead Rise” dropped, and now “Evil Dead Burn” is in theaters. Gone is the manic, fun tone of the Sam Raimi-helmed first two sequels, “Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn” (1987) and “Army of Darkness” (1993), the two best entries in the lineup, and replacing them with a viciously gory approach, where any attempts at humor are wholly overpowered by gruesome violence. That is, unfortunately, what can be found in French director Sébastien Vaniček’s “Evil Dead Burn”, which he co-wrote with Florent Bernard, and I find it very surprising and disappointing that Raimi is once again involved as a producer, as he has with the last two Evil Dead movies. It’s as if the creator himself has forgotten what made those first two sequels cult classics.

“Evil Dead Burn” offers a different tale of Deadite torment, with no ties to what has come before. In concept, that could be a good thing, with a plethora of creative options to explore, since in the series, the often-studied (and recited) Book of the Dead, aka the Necronomicon, has been around forever. With that in mind, screenwriters can set their story in any time period – remember, Bruce Campbell’s Ash hilariously found himself in medieval times in “Army of Darkness” – but in the latest movie, set in a post-Ash world, the contained setting for most of the story isn’t very original. Add to that the fact that everyone in this new group of characters that we follow, save for The Final Girl, is one, if not all of these: a self-absorbed and insecure abuser, a clueless enabler, an angry, emotionally closed-off abuser, an utterly useless coward, and a passive girlfriend. Most of these characters are members of a miserable, dysfunctional family, none of whom have any redeemable qualities, most of whom will become possessed and killed off at some point. Because they’re miserable and awful people, it’s hard to care or become emotionally invested in what will happen to any of them. That’s not a good sign.

Much like the opening of “Evil Dead Rise”, this movie opens with a prologue that sets the brutal tone to come. Two friends, Mike (Tapiwa Soropa) and Leo (Victory Ndukwe), are fishing at a lake, and let’s just say one of them catches something (Greta van den Brink) that isn’t a fish, which results in the first fatality and ends with the other friend getting boiled alive by the pyromaniac Deadite. All this prologue does is establish the scalding “Burn” from the title.

From there, we get yanked to a loud nightclub owned and operated by William Price (George Pullar) and his wife, Alice (Souheila Yacoub), who have gathered with William’s younger brother, Joseph (Hunter Doohan, “Daredevil: Born Again”), and his girlfriend, Thya (Luciane Buchanan, “The Night Agent”), for Joseph’s birthday. William gifts his brother a fancy pen valued at a couple of thousand dollars, as a passive-aggressive way to guilt him into finishing a book that he’s supposed to be writing. Alice, a photographer, gifts Joseph some black-and-white photos she took of Joseph and Thya. This upsets William because he was under the impression that only he would give his brother a gift, and the situation escalates into a scene in the parking lot, where an inebriated and volatile William continues to argue with Alice before peeling away in his vehicle. Joseph tried to take the keys, noticing he was clearly too far gone to be driving, but it didn’t work, and William winds up crashing into Deadite Jessica (Alyssa Sutherland, briefly reprising her role from “Evil Dead Rise”). She recites selected lines from the Necronomicon and winds up passing on the demonic curse to William before he dies in flames (Burn!), trapped in his wrecked vehicle.

Later on, we’ll learn that the book Joseph is working on involves researching all the materials left behind by his late grandfather, Benjamin, including journals and audio recordings. Of course, the subject matter is of the Necromonicon and Deadites, with the revelation of a Kandarian dagger that can kill Deadites. All of that information was found in the attic of a creepy, dilapidated lakehouse belonging to the Price family, where Joseph now lives and is supposed to maintain.

When we meet the rest of the Price family, it is at the cremation ceremony for William, which is awkward and humorous at first, and then a blood fest. The awkwardness arises when obvious undertones of dissatisfaction are detected regarding how William’s parents, Edgar (Erroll Shand) and Susan (Tandi Wright), feel about the widowed Alice. The parents have clearly always favored William over Joseph, and have apparently never embraced Alice as their daughter-in-law. Also in tow is the family’s grandmother, Polly (Maude Davey), a wheelchair-bound character whom the writers thought would be funny to repeatedly poke fun at for her dementia, and that, along with being demon-possessed (duh), seems to be her only function.

The family gathering at the crematorium offers one of the very few genuine laughs in “Evil Dead Burn”. Those moments involve active construction just outside the location. The ceremony is only attended by the immediate family and a few people who work at the crematorium. That’s no surprise, considering we saw how much of an a-hole William was when he was among the living. The more we get to know his parents during this brief ceremony sequence, the more we realize that William’s disposition was probably genetic or nurtured, maybe both. The funny part of all this is how the exterior construction noise (think loud drilling and digging) interrupts the crematorium manager (Lara Macgregor) speaking to the family during what is supposed to be a memorial. It occurs when someone goes to the microphone, and such a disruption is humorously fitting because we know this is not a harmonious family, and it’s evident and understandable that Alice is absolutely not an emotional wreck after her husband’s death.

However, the dead don’t stay dead in “Evil Dead” movies, and we’re reminded of that when Edgar elects to say goodbye to his son just as the cremator is about to slide William’s coffin into the incinerator. A knock from inside the coffin burns Edgar, and the carefree cremator (Shyamal Singh) is torn to shreds (a splatter fest that happens off-camera). Now we have a possessed patriarch, who already harbors his own simmering internal anger, and when he rejoins the rest of the Price family, as well as Alice and Thya, all hell breaks loose.

As the Deadite plague spreads throughout the group, Vaniček gradually ramps up the insane violence and brutality. The suspense is palpable, but once the nightmare situations occur, especially during a family dinner scene, it all really starts to wear you down. At least the Raimi-helmed “Evil Dead” movies maintained a good balance of levity and physical comedy, but there’s really nothing to laugh at in the evil, mean-spirited atmosphere created for “Evil Dead Burn”.

Vaniček and cinematographer Philip Lozano do get pretty creative, especially during chaotic, close-quarters physical encounters. These heightened action moments definitely stand out, and the highlight is a nasty melee between three characters inside a car. It’s a punishing and exhausting battle that ends by solidifying what a pathetic character Joseph is. Another crazy altercation between Alice and a slightly possessed Susan in a bathroom is relentless in its frenzied desperation and fight for survival, with Alice wielding a weed wacker as a weapon, in the franchise tradition of weaponizing tools.

Overall, “Evil Dead Burns” shows little interest in subverting our expectations. It’s clear Alice is the movie’s Final Girl, and while she’s definitely put through the wringer, the only real surprise is how glaringly bad the use of CGI is at the end of the third act. The whole endeavor turns out to be quite gross and nasty, and it becomes a macabre endurance test that many viewers won’t be prepared for. Of course, there will be viewers who get what they expect and want from an “Evil Dead” movie, but they’ve either forgotten or just don’t care about what made the Raimi movies great.

RATING:  **