Directed by Sébastien Vaniček
As someone who started watching the Evil Dead movies before I even knew what the franchise was (thanks for showing me Army of Darkness, mom, that really is to blame for who I am today) I’m always thrilled to see a new Evil Dead movie hit the theaters. I’ve liked all the Evil Dead movies I’ve seen (still haven’t caught the 2013 reboot, sorry!) including the last one Evil Dead Rise, so I was definitely excited to see the new direction the franchise continues to take.
After a small birthday party leads to a massive blowout between a married couple, the evening goes from frustrating to horrifying when a nightclub owner finds himself in a terrible car accident. Following his extremely tense and awkward funeral, his family, including the owner’s widow Alex, finds themselves in a crumbling family estate plotting their next move. Unfortunately, their plans are derailed by the arrival of the evil unleashed by the Book of the Dead, causing murderous and sadistic Deadites to attack and torment the family. Trying to locate an ancient dagger to fight these monsters, the group struggles to maintain their sanity and cohesion while their family unit breaks down.
One of the biggest strengths of Evil Dead Burn is its cast, the majority of the performances are strong, and excel at ramping up the uncomfortable family drama at the core of the film. In particular, the mother and grandmother of the Price family are excellent, giving extremely different performances while hooking you instantly. Granny Price is especially noteworthy because she goes all in on a character that is funny, tragic, and sadly recognizable, but is also able to transition mid movie into a frightening parody herself. Unfortunately, there are a few performances that don’t quite measure up to the rest of the cast, and doubly unfortunately those performances belong to the people who are essentially the lead villain and the protagonist, neither of whom ever seem comfortable in their roles. Part of my issue with Alex may be that I found her dialogue difficult to understand because of her French accent, which is something I do struggle with in movies so that may not be a strike against her specifically, but I never got too much below the surface with her, which disappointed me.
To continue with the strengths, Evil Dead Burn has some of the gnarliest kills and general violence that I’ve seen in a long time, and in that regard it does honor the original Evil Dead boundary pushing nature. Violence here is brutal, stylish, and mean, with more than one of the sequences showcasing some truly shocking kills. It’s clear that the budget went nearly entirely to these effects, and that was absolutely the right call, given the history of the franchise. Speaking of the history, it was a real treat to see that dark humor has wormed its way back into the Evil Dead franchise. No, there was never anything quite as amusing as the creative visual gags in Evil Dead II, but Evil Dead Burn is jammed full of eccentric characters and weird dialogue that often got the better of me. It’s a little weird that most of the comedic moments involve an elderly woman with dementia, but hey, I’ll take what I can get.
While the designs of the Deadites are okay, what really disappoints is the visual design of the mansion interior itself. Every room in this place is beige, muddy, and completely nondescript; just looking at this is a chore, and it wouldn’t be a problem if only a few scenes were shot there, but 90% of the movie takes place in this location. This is probably a budget limitation, as the creature effects were definitely the most expensive part, but there are a lot of places where it’s incredibly obvious that they were skimping on stuff to keep costs down, to the detriment of the film. A couple examples; a scene takes place in a club where the characters are awkwardly jammed into what is clearly the only corner they were allowed to film in, and the funeral sequence of a supposedly socially important and wealthy family member has literally no one there besides immediate family in a crappy funeral home. These aren’t huge issues but they pop out and stick in the mind.
I’m not saying that Evil Dead movies should have a huge budget, the originals were famously shoe-string budgeted movies, but the main difference between the new Evil Dead and the originals is that these new ones don’t have nearly as much creativity. The meta plot has generally included a demon possessing items and bodies of creatures in order to attack people, and that led us to possessed furniture, limbs, decorative deer heads, and (infamously) trees that could all show up at any time. Those possibilities keep the audience guessing and lend a lot of energy and mystery to what could happen next. When the only enemies are the Deadites themselves, that gets a little repetitive, even when the Deadites are well designed and the violence is lovingly crafted. That reflects in the pacing as well, instead of an ensemble of sequences with various things happening, the movie ends up being one long scene with similar stakes moment to moment.
I’m not trying to be overly harsh on Evil Dead Burn, it’s a decent movie, but I’m not certain how much it would do for someone who isn’t a gorehound like myself. Obviously being gross and over the top is part of the charm of the Evil Dead franchise, the bigger question to answer is this: is being violent and gross all that Evil Dead Burn has going for it? Unfortunately it might be. For a lot of people, that’s enough to justify seeing and enjoying a new Evil Dead movie, and while I can say that I wanted more, what we received here is more than enough to warrant a rental of Evil Dead Burn, if you’re at all curious about it.
