It’s nice to know, after all these years, that we can still do it for each other.
And by “all these years”, I mean 1981, and by “do it for each other”, I mean “be as nasty, gnarly, and gross a splatter film as to have me cringing and squirming in the cinema just like I did the first time around”. Which is a slightly convoluted way of saying – damn, Evil Dead Burn is great.
Evil Dead as a franchise (as my lovely No But Listen compatriot has covered previously) is the big daddy of mainstream splatter movies – there’s been a gleeful sense of escalation for each new director who gets their hands on the series, from Fede Alvaraez’s Evil Dead to Lee Cronin’s Rise a few years ago, one which Burn director Sébastien Vaniček has taken and run with in his most recent entry into the canon. The film follows Alice (Souheila Yacoub), a recently-widowed young woman who is thrown together with her deceased husband’s family in the aftermath of his funeral, only to discover that her abusive husband’s bloodline has something that the Deadites and company just can’t wait to get back.
And, look, I’m not blind to the fact that this movie has had something of a lukewarm reception – in some ways, it is a bit of a sidestep from the standard Evil Dead set-up, with the Deadites pursuing an active goal rather than just their normal chaos, destruction, and cruelty. The central thematic reflection of an abusive relationship is also a heavy one for a franchise with a dark-comic bent, and the film definitely suffers with some of the same issues as its predecessors, such as a silly post-credits scene that really doesn’t make much sense, and a confusing and poorly-defined explanation of how the Deadite infection functionally passes between characters.
But here’s the thing: when I walk into an Evil Dead film, I want to see gleeful, gory, gross-out splatter and a chance for some great actors to ham their way through some Deadite performances, and that’s exactly what Burn delivers on. Vaniček proves himself a master of stomach-churning gore here, tapping in to sound design, dynamic direction, and a constant sense of momentum and escalation that would leave the movie feeling more like an edge-of-your-seat action thriller if it wasn’t for, you know, the Deadites.
And speaking of, Burn lays claim to some of the best Deadite performances of the franchise, at least in my eyes. Errol Shand, who plays family patriarch Edgar, instantly launched himself to the top of the list with a turn that throws everything at the wall, from grotesque gore to romantic kisses of – literal – death, while Maude Davey as grandmother Polly is basically the last Deadite you want to run into down a dark alley, and that’s saying something.
Tonally, I think Burn finds a good balance between its more serious elements regarding Alice’s abuse at the hands of her deceased husband as well as his family’s complicity in it, while never letting the slasher-slapstick native to the franchise get entirely lost in the process, delivering a distinct twist on the cabin-in-the-woods setting that still feels true to the story its telling.
Fundamentally, Evil Dead Burn hit every mark that I want an Evil Dead movie to land, and does it with style, wit, and a panache for making you feel a little bit like you’re going to lose your lunch. For me, it’s a sure sign that this franchise still has it, after all these years – and, with Evil Dead Wrath already in production, I’m not the only one who feels that way.
If you enjoyed this article and want to see more stuff like it, check out the rest of our Evil Dead retrospective, and please consider supporting us on Ko-Fi. You can check out more of my work on my personal blog, The Cutprice Guignol!
By Lou MacGregor
(header image via Nerdist)
No But Listen 