I really liked Evil Dead (2013). It did a great job of taking up the mantle from the excellent Raimi films. It had everything I would want in a reboot – a cabin in the woods setting, a dumbass reading aloud from a cursed book, eerie sound effects/soundtrack, and a plucky protagonist. I even liked that Fede Alvarez made it his own with the intervention framing, the medical mayhem, the doppelganger, and the blood rain. It felt like a successful update of the original Evil Dead (before Raimi apparently realized that Campbell could really shine with a mix of humor and horror). When Evil Dead Rise came out, I was excited to check it out. When I did, I wasn’t blown away. Sure it had the gory kills and bodily harm, but I just wasn’t into the urban apartment building setting or the annoying family. And what was with that intro set in the woods? If that tied into the rest of the story, I certainly can’t remember how. So, when I heard Evil Dead Burn was coming, I wasn’t rushing out to see it. Was that the right call? Let’s get into it, shall we?
Alice and Will run a nightclub together and are celebrating Will’s brother’s (Joseph) birthday when they get into a fight. Will gets physical and Alice pushes him away and storms off. He gets into his car despite Joseph’s protests and takes off. Along the road he hits a deadite. At his funeral, Will’s mother and father are icy toward Alice but insist on having her back to the home of Will’s grandma who has dementia (and only one leg). Turns out grandpa was a member of a secretive group sworn to fight the deadites and he had the Necronomicon Ex-Mortis and the Kandarian dagger. Unfortunately, Joseph inadvertently removed the sigils concealing the dagger – the only thing that can send a deadite back to hell – from the deadites and brought it to the house. Now, they want that thing and they have no problem going through this family to get it.
Vanicek (who gave us Infested in 2023) has crafted a loving homage to Evil Dead 2 while maintaining the brutality of the modern reboot and its sequel. He gives us gore and graphic violence but also injects a lot of humor into the story. And there is just enough fan service nostalgia to make fans of the Raimi trilogy smile. (at least i did) It seems like Vanicek addressed a couple of things I mentioned in the intro paragraph too. Namely, “a dumbass reading aloud” and “what was up with that intro”. He has his protagonist start to read aloud from the book but then nope out when she gets creeped out by it. It doesn’t matter though because the deadites are already here and they’re drawn to the dagger. Joseph’s removal of the protective/concealing spell is what awakens the deadite that Will hits with his car. And the initial setup is very similar to Rise – lakeside cabin, deadite rising from the water, etc. Maybe that was done on purpose, and maybe I’m just reading too much into it. Either way, I liked this one quite a bit. The kills are exciting and grisly and the deadites are a terrifying force to be reckoned with. I only have two small complaints: the cringey super-deadite at the end and the post credits scene. Not dealbreakers, but I rolled my eyes.
The Final Cut: Evil Dead Burn continues the brutality and sharp storytelling of the 2013 reboot while bringing back some welcome pitch black humor.
