‘Evil Dead Burn’ Review: A Masterclass In How To Fan Franchise Flames

Horror franchises often struggle to stay relevant without losing what made them iconic in the first place. “Evil Dead Burn” walks that tightrope with surprising confidence. It doesn't attempt to recreate the manic energy of Sam Raimi's previous films beat for beat and that confidence pays off perfectly. Grotesque practical effects, relentless Deadites (parasitic demonic spirits) and suffocating dread help it carve out an identity of its own.

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Directed by Sébastien Vaniček, the film wastes no time in plunging viewers into chaos. The setup is simple: For Alice and Will (Souheila Yacoub and George Pullar), the honeymoon has ended and the wedding blues have begun. It doesn’t help that Will’s inquisitive brother, Joseph (Hunter Doohan) chances upon their grandfather’s copy of “Necronomicon Ex-Mortis” (aka the Book Of The Dead), which contains spells to unleash the Kandarian Demon (aka The Evil Force), which in turn, turns the dead into reanimated Deadites to do its bidding.

Will is killed off in a demon-assisted car crash, driving Alice to his family home and one after another his family gets turned into Deadites – first, his father Edgar (Erroll Shand), then Joseph and his girlfriend Thya (Luciane Buchanan), his mother Susan (Tandi Wright) and grandmother Polly (Maude Davey). No prizes for guessing who survives the horrors.

But scratch and claw below the surface and Yacoub’s Alice becomes the face of women trapped in complicated marriages. Through flashbacks, one realises things weren’t all bad. She encounters control and domestic abuse which helps her trudge through a Deadite-infested apocalypse. Vaniček succeeds in maintaining the balance between showcasing emotions and blood-and-gore.

The tension is amplified through the film’s pacing. Fire is a running theme throughout and as real as it gets. It’s almost as if little to no CGI was used in creating the pyro-effects. The film finds its flow between suspense elements and jumpscares, building on the horrors to follow. There’s distorted faces, varying body language cues and the omnipresent feeling of ominosity. The camerawork, while largely stable, gets aggressively shaky and violent during encounters of the evil kind.

The best horror films work because audiences care about the characters. And “Evil Dead Burn” gives you plenty of material to pursue your love and hatred for them. You feel for the grieving Alice as she emerges from domestic abuse and goes on to fight her husband’s family (turned Deadites). In fact, the irresponsible Joseph will still find favor with viewers regardless. Susan continuously craves Polly’s love and admiration, while Edgar turns into a Deadite while wanting to see his son one last time.

In terms of performances, Souheila Yacoub delivers from start to finish. Close seconds are Tandi Wright and Hunter Doohan.

The film's sound design deserves special praise, feeling as essential as the visuals themselves. Every creak, slam and scrape is precise. It is the kind of meticulous craftsmanship where even simple slam sounds on a coffin are unnerving and welcomes a sense of dread. That attention to sonic detail pays off throughout the film. Distorted faces are shown through prosthetics, which pays off as well. In fact, the characters surviving the horrors wear little to no makeup, but the ones turned Deadites have pale, decaying skin, bloodshot eyes and exaggerated facial features.

Does “Evil Dead Burn” have anything new to offer? Thankfully, it does. Vaniček understands that the franchise has always thrived on inventive violence rather than violence for its own sake. The kills are imaginative and the set pieces are unpredictable. However, horror fans, who are only getting started with the franchise, might find the gore and the massacre a little too much. The film rarely feels like it is recycling familiar scares from its ancestors, instead finding new ways to weaponise everyday spaces and ordinary objects. Even when it pays homage to earlier entries or other horror movies like “The Shining” (1980), it does so without making it feel like an imitation.