The dishwasher door crashes onto the skull again and again: In one of the most violent scenes of “Evil Dead Burn,” a Deadite’s head is beaten to a pulp with a total of 24 blows – and most of them are shown in the most brutal way. It’s hard to believe that this scene was even defused in order to at least get an R rating in America – because even so, it’s extremely tough stuff. The French filmmaker Sébastien Vaniček is responsible for this radical moment, who had previously proven with “Spiders – Your Bite Is Death” (2023) that he is currently one of the most exciting European genre directors.
And Vaniček can actually put his stamp on the sixth film in the series. After the rather easily digestible but wonderfully crazy “Evil Dead Rise” (2023), things get really painful again in “Evil Dead Burn” – and quite serious. But the story of domestic violence and abusive family structures turns out to be more of a drag in places, which significantly slows down the terror spectacle. Even if one or two punches in the pit of the stomach are felt and will resonate with the audience in the long term, the latest franchise entry unfortunately never completely succumbs to the crazy, uninhibited madness that characterized many of its predecessors.
The Deadites are more brutal than ever before.
Will (George Pullar) and Alice (Souheila Yacoub) seem like a happy couple on the outside. But the beautiful appearance is deceptive. There are always unpleasant scenes behind closed doors. When Will dies in a serious car accident after an argument, Alice is completely overwhelmed by her emotions. At the funeral she meets her in-laws Susan (Tandi Wright) and Edgar (Erroll Shand) again for the first time. The subsequent funeral service will take place on the family’s remote farm.
Will’s brother Joseph (Hunter Doohan) lives there with his girlfriend Thya (Luciane Buchanan) and his grandmother Polly (Maude Davey). The unsuccessful author has retreated here to write a new novel. The basis for this are ancient and extremely cryptic notes from his grandfather – and a mysterious book in which strange rituals are written down. Nobody suspects that Joseph has thereby conjured up forces that will soon make the lives of all those left behind a living hell.
The family drama turns out to be the film’s biggest weak point.
Like “Evil Dead Rise”, “Evil Dead Burn” begins with a strangely isolated prologue at the lake, which, although it contributes little to the plot, already sets the course in terms of harshness when two innocent fishermen involuntarily come into contact with a Deadite – and one of the two is ultimately even boiled alive. And another thing becomes immediately obvious: the new look.
In the past, the “Tanz der Teufel” franchise (the German name of the horror series) stood for saturated, high-contrast images that particularly brought out the earth and blood tones. This not only made the staged world seem pleasantly lively, but the bloody scenes in particular also really came into their own. This is different with “Evil Dead Burn” by Sébastien Vaniček, who draws almost every life out of his recordings. Gray and cheerless, he draws his horror creation. This may take some getting used to aesthetically, but it is a visually understandable decision that allows for a better understanding of Alice’s depressive world and thoughts.
There is hardly any room left for humor
In any case, “Evil Dead Burn” is significantly harder than its predecessors. The series has always thrived on the interplay of humor and violence. The exaggerated facial expressions of B-movie king Bruce Campbell, Sam Raimi’s wonderfully absurd slapstick interludes and the comically exaggerated violence gave each “Dance of the Devils” film its own absurdity. All these parts were united by the extremely cynical wit of the Deadites, who simply took great pleasure in torturing and mocking their victims. Sébastien Vaniček reduces the humorous moments to an absolute minimum. Although there are a few gags – Grandma Polly in particular gets a lot of laughs – the outbreaks of violence in particular prove to be a tough test of endurance without any ironic exaggeration.
When dogs are stabbed with forks, faces are attacked with dishwasher doors or pens are driven through eardrums, the main thing is that it simply hurts. This time the Deadites turn out to be brutal, if not bitterly sadistic fellows. While Alyssa Sutherland was a real highlight in “Evil Dead Rise” as “Mommy” Ellie with her nasty sayings, here her nasty contemporaries prefer to go all out. In this uncompromising depiction of violence, “Evil Dead Burn” is much more reminiscent of the French Hardness movement of the early 2000s. With extreme films like “High Tension,” “Martyrs,” “Irreversible” and “Frontier(s),” young filmmakers pushed the limits of what could be shown.
One sequence is one of the best in the entire series
This is impressively drastic. However, it also causes “Evil Dead Burn” to lose some of its core identity. Maybe also because these outbursts of violence do not work towards a completely uninhibited finale that is soaked in blood and madness, but rather stand strangely isolated on their own – because the latest part of the shocker series never really gets going. The tour de force is repeatedly interrupted by the moderately exciting family drama, which not only gives the audience time to catch their breath, but also feels extremely out of place at times. When, after a brutal act of violence, the grandmother, who suffers from dementia, is calmly put to bed and is assured that she is now safe, it almost seems a little strange.
By the way, Sébastien Vaniček shows how thoroughly great “Evil Dead Burn” could have been with a phenomenal one-shot in which a Deadite takes the entire house apart while Alice crawls to safety. There’s a lot of crashing and rumbling here, and you don’t know where to look first. This is not only strong terror cinema, but also one of the best scenes in the entire series. It’s a shame that more intense moments like this didn’t make it into the film.
Fans can look forward to some intense kills.
Unfortunately, the finale is also surprisingly unentertaining and weak. Instead of saying goodbye with a radical bang, there are immature CGI effects that take away any threat from Alice’s final confrontation. It doesn’t help that the chosen location for the final battle with a construction site feels terribly arbitrary – and in a slightly modified form it would have easily found place in a generic action hit. And so in the end, despite some memorable moments, you’re left a bit at a loss. Maybe “Evil Dead Burn” is simply too long with a running time of 111 minutes? A few cuts would have certainly benefited the shocker – and given it the additional intensity it needed.
Conclusion: In “Evil Dead Burn” light and shadow are close together. Sébastien Vaniček stages the most brutal part of the series, but fails to really instill the franchise DNA into his shocker. Nevertheless, horror heads can look forward to some nasty kills and one of the best “Evil Dead” moments ever.
PS: By the way, staying seated here is doubly worth it, because “Evil Dead Burn” has two scenes after the credits in store for patient viewers.