Evil Dead Burn (2026) Review

https://youtu.be/TnHby2cxJzs?is=57qntSmfXaD7p6-U

THE FOLLOWING REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS OF THE DISCUSSED FILM. READERS DISCRETION IS ADVISED.

Being evil can sure run in the family when you’re not paying attention.


PLOT


Evil Dead Burn begins with showing a man named William Price run a nightclub with his wife Alice. They celebrate the birthday of his younger brother Joseph with the company of the latter’s girlfriend Thya at said club, but it gets awkward when the older couple argue in front of the latter couple. William gets drunkenly aggressive during the argument that he drives away before he can try to resolve his anger. It results in him driving into Jessica, a female deadite who just killed two fishermen nearby. As he burns to death, she recites a Necronomicon passage that turns him into a Deadite as well. At his cremation does Alice reunite with Joseph & Thya, but also reunites with his parents Susan & Edgar and the dementia-afflicted grandma Polly. As Alice remains distant, Edgar visits his son’s coffin one last time before his deadite self breaks out to burn his arm and kill the crematorium attendant. By the time the family has dinner at the vacation house, he becomes fully obsessed and not only blames Alice for his son’s death, but also stabs the family dog Max. Joseph & Thya try taking him to a hospital, but he causes them to crash and stabs Thya with a car headrest as Joseph flees. By the time Joseph makes it back to the house, Thya catches up fully possessed as well and tries attacking everyone else until locked in the cellar. As she tricks Polly to let her out and infect her in return, the whole ordeal makes Alice remember how abusive Will was before he died. When restraining Polly after she stabs her ear with a pen Will gave Joseph before dying, the latter convinces a grieving Susan that the family can be whole again if he lets Edgar back in. She does so and when they share a passionate kiss, the infection passes on to her. After this, they demand Joseph to give them an ancient weapon, the Kandarian Dagger, that is meant to banish them back to Hell. Joseph knows where it is because his grandpa Benjamin was part of a group of historians, Circle of Wise Men, that gathered research related to the Necronomicon that was left in the attic and as he found the dagger when Susan told him to throw away everything, unwrapping it became a beacon for the Deadites; Alice knows what it is too having read Benjamin’s journal before the Deadites came to the house. Having already bludgeoned Thya who crushed his back onto a dishwasher full of knives, Joseph refuses to surrender the dagger and it results in Edgar choosing to beat him all over the house as Alice tries hiding from Polly. Polly tries convincing Susan to kill her, but Alice acts fast by tying the former to the stairlift and zip-ties the latter in the bathroom. Isolated, Susan tries blaming Alice for their family downfall as she fully transforms, but the final girl rebuttals by showing her the scars Will gave her and claims she chose to ignore his flaws maintain the illusion of a perfect family. Once she gets to the attic, she finds the dagger and has to use it on Joseph when he turns. When she gets out of the house, she then uses it on Deadite Max and Edgar before having to sever Susan’s head with a rotary saw. When she sets the house on fire on her way out, Will’s charred deadite self emerges and chases her down a nearby construction site. He’s able to trap her by cornering her in a pit filled with boiling tar. Her leg lands on a metal pipe, but she is still able to stab him with the dagger and crush his dead to be free of his torment for good. As she keeps moving until being found by police & paramedics, they ask her who harmed her, only for her to reply it was her ex husband. However, the film ends with a mid credit scene where Deadite Polly escaped the fire by severing her remaining leg (losing the other from a previous medical amputation) and passes the infection to a motorist who stops her; Deadite Ellie Bixler also re-emerges from a crematorium housing her ashes, killing the manager’s daughter as soon as she reconstructs her body.

THOUGHTS

Expectations are gonna be a bitch when you’re arguably the most consistent horror franchise in terms of quality. It feels like a miracle for everything from the 2013 remake to now have enough watchability compared to Sam Raimi’s original trilogy. With Lee Cronin’s Evil Dead Rise setting a whole other bar though, the pressure was on. I don’t think this one was better than the predecessor, but I do think it met the body horror standard we’re used to which is enough for us at this point. Director Sébastien Vaniček is familiar with getting under the skin of the audience having previously helmed the spider flick, Vermines, which may be a very different atmosphere, yet he still got the job done in terms of creep factor alongside cowriter Florent Bernard. Throughout is a chilling score from Douglas Canvana & Xavier Caux aka Double Danger who maintain constant suspense. A lot of credit does go to the technical aspect with the makeup for the Deadites being expectedly vile and moments like the fisherman being brought down by his own hooks was downright shocking. Philip Lozano’s cinematography also cooked with moments like the infamous drone shot or the tracking shots that go down in the house. The big surprise was a more visible use of CGI to enhance the Deadites to look impossibly real. I mean it’s not everyday you see a demon completely charred or filled with bullet holes all over the head. With producer Bruce Campbell retiring from the role of Ash Williams, it was a nice Easter egg seeing him in one of the family portraits during the commotion, which he confirmed he’s not playing either the iconic protagonist nor grandpa Benjamin whose recorded tapes were voiced by Michael Hurst. With all the shock value that occurs, you’re gonna be wondering what’s the point of this entry. In my opinion, I think this is a full circle arc of how not only some things are better off alone, but mainly how it’s important to destroy the passivity of generational trauma. The more you allow bad things to happen rather than prevent it, it only makes the situation fester even worse. Once you break the cycle, it’ll sure save you from more trouble. This is the case when we follow Souhelia Yacoub as Alice. From start to finish, she is a lady who is burdened to grieve over someone she stopped loving a long time ago. Before the flashbacks kick in, they don’t hesitate showing George Pullar portray Will as a reactive control freak who definitely brought it upon himself because he was bound to get himself killed whether or not Jessica would be at the road. He made it about himself when he complained of her getting a separate gift for his brother, custom photos for Joseph & Thya given she’s a photographer, and couldn’t handle how she genuinely cared more than necessary. What gets worse is the fact Alice had to put up with a family that would rather allow him continue acting that way rather than put him in check. Erroll Shand felt most diabolical as Edgar because he was full of resentment in advance for not approving of Alice and toxically favoring William over Joseph. I’m pretty sure he would’ve still said that without being possessed and that’s just worse. Tandi Wright was a whole scenario because as Susan, she’s the source of generational trauma. Shes got her own resentment with her dad prioritizing studying the Necronomicon rather than help her take care of her mom, thus feeling the need to have her illusion everything’s okay when they’re not. I get that she had the pressure to hold everything together when she never deserved that feeling, but having that enabled approach where she allows herself to get infected by her husband is of course her own doing. She may have felt like nothing without her family, but she could’ve changed that if she wanted to. So when she and her husband bite the bust, there was no sympathy left for them to save them from their demise. Straight up, it’s hard to like Joseph because he’s the most insecure desperate to get his writing career started and he chose his grandpa’s archives as the worst source of inspiration. Due to that level of curiosity & desperation, it definitely sped up his family’s downfall. I’m sure the guy meant well as he tries defending himself from Edgar before turning but even if you can still relate to the feeling of fear as the possession first starts, it’s so upsetting how he didn’t try hard enough to save Thya. Luciane Buchanan makes her just as much of a victim behind how bad it was for Alice because she was the most caring of the family that did give most condolences to her besides her boyfriend’s brother. Had she known of Joseph’s research, she likely would’ve talked him out of it and had a better chance of survival. Instead, her 180 post-possession really shook things up for the remainder of the chaos. It goes without saying Polly was the true wild card as her illness never allowed her to have true control of her mental state. Due to this, Maude Davey gave an Army of Darkness vibe with her performance of the possessed family matriarch who took advantage of being manipulative while still being punny. That made me giggle more than the opening cutaway of Jessica’s hit & run transitioning to girls twerking at William’s club. You just can’t have a straight face with a fallout like that. Alice may have overcame big odds that started and ended with her husband, but if anyone else were to come after, it would be the grandma who escaped the fire. Last but not least, I had a feeling that Rise would tie in to this given the cliffhanger it had with Jessica. What I didn’t expect was for it to open with her with a recasted Greta Van Den Brink as the former and end with Alyssa Sutherland return as Deadite Ellie. All bets are off at this point and fingers are gonna be crossed for Alice to not run into either one of them. This movie was crazy good, but there are a couple of things that don’t make much sense upon rewatching. Like it’s one thing to ask how did Benjamin know deadites can sense the dagger, but it’s a whole other to point out he should’ve left it to someone to trust rather than hide it for no one to find. If he’s not gonna trust his family, he should be training a protege of the Circle of Wise Men to do so. I don’t even think he needed to label it because it’s the kind of weapon where you’ll know when you see it. And did deadite Jessica even know Will was gonna be driving her way? Because if so, she should’ve just pretended to be a hitchhiker rather than immediately kill him. Had she done that, she could’ve found the house where the dagger was hidden. And it’s completely unfair for the crematorium manager to expect Alice to have a eulogy when she never have one planned, nor ask in advance if there was one prepped. It’s even dumb for Deadite Will to for near cremation to get out when he could’ve escaped the coffin sooner rather than later. Deadites are not really about keeping their cover because they’re manipulative killing machines, so waiting to lure Edgar was pointless on his end. Hell, I’m even surprised Alice didn’t get infected when Edgar scratched her before dinner; The same can be said when Joseph doesn’t turn after he gets exposed to Thya’s saliva and saliva was all that was needed to infect Polly & Susan back to back. On top of that, Alice uses the pen on Edgar first before Polly uses it on her, so that’s another example of her having too much luck confused with plot armor. Also if Susan is wasn’t gonna check the attic, Edgar should have because there’s no reason to get the answers out of Joseph when he’s not gonna budge. And I know it’s common to lock away the Deadites, but the family should’ve just killed Thya immediately however so, rather than bank on the cellar. She drank candle wax as the candle was lit for god’s sake. That’s enough for me to say execution is the best choice. And where the hell was Deadite Will the whole time after he infected Edgar? The guy was charred upon cremation especially after passing through the burning house, so it’s odd we don’t know where could have he been hiding during all the chaos the family went through. Lastly, how the hell does Deadite Ellie come back if the manager’s daughter didn’t even touch her urn? If she can come back with no effort after dismemberment, that means there are no rules for every Deadite for the past 45 years as of this movie’s release. If you can try ignoring these flaws, then you can identify Evil Dead Burn as groovy enough of a horror flick. If you’re still a fan of this franchise after its resurgence in the 21st century, I hope you dig this one as well.