If it seems sacrilegious to call the Evil Dead franchise underrated, it’s because it is; standing toe to toe with the titans of the horror genre, but the franchise’s humble origins are fascinating to see after the constant evolution to where it is today. The original film was essentially a DIY project in which Sam Raimi threw nearly anything at the wall to make a horror movie. This grew into a film series that’s as renowned for its grueling original in the early 80s and its goofy escapades in the late 80s as it is for its squirm-inducing bloodbaths from 2013 onwards.
With Evil Dead Burn being the 6th entry in a decades-spanning franchise, it sits in a difficult spot, trying to add new creative touches to what an Evil Dead film should be while also delivering on the hallmarks of brutality fans crave. Burn doesn’t quite reinvent more of the typical beats that have been present in the most recent Evil Dead films, but French director Sébastien Vaniček provides a heaping of the bloody chaos we’ve come to know and love while intertwining dark humor that balances shockingly well with the relentless carnage on display. Things aren’t always meshed perfectly in both tone and narrative, but Evil Dead Burn is another rock-solid entry in a series that has yet to produce a poor outing.
Burn takes place not long after the events of Evil Dead Rise (with the film’s cold open beginning to follow up with the deadite of that film’s opening scene, Jessica (Greta van den Brink)) as we follow Alice (Souheila Yacoub), a woman in an abusive marriage with her husband William (George Pullar). The couple is at a nightclub to celebrate William’s brother, Joseph (Hunter Doohan), alongside Joseph’s partner Thya (Luciane Buchanan). William’s toxic tendencies towards Alice end up ruining the mood as an argument with her leads to his storming off drunk and crashing into Jessica from the film’s opening, where she passes the deadite curse to him as he burns alive in the wreckage.
Alice soon resides with her in-laws after William’s burial, re-meeting his mother Susan (Tandi Wright), father Edgar (Erroll Shand), and grandmother Polly (Maude Davey), and becoming acquainted with just how much toxicity and vitriol spread throughout this family, especially towards her. The tension between the family within their old home is icy as they all, in one way or another, pass the blame on the cause of Williams’ death. Things only get more inane when Edgar, while mourning his son, has the deadite curse spread to him. Naturally, things get meaner and bloodier as the deadites wreak havoc on the family, but also search for a weapon spoken of in the book of the dead, said to be one of the only items to stop their supernatural power.
Much of what Evil Dead Burn brings to the table in both setting and plot beats of the deadites taking the souls of each family member one by one isn’t exactly new to the series formula, but vicious themes surrounding the toxicity of the family and abusive relationship at its center add a new story perspective to the film. The confrontations that lie between this family’s rotting grievances and their feelings surrounding Alice and Will’s relationship come to a head in a standout dinner scene, which is almost as tension-ridden to watch as the ever-lacking presence of the deadites that you know will wreak havoc any minute on the household.
The subject of familial burden surrounding Alice and the abusive toxicity her husband inflicted on her that she’s kept bottled up for so long gives the film a bit more depth to the constant savagery that surrounds it at every turn; where even less extreme violence compared to everything else can be the most haunting for Alice. If anything, the central narrative could use a bit of tightening up, as some of the characters and backstory lack the depth needed to make the abusive family topics have their desired impact, but Souheila Yacoub is so good as the film’s lead and often more than carries the emotionality of the film on her back while also nailing the physicality of her final girl stint.
Many people would tell you it’s common practice to expect a certain visceral meanness to an Evil Dead movie’s ultra-violence, but any fan knows this sentiment has only been true for the the original Evil Dead film and the post-Raimi era of Evil Dead films. Some of Raimi movies often acted as straight-up sketch comedy in Evil Dead 2 and Army of Darkness, which bolstered their creativity, while the true gnarly intensity the franchise is now known for didn’t become prevalent until Evil Dead (2013) taking more insperation from the original film’s true unpleasantness. Both Evil Dead Rise and Burn have mostly leaned into the ruthless gore of it all, but have also intertwined a certain pitch-black humor with their intensity, which Burn balances on quite the tightrope in its second act. The film can occasionally undercut either its situational humor or harsh terror in a desire to dip its toe into both worlds, but it handles both solidly, with Maude Davey’s dementia ridden Polly getting most of the comedic beats.
As for the violence that gore hounds and genre sickos everywhere crave from Evil Dead films, Burn more than delivers on every front. Endless head smashes, sequences that will make you think twice about how you set up silverware in a dishwasher, and a certain grueling, ferocious nature to the hell it puts these characters through that would make even the most strong-willed wince (condolences to all the dog lovers out there). The ruthlessness often reaches the unforgiving cruelty that the 2013 reboot was able to capture with such savagery with its own dismemberments, but the stylish nature of Sébastien Vaniček’s direction pushes Evil Dead Burn to a true brink of depravity.
Vaniček not only gives the deadites a welcome touch of new French extremity to their bloodthirsty havoc but also implements some of the most inventive camera work in the franchise since Raimi’s original trilogy. There’s always a slick confidence to how the camera moves within each frame; overhead and one-take tracking shots dominate the film’s presence in such a stylized manner, always providing a new, insanely creative manner to the way carnage and survival are displayed. The film’s tricks only start to grow tired in its climax, where the supernatural forces start to become a bit too CGI-centric compared to what you’d want out of an Evil Dead picture, but Vaniček’s intense direction keeps hold of its effectiveness throughout even as the third act has some clever subversions from what’d be typical fan service in these franchises.
Aside from some surprising expansions to the lore surrounding the Book of the Dead and this family’s connection to it, Evil Dead Burn doesn’t bring that much new to the world of this franchise (or horror in general), but it’s so great at bringing its own full-throttle ferocity to the constant evolutions to these films that it cements itself as yet another sturdy entry. It’s sadistic and visceral in Vaniček’s direction, which adds more relentless energy to the franchise’s blood-soaked crowd pleasing mayhem, and odds are, most fans will be wanting to come get some.
Evil Dead Burn will debut exclusively in theaters on July 10, 2026, courtesy of Warner Bros. Discovery.
Evil Dead Burn doesn’t bring that much new to the world of this franchise (or horror in general), but it's so great at bringing its own full-throttle ferocity to the constant evolutions to these films that it cements itself as yet another sturdy entry. It's sadistic and visceral in Vaniček’s direction, which adds more relentless energy to the franchise’s blood-soaked crowd pleasing mayhem, and odds are, most fans will be wanting to come get some.
Lover of film writing about film. Member of the Dallas Fort-Worth Critics Association. The more time passes, the more the medium of movies has become deeply intertwined with who I am.
