Cert – 18, Run-time – 1 hour 49 minutes, Director – Sébastien Vaniček
After the funeral of her abusive husband (George Pullar) Alice (Souheila Yacoub) is invited to his family home, where Deadites in search of an ancient dagger are circling.
2023’s Evil Dead Rise may have struck the same horror-focused vein as Fede Álvarez’s 2013 drenched-in-crimson franchise reboot, but like that film it still had an entertainment factor in the literal scrapes and tears featured throughout – let’s not forget the cheese grater. Follow-up Evil Dead Burn is a far cry from the humour that grew throughout the original trilogy, it’s the kind of film that British censors believed they were watching when banning the film under the Video Nasties scare of the 80s. That’s not to say that The Evil Dead isn’t scary and doesn’t have it’s twisted and splattery moments, but there’s levity amongst them, as some would point out a tongue-in-cheek aspect to it, although largely in the sequels. Evil Dead Burn, on the other hand, is a dark, dark film.
As Deadites surround an isolated, splintering family home where the Price’s have gathered shortly after the funeral of son and brother Will (George Pullar), tensions are already rising at the presence of his wife, Alice (Souheila Yacoub), especially after she didn’t make a speech at the funeral for her abusive ex. The build-up is slow and gradual, but once the possessing beings come into play, searching for an ancient dagger they believe to be in the home, the hoped for thrills and action come into full effect.
That is until they, quite quickly, go beyond that. Co-writer (alongside Florent Bernard) and director Sébastien Vaniček seems intent on not just testing the waters but pushing the boat out as far as possible, before taking a chainsaw to it and everyone on board. While not feeling sadistic there is an uneasy nature to a good chunk of the horror on display. Focusing on the idea rather than the effect – someone’s face being pushed into another caved-in one doesn’t produce the right kind of squirm. The biggest issue is the fact that there feels little entertainment factor because of the tone and nature of what we’re seeing. Intensifying that feeling of darkness without a full impact.
The feeling of that brilliant one-shot teaser trailer with bodies, dust, destruction and chaos being thrown and flown in all directions is present on a couple of occasions. In the scene itself and another brief moment where an early deadite encounter is shown from above, the sustained shots help to bring in intensity and propulsion. It’s a shame that those aren’t quite present throughout. Certainly the third act has a better sense of flow, feeling less like unfolding ideas in a possessed house movie and having a stronger chase and fight aspect – where Yacoub clutches the throat of her final girl role and gets everything she can out of it. A jackhammer and hedge strimmer make for well-utilised weapons, and a pen brought about more than one of the biggest gasps and audible winces for quite some time from myself. It’s moments where the film is swift but allowing ideas to live on and have an effect rather than focusing on just the idea for the heavy blood and gore they emit.
Such moments help lift the film up and see it through, ending on a more positive note thanks to the successful thrills and suspense brought about in contrast to the pure darkness, and slight drudgery, of images focusing more on bloody detail over wider effect. There are entertaining details, and indeed some tongue-in-cheek chuckles and twisted scares and lingering interactions with deadites, but they take some time to come round to. As if the film needs to get through a lot before properly igniting and staying aflame.
Evil Dead Burn often seems to be focused on pushing the gore boat out rather than entertaining. While it has its amusing and likably grisly moments, especially in the action and chases of the third act flow, there’s an adverse intensity to the slow first half’s darkness that can sometimes border on sadistic.
Just A Little Bit Random 