Evil Dead Burn

by Mike McGranaghan

Sam Raimi’s original The Evil Dead hit like a bomb when it was released in 1981. There had been other excessively gory movies, many thanks to legendary Blood Feast director Herschell Gordon Lewis, but Raimi’s picture took gore to all new levels, both in realism and style. He followed it up with the equally gory Evil Dead 2, which ironically played the carnage in an often slapstick fashion. Evil Dead Burn is very much in the tradition of those films, in that the third act is a nonstop gore-o-rama. This is absolutely not for the squeamish or delicate of stomach. Evil Dead fans, though, will get precisely what they’re looking for.

The central figure this time is Alice (The Balconettes’ Souheila Yacoub). Her abusive husband Will (George Pullar) dies in a violent accident immediately after they have a big fight. Following the funeral, she goes to his family’s enormous lake house. It’s clear that Will’s parents, Susan (Tandi Wright) and Edgar (Erroll Shand), blame her for their son’s death. Brother-in-law Joseph (Hunter Doohan) and his girlfriend Thya (Luciane Buchanan) are more sympathetic. Joseph has been tinkering around with his grandfather’s research into demonic spirits, unintentionally setting some of them free in the process. They first inhabit Edgar, then quickly begin targeting everybody else.

What follows is an insane amount of carnage. If you’ve seen the trailer, you know a character gets a car seat headrest embedded into her face. That’s just one of many ghastly sights on display. (Viewers sensitive to dog violence should exercise particular caution at the roughly 30-minute mark.) Bodies are maimed in creative ways – a dishwasher full of knives and forks is used as a weapon at one point – and the screen often fills with blood, guts, and brain matter. True to the franchise’s spirit, the so-called “Deadites” are terrifying in their lack of mercy. Jason Voorhees was content to stab his victims; the Deadites decimate theirs.

Director Sébastien Vanicek stages the violent mayhem with style, utilizing clever camera techniques and first-rate visual effects to jack up the tension. He gives Evil Dead Burn a breakneck pace, too. Once the plot kicks into gear, there is no point at which you can get up to use the bathroom or refill your soda without missing something significant. Horror movies often utilize a patient approach, taking the time to build up suspense before a kill. The Evil Dead series has always avoided that, opting to shake up viewers with a relentless, pummeling experience. Vanicek certainly delivers on that count.

Believe it or not, there is an actual story taking place here. The screenplay deals with themes of dysfunctional families and domestic abuse. As the characters turn into Deadites, they unleash their true feelings about each other. Alice must deal with the fact that Susan and Edgar really do resent her, and Joseph’s status as being afraid to stand up to his brother is called out. The finale pits Alice against Deadite Will, creating a scenario in which an abused woman gets an opportunity for revenge against her abuser. Having that thematic structure gives the hard-R violence a useful context.

The first two Evil Deads and the third entry, Army of Darkness, had a mixture of extreme horror and goofy humor that set them apart from the pack. Like Evil Dead Rise, Evil Dead Burn is a more conventional genre entry, sticking to one lane. I hope the series will bring that back at some point. Until then, we’ve got this solidly entertaining and thoroughly gross installment to scratch the Deadite itch.