It has been fascinating to see the Evil Dead franchise expand and evolve throughout the decades. When you think about it, the original film was just a gnarly little horror movie that was considered something like a rite of passage for years. Then the sequel reworked things to amplify and underline the comedy. The third film continued that journey. There have been comics featuring new adventures and crossover tales, there was a pretty good remake/reimagining, a wonderful TV show that we could never have imagined getting at the turn of the century, and then Evil Dead Rise managed to take things in another direction while still feeling true to the essence of the franchise. And now along comes Evil Dead Burn, bringing everything crashing down to a new low point.
I like seeing my deadites in a simplistic horror premise. I also liked seeing them used in ways that allow the movies to work as metaphors for addiction or the trials of motherhood. Evil Dead Burn is about family, what it takes to be together with loved ones, and what harm can come from refusing to acknowledge problems and serious character failings that can affect others in the wider world (EDIT: I have tried to be a bit vague and coy here, but it's worth noting, since I have seen others triggered by it, that almost the entirety of Evil Dead Burn is inextricably intertwined with the pain and claustrophobia of domestic abuse). It's not a terrible film, and there are some fun bits of gore, but almost every main element suffers in comparison to anything we've seen previously in this series.
A family is mourning. Will (George Pullar) has died in a horrific car accident. The funeral is a tense affair, attended by his mother (Tandi Wright), father (Erroll Shand), grandmother (Maude Davey), brother (Joseph, played by Hunter Doohan), Joseph's girlfriend (Thya, played by Luciane Buchanan), and Will's wife (Alice, played by Souheila Yacoub). Once back at the family home after the funeral, tensions rise further, and there are some evil entities who want to gatecrash the occasion, on a mission to gain possession of a dagger in the house that has the power to destroy them.
It's easy to see why director Sébastien Vanicek was considered a good fit for this franchise. His previous film was a decent bit of horror with some stylish camerawork and some good moments of claustrophobia. Once again sharing the writing duties with Florent Bernard, Vanicek knows how to build up a decent selection of horror movies. He doesn't seem to know how to marry his mentality to the tone of the Evil Dead series though. For as traumatic and gory as they have been, the best moments have always had some humour. People thought that was lacking in Evil Dead Rise, but I thought it was often still there. This one is a depressingly downbeat affair though. There's no sense of mischief or malicious glee, although one character comes close in the high point of the film (which was, sadly, already shown in the trailers), and that makes most of the runtime a bit of a tiresome wait to see how one main character will make it to the end credits, or indeed IF they will make it. Too many of the supporting characters are maimed or possessed too early to allow for anything playful and tense, and I would make a strong case stating that this franchise is no place for any director to show off their ability to create an extended single take sequence punctuated by violence and pain moving just in and out the edges of the frame. I also don't need strained connections to previous instalments, thanks but no thanks.
It doesn't help that the cast generally lack a sense of watchability. Shand and Buchanan are the notable exceptions, but the former is overused in a way that continually undermines the impact he could have made. Buchanan excels though, and steals the movie for a few minutes at the halfway point. Yacoub suffers from material that doesn't let her do anything other than react to the unfolding evil and craziness around her, Doohan suffers from the fact that he looks a bit too similar to Anton Yelchin in this, which just made me sad as I remembered how we lost Yelchin so young, and both Wright and Davey are used in disappointingly predictable ways. As for Pullar, his screentime is obviously limited, but he's also often surrounded by CGI of varying quality. There's also a dog here, and dog lovers may want to approach this with a fair amount of caution.
The score is decent, although it retains a level of constant noisy dread in line with the structuring of the film, and there are some of the enjoyably bloody and gloopy effects that fans would expect, but there's not enough here to make it feel as if it's worthy of using the Evil Dead name. Vanicek seems so pre-occupied with working in the fire and heat motifs that he forgets to deliver some actual fun alongside the mutilations and deaths. The previous film showed that the series didn't have to stay shackled to the mighty personality of Bruce Campbell's Ash. This film shows that there are so many other ingredients that should be retained by anyone wanting to rework a recipe from the classic selections available in the Necronimicon Cookbook.
4/10
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