- Directed by: Sebastien Vanicek
- Written by: Sebastien Vanicek, Florent Bernard
- Stars: Souheila Yacoub, Tandi Wright, Hunter Doohan
- Run Time: 1 Hour, 50 Minutes
- Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnHby2cxJzs
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
It’s death and mayhem for a family who are descendents of an old professor who researched the Necronomicon and the business around it. In an isolated house where they’ve gathered, evil does its thing with over the top violence and gore. It’s pretty continuous in the violence in fact, almost to the point of tedium by the end, a serious business without much humor. We’re both in agreement it was better than the previous movie “Evil Dead Rise,” but Brian enjoyed this one more than Kevin did.
Spoilery Synopsis
We get a voice recording talking about the Necronomicon and flesh-possessing demons. There’s also a magical device that can send the demons back to Hell, but it must remain hidden. If it’s found, the demons will stop at nothing to destroy it. We watch a guy find the thing.
We cut to two fishermen arguing about leaving their phones in the car. One guy catches a head and then something catches him. Leo pulls about half of Jarod out of the water, and then the demon gets him as well. The demon then stands in the road and waits for a car to hit her.
Alice and her friends get together for Joseph’s birthday. Will buys Joseph a thousand-dollar pen because he never finishes his books, which devolves into an argument. He’s abusive and controlling, and ends up speeding away from the club… until he runs into the demon-woman and crashes. “We found you, now lead us to your family,” says the demon-woman, who soon loses her head. The car bursts into flame, burning Will alive. Credits roll.
At the funeral, Alice sees Will’s family, Susan and Polly. There’s construction going on outside, which is very distracting. They all think Alice and Will were happily married, but that’s obviously not the case. Will’s father, Ed, wants one last visit alone with his son, but he hears Will knocking on the casket from the inside. What comes out of the casket isn’t Will. It messily takes care of the crematorium operator but lets the old man leave.
The whole group goes off to the family home, which is looking really run-down now. Grandpa, who is dead now, was the man who made that recording we heard about in the opener. The photo of Grandpa looks like Bruce Campbell (Maybe? Kevin disagrees). Grandpa was obsessed with demons and the occult, and Susan resents it.
Ed goes into the basement and the demon talks to him. Alice takes a knife away from him before he can hurt himself. Grandma Polly has dementia and has no idea what’s going on, which makes dinner awkward for everyone. Ed is weirdly hostile and soon, everyone notices, especially when he kills the family dog with a fork. On the way to the hospital, Ed kills Thya, who’s driving the car. Joseph gets beat up but escapes into the woods.
Alice reads from Grandpa’s book, and she learns a few things about the demons and the dagger that can kill them. At least until the dead dog gets up and attacks her.
Joseph returns to the house and says Ed killed Thya. Thya then knocks on the door, and they all get a look at her. Joseph, Alice, and Susan throw the undead girlfriend into the basement and lock the door. Outside, they run into Ed and Max the dog. Ed pulls out a gun and shoots himself in the head– twice, but that doesn’t stop him. Then he does it a third time, which still doesn’t do the trick.
The family barricades themselves inside the house. Dolly then lets Thya out of the basement. Thya attacks Alice, and Joseph proves how useless he really is. Thya stabs him with a whole dishwasher full of knives. Thya is about to get grandma when Alice steps up and knocks her down the stairs with Grandma’s prosthetic leg. And Joseph beats her to pieces with the dishwasher door.
Alice finally makes Joseph explain about the demons and their grandfather. The old man travelled the world researching and gathering artifacts. Meanwhile, Dolly convinces Susan to open the window and let Ed in.
Ed wants the dagger, and Joseph explains that he knows where it is. As Ed tortures and beats Joseph and Susan, Alice hides in a closet. How is Joseph not dead six times over by this point?
Dolly grabs Alice and stabs her in the ear with Joseph’s pen. Susan and Alice hide in the bathroom, and Alice finally comes clean about what a monster Will was.
Alice cuts a hole in the ceiling and climbs up to Grandpa’s attic to search for the dagger. She finds a dagger and stabs now-possessed Joseph with it, but it’s the wrong one. Then she hits upon the right one and kills him with it. She then drops the knife out the window and has to battle the demons on the roof and down the chimney.
Alice then kills Susam and Ed with a rotary garden edger. She stabs the dog with the knife and burns down the house. As a final boss, Alice must confront Will, who’s more skeleton than man at this point.
Will chases Alice to a construction site, where he knocks her into a pit and starts to fill it with boiling tar. She throws the knife Ed gave her early on into the tar and tricks Will into going after it. She then picks up a jackhammer, not the chainsaw, and really messes up Will’s day. Finally, she stabs him with the real dagger. She takes out her frustrations on his head and drops him back into the tar.
Suddenly, the police and medics show up, maybe they saw the fire. She blames her ex-husband.
Brian’s Commentary
Neither of us much liked the previous film, “Evil Dead Rise” (2023), as it had no real connection to the classic films. Other than having flesh-possessing demons, neither does this one, but it seems the franchise is on a new path now, and there’s no going back.
The many practical effects are really well done, and there’s not excessive blood, although it’s extremely violent. Actually, this may be one of the most non-stop relentlessly violent movies I’ve ever seen, and there’s no comic relief in sight.
It’s about a half-hour longer than it needs to be; they could have trimmed down some of the early stuff.
Overall, it’s better than the previous installment. I was entertained. Too long though.
Kevin’s Commentary
The first three Evil Dead movies were directed by Sam Raimi and starred Bruce Campbell. I remember them being weird and darkly funny and entertaining. Like the two sequels/reboots before this, “Evil Dead Burn” lacks all those things. Okay, somewhat entertaining. And the gore and effects are top notch. There are many visceral ouchies.
There is a sort of story and explanation, but it just feels too much to me like random awful things happening to people who did nothing to deserve it. Not that that’s not a formula in some horror movies, but this didn’t really connect with me. I think it’s because there’s a bit too much hopelessness and helplessness. The deadites are just going to keep coming no matter what they do to try and save themselves. Graphically demonstrated by possessed Edgar who puts multiple bullets through his own brain and keeps on deadite-ing. It’s just events playing out until everyone is dead.
I did enjoy it more than the previous movie in the series, “Evil Dead Rise,” but not nearly as much as the original trilogy.
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