Evil Dead Burn Review

“To your perfect family” – Deadite Thya

It’s hard to believe, in this day and age, that back in the early eighties, we couldn’t legally watch The Evil Dead (1981). It was banned from cinemas and owning a copy of it was a criminal offence. It wasn’t until the early nineties that I finally managed to get my hands on it and the sequel to see what all the fuss was about. But back in those days, I even had to buy the horror magazine Fangoria under the counter at a local newsagent – it was on the Obscene Publications List, and the shopkeeper was liable to prosecution if they had it on display.

Thankfully, times have changed and here we are, 43 or so years later. Not much the worse for draconian government censorship, and still watching the Evil Dead franchise, only not at home on a VHS player with a mono TV, but at a multiplex with surround sound. (I even caught a Halloween screening of the original Evil Dead at the multiplex back in 2018.) And if the then government of 1981 thought Evil Dead was bad (and they did), the poor dears would’ve outright passed out if they had seen the latest in the series.

I thought Lee Cronin’s The Mummy was at times visceral and channelled The Evil Dead movies when I saw it earlier in the year (review is here) and I stand by that. There were things in that movie that were hard to watch, and in particular to listen to. By that, I mean things like the moist sound of flesh tearing. Look away if you like, the sound leaves you in no doubt what you’re missing. But then – Lee Cronin also directed Evil Dead Rise back in 2023 (which was the first review I published when I launched this iteration of the website – here’s the link).

In closing my review of Evil Dead Rise, I wrote; “I think the whole lakeside sequence is just a setup for a sequel, should they go that way. That’s just my theory though – take it for what it’s worth, with a pinch of salt.” Well, well. Guess who called it.

The film opens with the surviving deadite Jessica from Rise emerging from the lake and attacking (well, slaughtering might be a better word) a couple of fishermen before wandering away.

I’m not going to delve too deeply in to the plot because, frankly, there isn’t that much of it. It’s mainly a visual film – Evil Dead movies are entertaining to those of us who like our horror hardcore, but let’s be honest - they’re not exactly nuanced.

So, the plot has Joseph Price (Hunter Doohan) researching his late grandfather’s studies. It was his grandfather who discovered the Book of the Dead and foolishly recorded himself reading some of its incantations, which caused the deadites to emerge in the original Evil Dead, when the tape was played back.

After a drunken argument with his wife Alice (Souhelia Yacoub) Joseph’s brother Will (George Pullar) drives away along a quiet rural road and ploughs into Jessica, who turns him into a deadite.

Later, Alice now a grieving widow faces the Price family for Will’s cremation and a family dinner afterward, in a rundown house (that’ll go well) but nobody knows that the family patriarch has also been infected as a deadite. As the deadite virus spreads through the family, Alice finds herself fighting against practically insurmountable odds for survival.

And there you have it.

Steve, my son and cinema-going partner in crime (also co-host of Piercing the Veil) asked me on the way to the multiplex if I thought this was going to be “a squelchy film”. And to give him credit, that’s exactly what it is. It’s a squelchy film. But more than that, it’s a relentlessly gory, messy film. As someone remarked after the film was over, it’s a mean-spirited movie. And I agree with that. It revels in being a mean-spirited splatter fest. Mean spirited in the mean spiritedness of the original. Every time you think you’ve seen just about the worst carnage that can be shown on screen, within minutes they’ve shown you something that pushes the envelope even further. The bloodletting surpasses that of the Terrifier films, but there’s none of the comedic charisma of Art the Clown to offset the extremities of torture unfolding before our eyes, in high definition.

The only comic relief is the scenes involving the dotty and confused grandmother Polly (Maude Davey) who steals every scene she’s in.

Altogether, the film is a worthy addition to the Evil Dead series, and I had a great time watching it. Watching Evil Dead Burn in air-conditioned comfort was certainly a better option than watching myself burn in our current heatwave. I’m happy to recommend it to any horror movie fan, except anybody who’s delicate – you won’t survive the screening.

One last thing, there are two stings. One half way through the end credits and another at the end. Don’t leave the screening until you’ve seen both – they’re probably important for the future. Not the next one though. Evil Dead Wrath has already wrapped filming for a projected 2028 release and is a prequel to the original movie.

Rob Rating = 8