You know me – I Iove Sam Raimi, I love THE EVIL DEAD. Nobody will ever make an EVIL DEAD the same as Raimi did, but as far as horror franchising goes I think he’s got a good set up here. We have his original classic trilogy (1981-1993), which he was able to legacy-sequelize surprisingly well with a decades later tv series (2015-2018). That’s gonna be it for Bruce Campbell’s character Ash, and I think that’s fine. More than enough. Instead Raimi has turned to recruiting younger up-and-coming filmmakers to put their spin on movies in the same universe. They have some sort of Book of the Dead that summons some sort of Deadites, but they aren’t necessarily serialized, they’re mostly different incidents that stand on their own.

It didn’t seem like a popular opinion at the time, but I loved Fede Álvarez’s vicious remake EVIL DEAD (2013), and that has only solidified over the years. Lee Cronin’s EVIL DEAD RISE (2023) didn’t hit me as hard, but it’s a fun time and it’s nice to see somebody capture some of the EVIL DEAD spirit (or even try to define what that is, exactly) while telling a different story in a different setting (an apartment building).

That one having done well, producers Raimi, Campbell and Rob Tapert got the ball rolling for some more, and I’m very impressed by their choice of the French director Sébastien Vaniček. Like them I loved his debut INFESTED (2023), which is about a black market shoe salesman and rare animal enthusiast who causes his housing project to be overrun by deadly fast-growing spiders. It’s both smarter and more serious than that probly sounds, and it’s on Shudder.

Vaniček has reteamed with his INFESTED co-writer Florent Bernard for this one, and according to Fangoria they were given complete freedom. There are a few connections to the last installment, and mentions of things that could be setting up some future storyline, but for the most part this feels like its own standalone story. And thankfully RISES burned all the obvious callbacks, so Vaniček can just get down to business.

Which he does. That’s the first thing I loved about it. It opens with the playing of a reel-to-reel incantation, and the act of summoning Kandarian demons. No need to set the stage yet – just turn on the amps. A couple of schmoes have their fishing trip ruined by hooking an evil severed head and encountering aquatic mayhem. The scene doesn’t feel jokey, but I laughed at the shot of a lobster scurrying away. I think he got out of their trap and said, “This seems to be something between you guys, I’m staying out of it.”

Once we’ve been spookablasted in the face I guess it’s okay to meet the main characters, but keep in mind we haven’t even hit the title yet when Joseph (Hunter Doohan, Wednesday) and his girlfriend Thya (Luciane Buchanan, The Night Agent) are celebrating his birthday at a club run by his older brother Will (George Pullar) and Will’s French wife Alice (Souheila Yacoub, CLIMAX). Will keeps making everyone uncomfortable by criticizing Alice and later, in the parking lot, he’s grabbing her arm and throwing a drunken tantrum before they fail to stop him from getting in his car and roaring off. That’s when he intersects with the opening Deadite and suffers what the family believe is a fatal drunk driving accident but that we know is much crazier. I love scenes where a character yells “WHAT THE FUUCKK!!??” and it feels completely earned.

Honestly a scene or two ago I thought oh great, we gotta spend time with this asshole? And then he immediately got his. So once again, this movie rips. It knows what it’s doing.

This installment’s equivalent of a cabin in the woods is the Price family vacation home where Joseph has been staying while writing his book. Much bigger and nicer than a cabin, a little decrepit, definitely isolated. Like the EVIL DEAD cabin it has a basement to lock a Deadite in, but the weird occult stuff is in the attic. See, their late Grandpa was kind of a Professor Knowby type, he spent years traveling the world finding ancient Book of the Dead shit, including a Kandarian dagger they’re trying to find and destroy. That’s what Joseph’s book is about, so he’s been going through the stuff.

The rest of the family joins him in the house after the funeral: his mom Susan (Tandi Wright, LOVE AND MONSTERS, PEARL, Power Rangers S.P.D.), who tries to throw that occult stuff away; his dad Edgar (Erroll Shand, SAFE HOUSE), who might be possessed after an incident in the crematory; his grandma Polly (Maude Davey), who never remembers who anybody is or what’s going on but often accuses Thya of trying to steal from her.

And then we have Alice, who’s having a terrible time pretending to mourn a not-great husband, much less staying with the parents who never approved of her in the first place and now seem to blame her for his death. I like that it gives us scenes we haven’t seen in this series previously: a super uncomfortable funeral, an even more uncomfortable family dinner. There’s a grounded tension because the parents are pushy and judgmental about Alice not wanting to keep Will’s restaurant, among other things, and about her keeping it to herself what a terrible marriage it was, but also there’s the horror movie tension of supernatural shit going on with Edgar, plus Alice saw Edgar almost stab himself and now she keeps noticing him grabbing the steak knife and the corkscrew and he’s getting sweatier and angrier and the dog keeps whining and it’s a very long, torturously slow (evil dead) burn until the turning point when no one can pretend everything is fine.

The stress level of that scene had me thinking of UNCUT GEMS, of all things. Of course, this will also bring to mind many horror movies. You know those French and their extremity, but I was thinking more Italian, espcially DEMONS and DEMONS 2. Maybe it’s the choir and the organ and the occasional guitar blasts in the score by Double Danger. There is, of course, lots of fire. That’s kinda Italian. There are imaginatively gruesome injuries. The best improvised weapon is given away in the trailer (it’s car related), but that’s one of many. There is some very upsetting ear trauma, I will say.

Crucially, Vaniček invokes Raimi visual energy without seeming like an imitator. There are numerous elaborately staged set pieces with perfect camera moves. But even the calmer, mood-setting scenes are exciting for the ways cinematographer Philip Lozano (BLOOD MACHINES, COBWEB, MadS) makes everything seem just off enough to be a little queasy, putting the camera a little too close or skewing the angle slightly, and the color is washed out, almost sickly. A good Raimi/Vaniček intersection is the drone shot that goes up over the trees and then wobbles out of control.

I also like how in the early section of the movie ordinary things like cooking dinner follow the style and rhythm of the infuential suiting up montage in EVIL DEAD II. (Editor: Maxime Caro.)

Maybe the most EVIL DEAD thing about BURN is that If you want to talk about “the cool part” there’s a long list of parts that could be. A Deadite toast with the hot wax from a (personally meaningful) candle might be the iconic scene. But that follows the fight inside the car and the aftermath. And there’s the part with the Deadites scurrying across the roof and chasing her down the chimney. The part where they bash into the TV while it’s showing old wedding videos of Will. The mirror shot. The dog. The long take where Alice crawls through the house as all kinda of shit happens around her – it reminds me of in dreams when I struggle to move.

It’s a thrill ride, and it does have humor, including straight up jokes, right from the start. But the overall tone is not fuckin around, and I like that. As with EVIL DEAD 2013, there are some complaining that it should be jokier. I think EVIL DEAD II will always be my favorite, and it’s obviously very funny, but I personally don’t think it’s a movie that can be topped or repeated. I think Raimi and company are absolutely correct that the well to return to is not “groovy,” but “The Ultimate Experience in Grueling Terror.”

Also, I personally find it funny seeing these movies with crowds that seem to have expected a light horror comedy and then the not-fuckin-around horror hits them like the guy in the old Maxell ads. Somebody behind me kept muttering sutff like “jesus CHRIST!,” sounding more mad than appreciative. I’m sorry, but in a horror movie that adds to the experience. It just does.

As much as I cherish the original trilogy, and know that Ash’s idiotic sexism is part of the joke, I do think those are very boys-club movies where, since Ash is the only character who really pops, the women are lightly sketched, to put it charitably. And I like that the new EVIL DEAD movies and show very much go in the opposite direction. In this review I kinda pretended Will was the main character because (mild spoiler) I feel you could potentially go into it expecting him to follow the original arc of Ash, or even the standard portrayal of a supposed wimp. He’s a sympathetic character whose older brother has belittled him as a slacker, his dad as a guy who doesn’t know how to do a man’s job, specifically for not doing work involving power tools. Obviously he’s gonna come through and save the day! Well… he tries, anyway. I like that without being a total loser he still doesn’t cut it to be that guy.

An even more subtle subversion is the way his pen sort of fulfills the role of Linda’s necklace. In an EVIL DEAD, or any movie, there tends to be an object with personal significance to a character, like the necklace Ash gave to Linda and then held onto after her death. In BURN it’s a fancy pen that Will gave Joseph as a birthday present. What’s interesting about it, though, is that even Will’s gifting was an act of aggression. He makes Joseph uncomfortable with the exorbitant price tag and uses it as a swipe by implying he’s some of slacker for working on a book forever. So when the pen is carried (and of course weaponized) it’s not a reminder of his beloved dead brother, exactly.

Could this be the first elevated spookablast? Nah, but an EVIL DEAD movie that’s serious about its themes of domestic abuse and family trauma is not something I ever thought would happen or work this well. We see different responses to Will’s abuse: they don’t know about that side of him, or don’t know the full extent of it or what to do about it, or they completely deny it. We see him blame it on Alice, tell her “none of my exes made me like this.” We see his dad having anger issues and, at least in his possessed form, showing signs of an abuser. Off the top of my head I can’t think of another horror movie that quite captures this idea of self harm as a threat – possessed Edgar threatening to stab or shoot himself as a way to horrify others. He shoots himself in the head (more than once) and then walks around with the holes. The guy had real murder-suicide potential.

He’s visibly a monster, but that’s nothing new for Susan. She still calls him sweetie. Still kisses him. As much as she sucks and as much as she’s a danger, Alice recognizes she’s a victim and takes enough pity on her to try to spare her. Susan is generally a cold and mean character, but the scene where she tries to throw away the important occult items shows her humanity. We can see her point-of-view that her dad was a nut who disappeared into mystical bullshit rather than take responsibility for his family, forcing her to spend her life as caretaker for her sister and then mom. That’s real world shit that sucks.

And the climax of the movie is interesting because (WHY THE CLIMAX IS INTERESTING SPOILER) of course Will has to come back as the final boss, but he’s this strange digital or digitally enhanced FX creation, not a whole person, much of him burned off (like I kinda imagine a new Freddy would have to be to be different from Robert Englund). He’s not physically threatening, he seems like you could break him, but he’s psychologically threatening. She has to face him. And she has to not give in to him. What she does is another thing that seems taken from dreams, and I think many people will find it very cathartic.

During the credits there’s an almost MCU type “for the fans” stinger, a little Necro-comic-conning, if you will. That seemed to delight my crowd, and I heard some people talking like it was as an apology for practically giving them a white streak in their hair like Ash. Yeah, EVIL DEAD BURN is another chapter in a growing franchise (Francis Galluppi’s EVIL DEAD WRATH has already been shot, even though it’s set for a 2028 release), but I have a feeling it will have a long trail of appreciation for its particular qualities. Or at least I’m gonna think of it as some kind of minor classic.