This is a quick review of the newly released film Evil Dead Burn. Please note that this is just one of the many movies I will have watched each year, and my initial grade for this film may change over time, for better or worse. To stay up to date on my thoughts about other movies and any potential changes in my opinion on this one, follow me on Letterboxd.
Plot
Via Letterboxd: After the loss of her husband, a woman seeks solace with her in-laws. As one-by-one they transform into deadites, she comes to discover that the vows she took in life…survive even in death.
Review
Sad to say, but Evil Dead Burn is the first film in this franchise that I didn’t really vibe with.
I’ve been turning this one over in my head since the credits rolled because I genuinely can’t decide whether I land slightly positive or slightly negative on it overall. At the moment, I’m leaning toward the latter, though I can definitely see this being one of those movies that some people connect with much more than I did.
To be clear, there are things here that work. The gore is absolutely relentless and features some genuinely gnarly, stomach-churning moments that will have horror fans wincing in their seats. If you’re coming to an Evil Dead movie looking for inventive carnage, buckets of blood, and practical effects-driven nastiness, Burn delivers on that front. There are also a handful of sequences that are directed exceptionally well, showcasing the kind of visual flair and intensity that has become a hallmark of the franchise.
I also appreciated the film’s central metaphor surrounding abusive relationships and the difficulty of escaping them. There’s an interesting thematic backbone here about the emotional attachments that keep people trapped in unhealthy situations even when they know they need to leave. It’s a compelling idea and gives the movie something more substantial to chew on than simply finding increasingly gruesome ways to torture its cast.
Unfortunately, that’s also where many of my issues begin.
For a movie that spends nearly two hours with these characters, I found them surprisingly difficult to invest in. Most of the cast feels underwritten and forgettable. By the time the horror really kicks into high gear, I wasn’t particularly attached to anyone involved, which made many of the emotional beats fall flat for me. Even with these in-laws being representative of a larger problem that allowed our protagonist’s marital abuse to go unchecked, I would have liked a little more depth to them.
I also found myself growing frustrated with how often the film seemed to prioritize shock value over storytelling. Evil Dead has always been extremely gory, but the best entries in the franchise balance their outrageous gore with memorable characters, dark humor, tension, or inventive filmmaking. Burn occasionally feels more interested in escalating the brutality than building a compelling narrative around it.
My biggest problem, however, is the pacing. The movie frequently feels like the prologue to a really great Evil Dead film stretched out to nearly two hours. There’s a lot of setup, a lot of wheel-spinning, and not enough narrative progression to justify the runtime. As a result, the film starts to drag long before it reaches its conclusion. Several scenes feel like they’re marking time rather than pushing the story forward, and the movie never fully shakes that feeling.
What’s frustrating is that the ingredients for something stronger are all here. The themes are interesting, the gore is effective, and there are flashes of genuinely impressive direction throughout. But for me, they never come together in a satisfying way. Instead, the film feels caught between wanting to be a deeper character-driven horror story and wanting to be a nonstop gore showcase, without fully succeeding at either.
Maybe this is one that will age better for me as the year goes on. Horror has been a strangely inconsistent genre for me this year, and it’s entirely possible I’ll revisit Burn down the road and find more to appreciate. For now, though, it’s easily my least favorite entry in the Evil Dead franchise.
There are certainly things horror fans will enjoy here, particularly if they’re primarily showing up for the carnage. Unfortunately, I needed a stronger story and more memorable characters to fully get on its wavelength, and in the end, Evil Dead Burn left me feeling more disappointed than entertained.
“TL;DR”
Pros: Gnarly and gory sequences that will leave many horror fans wincing in their seats; An interesting metaphor on leaving abusive relationships and the attachments they bring
Cons: Very forgettable and plainly written characters; Some horror moments come off as going for shock value over story; Ultimately feels like a prologue of a would-be Evil Dead movie that is stretchd out to nearly two hours; Overlong film
