Intense and violent yet lacking the stakes to make any of the mayhem worthwhile, Evil Dead Burn revels in carnage yet lacks character and creativity, resulting in a rare dud for the storied Evil Dead horror franchise.
Evil Dead Burn is an incredibly frustrating film. From the opening frame director Sebastien Vanicek (Infested) sets an atmosphere that is queasy and nihilistic. There is no calm before the demonic storm in this French filmmaker’s contribution to the Evid Dead franchise and it’s a creative decision that is the films’ undoing, with Evil Dead Burn constantly pouring gas on the fire until only the ashes remain of a once flawless horror franchise.
A major mistake that Vanicek and fellow screenwriter Florent Bernard (Meet the Leroys) make is believing that the Deadites (homicidal demonic spirits that possess the living) is the most important element of an Evil Dead film, when the focus should be on developing characters of stakes that are worthy of our investment. For a horror franchise in which the villains once declared “we will eat your soul!” the characters of Evil Dead Burn sure do lack any semblance of a soul.
Much like the previous Evil Dead Rise, this sixth entry in the Evil Dead franchise is a family affair. Souhelia Yacoub stars as Alice, a French woman living in America whose abusive husband William (George Pullar) died in a fiery car accident. When Alice reunites with her incredibly dysfunctional in-laws at William’s funeral, little does she know that this torturous day will become a literal hell-on-earth when the Deadites come seeking an ancient weapon that can destroy their kind that is hidden somewhere in the decrepit house that once belonged to her late husband’s grandfather.
All the characters in Evil Dead Burn prove to be ghastly pieces of work before the Deadites enter the scene. The lack of a true human factor and the emotional investment that should come with it results in a resounding “meh” when the eventual supernatural savagery begins, resulting in a horror film interested only in spectacle while lacking any semblance of engrossing storytelling.
Vanicek, for his part, does put in the effort to deliver upon the Evil Dead tradition of manic camera angles and other various energetic filmmaking tricks to try and keep his audience on edge. Yet it all proves to be a fruitless exercise of intensity disguising the faults of an Evil Dead movie that lacks scares, stakes, and the awareness that those who only want to push the pedal-to-the-metal are likely to crash and burn.
