Movie Review – Evil Dead Burn

This new installment follows two brothers, one who is verbally and physically abusive to his wife and one who, as it turns out, will abandon anyone the moment things turn ugly, who are descendants of a man who found the Necronomicon and spent his life trying to find a way to stop deadites. If you’re new to the Evil Dead films, deadites are the demons that the Necronomicon calls forth to inhabit humans. Their grandfather apparently found daggers that can destroy the deadite and cause it to leave the body it possesses. The problem is, their mother through their grandfather was nuts and wanted everything related to the Necronomicon destroyed.

After one brother finds the book and reads from the Necronomicon, the book draws the deadites to the family and they want those daggers so they can destroy them. The other brother dies when a deadite finds him and ends up releasing the demon upon the family after the funeral. Back at their grandfather’s house which has fallen into disrepair, it reeks havoc on them. You know the rest. Violence. Gore. Mental warfare. Death. And one survivor.

At its core, this film is really about the imperfect people in this family and how the deadites use those imperfections against them. The father blames one son for the other’s death. The mother resents the grandfather. The grandmother is senile. The wife of the abusive brother, Alice, takes a lot of flack for being what the family sees as an bad wife. It’s her journey the movie latches onto. She’s our Final Girl. The one who finds the dagger to kill the deadites, but not before sustaining several injuries and burning the house down. Because her husband was the one who brought the deadite into the family, she also has to face him and his abuse one last time.

The house, rotting both inside and out, is the perfect setting for this toxic family. It shows not only the state of their family as a whole but the state of each character as well. It’s almost as if the house as rotted around them as the petty resentments and abusive nature of certain characters grew worse. I guess the old adage is true. If you don’t heal what hurt you, you’ll bleed on those who didn’t cut you.

It certainly brings the gore. I’m pretty desensitized to most bloody, violent movies so if I cringed in sympathetic pain at some of what went on here, then kudos to the filmmakers. They go that far with it, an unrelenting trip through blood soaked hell. One awful thing after another, and off kilter camera angles only add to the unease throughout the film. And that is where the film thrives. The family drama is great and well acted all around, but its the body horror and camera work that really sells this film. One scene in particular sees Alice crawling her way through a room where a deadite is trying to destroy two other characters and its utterly brilliant in tone and tension. Director Sebastian Vanicek should be proud of that. He made a film that won’t be for everyone, but for the most hearty, you’re going to love it.

There are two scenes in the credits – one mid-credits featuring the one character who Alice didn’t revoke the deadite out of, and one post-credits scene with a familiar face from a previous film. I won’t ruin the surprise, but it got a “hell yeah” from me when the screen finally faded to black. It’s been a great year for horror and this is a welcome addition.

4 out of 5 stars.