Six films deep, the Evil Dead franchise has never had a genuinely bad entry, which is a remarkable track record for a horror series this violent and this long-running. Evil Dead Burn, directed by Sebastien Vanicek from a script he co-wrote with Florent Bernard, does not just extend that streak. It might be the best thing to wear the Evil Dead name since Sam Raimi’s original trilogy, and that is a claim worth taking seriously.
Vanicek was hired by Raimi himself after Infested, his acclaimed 2023 horror film, made clear he understood tension as well as gore. That instinct shows immediately. Burn follows Alice, played by Souheila Yacoub, who travels to stay with her late husband’s family at their secluded home after his death, only to watch the household transform one by one into Deadites, turning a family reunion into something considerably worse. Hunter Doohan, Luciane Buchanan, and Tandi Wright round out a cast that commits fully to the material.
What Works
Vanicek brings a distinctly European sensibility to material that has historically been very American in its rhythms, and the shift pays off. The film is gnarly, intense, and relentlessly inventive in the ways it finds to hurt its characters, somehow escalating past the previous entries’ already considerable brutality. The practical effects work is a genuine highlight, visceral and tactile in a way that CGI-driven horror rarely manages, and Vanicek stages several sequences, an extended in-car struggle among them, that function as pure, expertly choreographed set pieces. The transitions between scenes carry an unexpected, twisted sense of humor that keeps the film from becoming a monotone gauntlet of violence, and the third act genuinely earns the descriptions of hell on earth that have followed it since early screenings.
The direction is the film’s biggest asset. Vanicek shoots this material with real formal control, and the film’s willingness to lean into dread and psychological unease alongside the gore gives it more texture than a straightforward splatter picture would have.
Where It Stumbles
It is not flawless. The screenplay occasionally leans on the franchise’s established beats rather than finding new ones, and some of the character writing exists mainly to get bodies into position for the next set piece. This is also, by design, one of the most purely brutal entries in the series, and viewers who came to Evil Dead for its campier, sillier instincts may find this version leans too far into punishing extremity without enough of the winking humor that made earlier films so purely fun. It is not a film for the squeamish, and it does not pretend to be.
The Verdict
Evil Dead Burn is a ferocious, confidently directed entry that expands what an Evil Dead film can feel like without abandoning what makes one recognizably itself. Vanicek proves he understood the assignment, and then some. This is one of the strongest chapters the franchise has produced in over a decade, and for horror fans willing to sit with its extremity, it delivers almost everything it promises.
Evil Dead Burn is now playing in theaters. Rated R for strong bloody horror violence, gore, and language. Directed by Sebastien Vanicek. Written by Sebastien Vanicek and Florent Bernard. Runtime: 1 hour 50 minutes. A Warner Bros. Pictures / New Line Cinema / Screen Gems release.
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