Spoilers think rest in peace should be the law and not a suggestion.
There are movies with worldbuilding and lore and then there’s the ones that want to get to the scary part as soon as possible. This feature does use the lore set by previous Evil Dead films, but I have to say it does rely on the already rules rather than try to explain them again. This might work if you have seen some of the previous movies, but as a standalone it just presumes you know. This means… Let’s talk about it.
Evil Dead Burn (2026) was directed by Sébastien Vanicek who wrote with Florent Bernard. Alice (Souheila Yacoub) has become a widow after her husband Will (George Pullar) dies in a car crash under mysterious circumstances. She’s back to the family home along with Will’s brother Joseph (Hunter Doohan) and his girlfriend Thya (Luciane Buchanan). Now the young crowd have to interact with the cold and hostile parents Susan (Tandi Wright) and Edgar (Erroll Shand) and grandmother Polly (Maude Davey). There’s resentment all around, and of course none of them know that Will was killed by a deadite – and Edgar might have already been exposed.
By the time the entire cast has gatherer at the old and decrepit family home, any pretenses this will escalate slowly is gone. In no time flat, bodies will drop, get back up again and ready to terrorize the diminishing few. No, not even the dog is safe here. To its credit, the film doesn’t even pretend to waste time in explaining how we got here. It does have a few very minimal blink-and-you’ll-miss nods to the previous films. As a standalone, it goes for scary and gore in no time flat, and introduces its characters quickly. Unfortunately this kind of make its characters a little flat.
Souheila Yacob might be considered the breakout role with her performance as Alice, but I’d like to call attention to Tandi Wright who plays Susan. She’s Will’s grieving mother and dealing with her broken mother and her now deadite husband, Edgar. There’s a heart wrenching scene in which she actually listens to the deadites and aligns with her now dead family rather than reject them. You can almost understand her mentality as she literally gives up her soul. The rest does feel a lot like more of the same.
Recommended with reservations. It’s a horror film with gore and scares and will entertain most of the crowd. As a standalone, it lacks character development and might be hammering in the gore without allowing the audience to breathe. Worth a watch as part of the franchise, but doesn’t work by itself which means you technically could skip it.
That will do for now.
Never Think Impossible 