Directors Fede Álvarez (Evil Dead 2013) and Lee Cronin (Evil Dead Rise) made the decision to retire Sam Raimi’s signature 80’s cheeseball comedy (which might not be matchable without Bruce Campbell, anyway) and double down on the boundaries of cinematic violence. In the third installment since the franchise classics, Sébastien Vanicek matches depravity levels, and brings back the two binaries of Evil Dead territory; out of pocket malice and slapstick comedy.
Alice (Souhelia Racoub) and her in-laws make up the poor unfortunate souls that will be wounded, harassed, and hunted until dawn. They strain their fake family relationship by reconnecting after the death of Alice’s abusive husband, Will Price (George Pullar). Following the hilariously uncomfortable wake, the evil follows them to their family home where we get a white knuckle intro to the family that’s about to be ripped to shreds. They are terrible even without reciting the words in the book, which makes the entertainment a bit more cheeky.
Will’s late grandfather studied the necronomicon and acquired the Kandarian dagger. His obsession brought protection for his wife and daughters, but cost him a healthy family dynamic. That dysfunction transferred to the next generation through the mother and master manipulator of the family, Susan. Her son Will’s narcissism, his brother Joseph’s (Hunter Doohan) cowardice, and the wicked tempter of their father, Edgar (Erroll Shand) make the Price’s one of the stronger complete dysfunctional family units on screen. A weapon used to kill deadites being a Price family heirloom is the cherry on top.
In Evil Dead Rise, two sisters’ young family is mauled by deadites right as they attempt to reconcile their estranged relationship. Álvarez’s Evil Dead (2013) went ballistic on a group supporting their friend during the withdrawal period of their detox off hard drugs. Although Evil Dead Burn is direct with its message in support of survivors of various domestic abuses, the emotional anguish is not as felt as heavy, and with as much nuance as the previous two installments. Getting straight to the brutality is appreciated (because time is money, and blood costs money), but once the heat is on, there’s no room for character insight.
The film could benefit from a more natural flow of events for the sake of character dimension, but also to let a gnarly moment sink in before torturing us with another one. It’s a continual beat-down of an ensemble I don’t know anything about, other than the facts that Alice married into the wrong family, and Grandma Polly with dementia has no idea what’s going on. It’s a shame that Joseph’s girlfriend, Thya (Luciane Buchanan), who’s performance is so highlighted in this movie, is a character reduced to “Joseph’s girlfriend”, instead of a dimensional player on the survival field.
The canon urge to kick the dog while it’s down has not gone anywhere. Vanicek brings a healthy influence of French extremity, and the sub-genre’s personal and repetitive aggression really fits well. The art of finding the line and finding new ways to barrel through it is still being upheld after 45 years of opening the book. That should be the priority, anyway.
To capture it in the most appropriate way possible, cinematographer Philip Lozano’s diversity of camerawork has to be exhausting. It plays as if no angle or motion could be off limits for full clarity of the demonic clobbering going on in the home. The camera, assisted by the cardio-inducing sequence edits can definitely keep up with this kind of unconventional wrath. The highly favored gorehounds will be blessed with another familiar, equally relentless playground with new methods of torture to test on fans who can handle it.
It’s worth noting that the franchise hasn’t stopped changing the way we look at random household items either. What has changed is that the deadites have a motive now. The Price family has the supernatural weapon they’re after, and it’s the only thing able to put a halt to the bloodbath. That’s a significant change against the Evil Dead fabric, and removes a unique quality that deadites have over other IP villains. Even if just a little, this redacts the unpredictable sadism that are the consequences of meddling with ancient evils. For the last two installments of the franchise, it’s been a reliable pocket for dark humor too.
The comedic element Vanicek and co-writer Florent Bernard adapted from the original trilogy doesn’t feel like the right synthesis of “camp” to work for a film inspired by French extremity. You will load your dishwasher correctly from this point on, but you might be subject to a pity laugh, and not a genuine one. The humor is only present in small breaks in between long runs of tensity, but all these moments feel half baked at the punchline. Most of the needle drop moments that could’ve been used for additional deadite diss tracks are assigned to Susan’s mother Polly, using her confusion as a silly pause to the plot. This could be funny once, but not as a recurring gag.
With both epochs of humor and chaos holding a high bar in their respective eras, I’d say nailing it in one, but not the other will still be counted as a success. I will revisit Evil Dead Burn the least of the three non-Raimi installments, but this one definitely has the DNA of the fucked up family franchise.
