Evil Dead Burn arrives in an already packed horror year and delivers exactly what the franchise has always promised, a great gory and horror experience with
genuinely gruesome effects that stand among the best the genre has offered since the franchise’s conception. This film follows Joseph and then Alice in their circle of girlfriend and husband as a drunken car crash resurrects something demonic, spiraling a birthday celebration into a full-force fight for survival against the
Deadites. The tension and horror in this entry are really solid throughout, with very cool and fun new horror shots and angles that use the gore and craze of the Evil Dead franchise extremely well, though the effects waver from really great to very mediocre at times. The film is held back by its predictability and some genuinely dumb character decision. Chief among them Joseph’s escalating cowardice, which becomes one of the most frustrating character threads in recent horror memory. Evil Dead Burn lands a slight bit higher for me than Evil Dead Rise did, perhaps a bit of a hot take, but the gore here is just so spectacular though the new addition doesn’t reach the level of the 2013 Evil Dead or the original Evil Dead 2, which remain the best balance of gore and campy action in the franchise.
The film opens with two guys on a fishing trip, and while one is distracted on the phone, the other is attacked by something in the water in a gory fish hook scene that immediately sets the tone for the carnage ahead. An abrupt but genuinely funny cut then takes us to the main characters celebrating lead Joseph’s birthday in a club, introducing his girlfriend, his brother and wife Alice, who is clearly trapped in an abusive relationship that the film wastes no time establishing. Alice leaves the club and her drunk husband William follows behind the wheel, crashing into the woman from the lake and dying after seeing the horrors that have been unleashed, the collision that officially starts the film as the title card drops in one of the more confident cold opens the franchise has delivered. As the family goes to burn William’s body, he resurrects as a demon while his horrified father watches, kicking the franchise’s signature possession chaos into full motion. The father is clearly affected by the trauma of what he’s witnessed, going as far as trying to cut his own arm off, and a dinner scene shortly after becomes extremely tense, building great horror suspense as his descent into insanity accelerates in the film’s best early stretch.
On the way to the hospital, the possessed father kills Joseph’s girlfriend while Joseph runs away instead of protecting her, one of the grossest coward moves in a film in recent memory and a moment the movie never lets him live down. As things fall deeper into chaos, the tension and horror remain really solid, though the effects begin to waver here, swinging from really great practical gore to noticeably mediocre stretches sometimes within the same sequence. Joseph only continues to become more and more cowardly as the film progresses, a deliberate character choice but a genuinely frustrating one to watch unfold in a genre that has always been built on survivors stepping up when it matters most. The demons are revealed to be looking for the dagger connected to the Book of the Dead, giving the survivors a clear objective, find it first before the demons do, and before everything is lost entirely. The bodies pile up quickly through this stretch notably the Grandma being the most comedic and entertaining portion of the craze, until everyone has been turned except Alice and Joseph, narrowing the film down to its final survivors and setting the stage for an all-out final act.
The film delivers very cool and fun horror shots and angles throughout, using the gore and craze that defines Evil Dead as well as any modern entry in the franchise, with the camera itself feeling possessed at the film’s best moments, whipping and lunging through the carnage in that signature Raimi-descended style. The practical effects at their peak are genuinely spectacular, delivering some of the most gruesome imagery of the entire horror year, with the fish hook opening, William’s resurrection at the burning, and the father’s self-mutilation all landing with the wet, tactile nastiness the franchise built its name on. The effects work is frustratingly inconsistent though, wavering from really great to mediocre at times, and the weaker moments stand out precisely because the highs are so strong, a gap that becomes most damaging once the finale leans on digital work. The film understands the franchise’s tonal blend better than expected, balancing gross-out horror with flashes of dark humor like the abrupt club cut early on, though it never fully commits to the comedy the way Evil Dead 2 did, sitting closer to the grim register of Rise and the 2013 film. The tension-building remains the film’s most consistent craft strength, with the dinner scene in particular playing as a masterclass in slow-building dread, letting the father’s unraveling simmer in silence and awkward glances before the violence erupts — proof the filmmakers understand that restraint makes the gore hit harder when it finally arrives.
The film moves into its final act with only Alice still alive, shifting into full-force, 100% non-stop horror action and gore that plays as the movie’s most purely entertaining stretch, a sustained sprint of carnage that barely lets the audience breathe. Alice’s arc is the film’s real emotional engine, transforming from an abused wife introduced in her husband’s shadow at the club into the franchise’s newest genuinely capable final girl, and the film is at its absolute best when it simply lets her fight. She finds the dagger and burns the house down, seemingly ending the nightmare in a satisfying climax built on everything the film has established, before discovering her husband William has returned, burned and demonic, for one final confrontation that doubles as the ultimate reckoning with her abuser. That thematic weight makes it all the more frustrating that the final battle with the burned William is much less effective than the house-set carnage that preceded it, with the CGI quite bad in this stretch, replacing the tactile practical gore that carried the film with weightless digital effects right when the emotional stakes are at their highest. The film’s predictability is most exposed here as well, with character decisions growing dumber as the stakes rise and an ending that follows a path visible from miles away, a final act that delivers on volume and momentum but stumbles on execution, keeping a great horror film from becoming a franchise-best one.
Evil Dead Burn delivers a great gore and horror experience with really gruesome effects, standing as one of the best horror experiences of a genuinely packed horror year and proving there’s still plenty of life left in the franchise’s blood-soaked formula. Certain character decisions, Joseph’s escalating cowardice above all, culminating in one of the most genuinely infuriating acts of abandonment in recent horror, and a tougher, CGI-weakened final act lower the overall experience a bit, keeping it just short of the franchise’s top tier. This one lands a slight bit higher for us than Evil Dead Rise, which may be a bit of a hot take, but the gore here is simply so spectacular and the tension-building so confident that it edges ahead on pure visceral experience alone. It certainly doesn’t reach the level of the 2013 Evil Dead or Evil Dead 2, which remains the best balance of gore and campy action in the franchise, but it earns its place comfortably in the middle of the canon, no small feat for a series with this few genuine misses. Evil Dead Burn is a must-watch for gore hounds and franchise fans alike, a film whose highest highs rank among the year’s best horror moments even when its finale can’t quite match them earning a 79/100 from the TwilightRoom.
TwilightRoom Score: 79.9/100
