Trigger Warning: There’s a brief club sequence early in the film that features flashing lights that may be disturbing for photosensitive viewers. Additionally, the subject of familial abuse courses throughout. Be sure to take precautions before watching.
Sheila: You found me beautiful once …
Ash: Honey, you got reeeal ugly!– From Army of Darkness (1993)
If someone says “Hail to the King,” then they’re either (a) a historian referencing some relic, (b) an Elvis Presley fan, or (c) an Evil Dead fan talking about original series lead Ashley J. Williams, portrayed in three films and one television series by Bruce Campbell. Since the original outing, filmmaker Sam Raimi’s The Evil Dead, unleashed its demonic mayhem in 1981, the story of one terrible vacation taken by five friends to the woods in Tennessee has resulted in one gross adventure after another as emissaries of The Dark Ones reach their tendrils into the world of humanity, desperate to drown it in blood. The next effort that sees humanity embroiled in a fate for all via the efforts of a select few, Evil Dead Burn, directed by Sébastien Vaniček (Infested), continues the vibe of Evil Dead (2013) and Evil Dead Rise (2023), which is to say that it’s as authentic an entry to the larger expansive narrative universe as it is cruel. Though imbued with the mania of Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn (1987) and the viciousness of The Evil Dead, Evil Dead Burn isn’t without purpose, funneling its signature ferocity through a specific lens of abuse and familial capitulation.
The following review presumes that readers are aware of the events within the Evil Dead franchise up to Evil Dead Burn, so, while this review won’t include spoilers for the new addition, all other properties are up for spoiling. Those films contain depictions of violence that may be unsettling to some and they may be discussed.
Greta Van Den Brink as Jessica in New Line Cinema’s EVIL DEAD BURN, a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures. © 2026 Warner Bros. Ent. All Rights Reserved.
Sometime after the events of Evil Dead Rise, which saw fellow L.A. apartment resident Jessica head off to a lake vacation unaware that she’d been turned into a Deadite despite Beth’s (Lily Sullivan) victory against the Marauder, the latest demon called forth from one of the three books of the Necronomicon, married couple Alice and Will (Souheila Yacoub and George Pullar, respectively) find their lives torn asunder when Will dies in a car accident. While gathering in the aftermath of the funeral at the family’s vacation home, something terrible begins to claim them, turning them deadly. As Alice and her in-laws struggle to overcome the onslaught, hoping to find a way to survive the night, terrible truths of family histories come to light that make even the uninfected potential threats.
For some context, while Evil Dead 2, Army of Darkness, and Ash vs. the Evil Dead (2015 – 2018) are somewhat comedic in nature (AoD most of all), there’s always an undercurrent of disquiet amid the violence. It may fall under camp from time to time due to its extenuated nature, skirting melodrama by maintaining some sense of sincerity, but it’s always been a bit cruel. This series centers an individual battling forces that sexually violate its victims, force their hosts to rip and tear their flesh, and sometimes create situations in which characters self-amputate in order to prevent greater devastation via infection. Written by Vaniček and Florent Bernard (Infested), and co-produced by Raimi’s Ghost House Pictures with Warner Bros. Pictures, New Line Cinema, and Screen Gems, Evil Dead Burn is right in line with the legacy Raimi started in 1981 while also branching off in ways that aid the film in transcending the traps of the established universe that can restrain each film from being its own. Even as Burn utilizes the well-worn narrative beats of old — character finds demonic materials, character reads demonic conjuring spell despite warnings to the contrary, and character engages in a fight to the death until dawn with deadite forces — it manages to not only create a number of unexpected moments through character choice and cinematography, but to incorporate a larger story within the mayhem that’s been largely missing.
Souheila Yacoub as Alice in New Line Cinema’s EVIL DEAD BURN, a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures. © 2026 Warner Bros. Ent. All Rights Reserved.
The original three stories function as a tried-and-true wrong place/wrong time setup with each succeeding story upgrading the lore along the way. This is how we go from mild-mannered stock clerk at S-Mart (Shop Smart! Shop S-Mart!) to The Chosen One (Hail to the King, baby!) as we learn about Professor Knowby; get introduced to Knowby’s daughter, Annie (Sarah Berry); learn of the Kandarian dagger; the Wise Men who try to prevent the Deadites from overtaking humanity for the Dark Ones; and the revelation that there are three books of the dead. 2013’s entry utilizes Mia’s (Jane Levy) attempt to get clean from drugs as a mask for the mania they observe before things get wild, but it all happens because Eric (Lou Taylor Pucci) read from the damn book despite it being heavily-wrapped and covered in warnings. Likewise, in Rise, though there is internal turmoil between leads Beth and Ellie (Alyssa Sutherland), the transformation happens because (again) someone read from the damned book despite the warnings. The familial discord is used by Ellie-turned-Mommy Maggot to further traumatize her children and sister while trying to turn them, but the abuse they all suffer isn’t necessarily directly tied to a larger notion. That changes with Burn as Vaniček and Bernard make almost every horrible thing that any of the infected profess to a person ties directly to the unspoken horror that person is aware of and has done nothing to prevent. In this way, the film speaks to the ways in which untampered rage, rising grief, and swallowed anguish burn the body from the inside out, making them manifest in repeatedly unsettling ways. Truly, this family didn’t need to turn into Deadites in order to inflict pain upon one another, but doing so created a permission to remove the barest aspects of restraint their humanity held back. This is, perhaps, why the film is as unsettling as it is, because social convention is what both protects and entraps here.
In the non-fictional world by which, as best we can tell, Deadites are not being summoned and somewhat held back every few years, any individual who has endured a sudden loss may find themselves socializing with family because social convention says it must be done. Co-opting and weaponizing this a brilliant design by Vaniček and Bernard because it taps into the very real disquieting event that some people may have to face (or already have) in which in-laws are the last people who they want to be with for any period of time or purpose. Anyone who has felt the disdain of a relative or in-law immediately tenses upon recognizing the distrust in every single scene involving Alice and her mother- and father-in-law. Through pieces of dialogue handled with situational deftness, we learn, through words both passive aggressive and direct, just how, for instance, Susan (Tandi Wright), Will’s mother, views her role as mother to Will and daughter to her own ailing mother, Polly (Maude Davey). That while Alice tries to define herself as herself, Susan stridently defines herself solely through the lens of her family, divining identity through the role she inhabitants. These two are not individuals who will ever agree to be anything more than opposition because their worldviews don’t align, thereby creating an undercurrent of resentment (Susan toward Alice) at the latter’s reluctance to slide into the supportive role for Will. Even before Deadites properly arrive to bestow the accustomed degradation (upon their respective hosts and their victims), even before we learn of this family’s connection to the Knowbys, there’s a sense that Alice is a lamb in a lion’s den, only there because she intends to try to do the right thing. But, like Ashley, Mia, and Beth before her, Alice is no lamb who will merely bleat all the way to the slaughter but a champion hardened by nightmarish circumstances.
Luciane Buchanan as Thya in New Line Cinema’s EVIL DEAD BURN, a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures. © 2026 Warner Bros. Ent. All Rights Reserved.
This is where the Evil Dead of it all come into play and this film has some startling moments. Although none within Burn are as grotesquely unsettling as 2013’s automotive amputation or Rise’s cheese grater (subjective threshold being what it is), there’s a brilliant use of a car door (incorporating real fear into the fictional), extraordinary presentations of Deadite strength coupled with disorienting cinematography (a striking oner shown in the teaser, plus an attack that grows desperate because of a Deadite’s violation of Newton’s Laws), and a use of a firearm that downright chills for the way it demonstrates the miniature boomstick’s impotence against this breed of Deadite. Each one is a marriage of digital VFX and practical gags and devices that blend beautifully to weave the as-expected sanguine monsoon audiences have delighted in since Ash first lost his mind in Evil Dead 2. (“Especially you, Moose!”) Like the narrative underpinnings that pump the inferno underneath, the violence enacted and the cutting insults hurt all the more because the ones doing the harm are the same ones who promised to protect, to coddle, and to carry you forward into the world or were intended to be an extension, like Alice. This is in vino veritas powered by evil, devastating for its incisiveness while being somewhat true. Or, more violently, true enough to speak to the internal monologue of the uninfected so that the story they’ve told themselves about their reality can be bent, molded, and modified in an attempt to put each potential survivor off their game. Taunting is a specialty within the Evil Dead series, clearly having drawn inspiration from The Exorcist’s (1973) Regan (Linda Blair) and her “Your mother sucks cock in hell,” though, this time, its pure gaslighting and control as the intended torment is about what each member of the family allowed to happen and what was never stopped.
By the by, as vicious as the film is, it’s about as surreal and ridiculous as the 1981 outing. It may not have a stop-motion headless dancer for anyone to gawk at, but it does have two of the most unique, non-lethal infection sequences in the history of Evil Dead, as well as two situationally hilarious gags that play against a terrible backdrop. This film isn’t AoD funny, but it didn’t forget the dark charm, either. Plus, sharp eyes may just catch The Classic amid other connective tissue easter eggs and series nods.
Erroll Shand as Edgar in New Line Cinema’s EVIL DEAD BURN, a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures. © 2026 Warner Bros. Ent. All Rights Reserved.
Unlike 2013’s Evil Dead, which strove to do something new while handcuffed to what came before, resulting in a classical cruel horror tale, and 2023’s Evil Dead Rise, Evil Dead Burn brings the pain in more ways than one, delivering a film that could work as effectively outside the Evil Dead universe as within it, using the familiar franchise moments as a jumping off point, not as a binding. Impressively and naturally, however, Vaniček and Bernard fasten this and Rise together in ways we’ve not seen outside of the original cinematic trilogy. While details for director Francis Galluppi’s Evil Dead Wraith are few beyond its April 2028 release date and that it serves as a prequel to the first film of the franchise, anticipation is now high considering what occurs within Burn and the possibilities left in its wake.
In theaters July 10th, 2026.
For more information, head to the official Warner Bros. Pictures Evil Dead Burn webpage.
Final Score: 4 out of 5.
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Categories: Films To Watch, In Theaters, Recommendation, Reviews
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