Evil Dead Burn

Mr. Pat

10 minutes ago

5 min read

I'm not one to get invested in the lives of celebrities. I respect the ones that are good at their craft, but I don't invest much in their private lives. That's not to say I wouldn't be excited if I happened to be standing next to one in line somewhere, but as long as they're not assholes, I don't care much what they do when they're not in front of the camera.

As far as celebrity deaths go, it's sad whenever someone loses their life, especially if they're young, but it's not going to affect me all that much because I've never met these people. However, when I found out that Bruce Campbell has an incurable form of cancer, that hit me hard. Army of Darkness was one of the first horror movies I ever watched, and Ash is my favorite fictional hero of all time. I will be absolutely devastated when he goes, and it's for a few reasons. First, I'm kicking 40's door down, and a lot of my favorites from my childhood are no longer with us. Bruce is one of the last ones standing, and he had the biggest effect on young Mr. Pat. The other reason is that when I inevitably write about his death for the morning show, I may be the only person working that shift who knows who he is. While he's still with us, and still clearly the man, let's talk about the latest in the franchise that put him on the map...

Evil Dead Burn (2026)

I'm going to apologize in advance. I... didn't really like it. I think the biggest issue is what Campbell himself pointed out: there's nothing fun or funny about the current crop of these movies. Even the original, which is the most serious, does have some lighthearted moments, but Burn is just mean right from the jump. There aren't even moments where you can laugh at the absurdity, which was a staple of the original series. It's a problem that's plagued the series since Raimi handed over the reins. Out of all the new entries, the only one that tried some of the absurdity was Fede Alvarez' version in 2013. While it was super serious, the amount of pain that the glasses guy went through is so over the top that it eventually became funny. There are like four times where you think he's finally dead, but he keeps getting back up, and things just get worse for him.

In Burn, we meet a group out for a young man's birthday. It doesn't take long for the man's brother, Will, to start fighting with his wife, Alice. It's super awkward for everyone involved and just keeps escalating until a drunk Will takes off in his sports car and slams into a Deadite who killed two fishermen in the movie's scariest moment. After she manages to drown one of them, his friend searches the lake, and suddenly he sees the Deadite woman's head just above the water, watching the dude; it's terrifying. Anyways, Will crashes, but is stuck in the car as it catches fire. Before it gets engulfed in flames, the Deadite tells Will that they're coming for his family.

We later find out his grandfather found the Necronomicon and had read from the pages, but found a Kandarian dagger that can kill the Deadites and keep them from coming back. The baddies are drawn to this dagger and will stop at nothing to destroy it. So naturally they want to get them all in one place, wipe the lot of them and get that dagger back.

At the funeral we meet the entire family, and they're all pretty much horrible. The movie doesn't really say if they're just acting out because of their grief, or if this is who they are, but, outside of Alice, none of them are particularly noteworthy or likeable. Unfortunately for Dad, and the dude working the cremations, Papa wants to say goodbye to his son one final time. Unbeknownst to them, a Deadite is waiting and kills the dude, then latches on to the father. Every other Deadite possession throughout the series, the baddies can be patient, able to fool everyone until it's time to strike. The dad, however, looks like he's about to explode the second someone looks at him cockeyed. Then he murders their dog with a fork, and it's Dr. Chainsaw rating dropped considerably and, as the movie progressed, didn't do much to get it back up.

From there, the surviving family members try to stay alive while trying to find the dagger and kill these demons once and for all. The problem is, this movie doesn't feel or look like an Evil Dead movie. The Deadites especially just seem to be going through the motions. None of them really seem to be enjoying themselves; they're there to do a job, which is far removed from how they act in the Raimi trilogy. There's also not that much gore either. I don't care for gore for gore's sake, but it's Evil Dead! In these movies, the gore adds to the experience because it's so cartoonish. Part of the fun is to see these people act like overfilled water balloons filled with blood. Here, the violence is still sky-high, but the absurdity of the copious amounts of blood is absent.

While I didn't care for this movie as a whole, it did have two things I want to mention. I loved the setting. The shots of the father standing outside as a gentle snowfall happens around him are very cool. But the highlight to me is a fight scene inside the house. Deadite Dad is fighting with his son, and Alice is slowly crawling away. The camera stays in front of Alice's face, and in the background you see the dad and son come crashing into the frame, fighting for their lives against each other. It is such a cool shot and an extremely creative way to show the chaos happening all around the house while focusing on a single person. I loved that scene.

Evil Dead Burn is a perfectly functional horror movie, but it didn't need to be an Evil Dead movie. Take the first two words out of the title, and I probably would have enjoyed it more. Outside of the Necronomicon, it didn't feel like an Evil Dead movie, even if they included characters from the past. Speaking of that, there's an after-credit scene that I really didn't care for. It completely breaks the lore just to set up a sequel. I was so annoyed by it, but then I read it was added at the studio's request. I still don't like the scene, but I don't blame the ones who made the movie anymore. It does illustrate how money can get in the way of good storytelling.

Ultimately, I just... didn't care for it, and I'm sorry. Evil Dead is precious to me, and while Rises sounded some quiet warning bells in my head, Burn is setting off every alarm imaginable for where it seems to be heading in the future.