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The gore in Burn still flows liberally, but latest entry in beloved horror franchise sorely lacks characters worth rooting for
Throughout its 45 years of life within the realm of horror, the Evil Dead franchise has always been a divisive one due to its varying tones and styles that often clash with either perceptions at the time of release for the first few films or expectations of filmgoers in the recent modern films. This divisiveness has never been clearer than with French filmmaker Sebastien Vanicek’s Evil Dead Burn.
Poring over his grandfather’s research material on the Naturom Demonto, the Sumerian Book of the Dead, Joseph’s (Hunter Doohan) action, unwittingly and unbeknown to himself and his family, leads to the death of his brother Will (George Pullar).
As the family reunites with each other and Will’s wife Alice (Souheila Yacoub) at their isolated lakehouse, the lingering demons from the last time the book was read arrive to attack the grieving, dysfunctional family, looking for a very particular artifact that was kept hidden by Joseph’s grandfather.
All blood, less bite
Though celebrated at release before then becoming a cult classic in horror, Sam Raimi’s The Evil Dead from 1981 notoriously received flak for its violent imagery, while in Evil Dead II, the violence was retained but the horror was instead turned into slapstick comedy. Raimi then ramped up the comedy in the third film Army of Darkness, making it the most divisive film of that first era of Evil Dead.
20 years later, the franchise received a breath of fresh air with Fede Alvarez’s Evil Dead. Unlike the horror-comedy that Raimi’s films had and what fans were expecting, this soft reboot was straightfaced in how serious it was while the violence and gore went far beyond anything in Raimi’s films.
Its degree of violence became the identity of the film, contributing to how entertaining it was and serving as the core DNA of the modern films, including Evil Dead Rise and now, Burn. Having the violence signature to the franchise should be sufficient, right?
That does not seem to be the case, as Burn inexplicably feels like it is missing a crucial ingredient when Vanicek was throwing everything into his cauldron.
Missing its Deadite soul
Having spent several days mulling over Burn, what seems to be missing is that though it is draped in the Evil Dead overalls, it does not feel like it is Evil Dead because it does not have the kind of characters that the previous films had.
The Raimi films and the Ash vs Evil Dead television series had, well, Ash. Played by the charismatic Bruce Campbell, any viewer would find it hard to not root for him, his chainsaw hand and shotgun, while in the series, he had entertaining “sidekicks”.
2013’s Evil Dead had Mia (Jane Levy) and her friends, who (again) were easy to root for in their struggle to fend off the Book of the Dead’s demons. The same goes with Rise, which had Beth (Lily Sullivan) attempting to protect her nephew and niece from an entire apartment floor of demons led by the children’s possessed mother Ellie, played amazingly by Alyssa Sutherland, who completely redefined the franchise’s Deadite demons.
Now, there’s Burn, featuring Alice, a victim of marital abuse stuck in a house with a family made up almost entirely of a cowardly brother-in-law, a misoygnist and possibly racist father-in-law, a “married women should let husbands have their way with them” mother-in-law, a definitely racist, senile grandmother and a throwaway character.
The dysfunctional family and its friction with Alice, under better writing, would have made the film better, but it simply does not stick the landing in Burn. Its approach to toxic families feels artificial and rings hollow.
And though the actors behind the characters sharing these toxic dynamics are not bad, they are not amazing either, which is rare for an Evil Dead intellectual property.
Fiery finish that fizzles
That said, Burn is not terrible from start to finish. Vanicek’s hyper-frenetic directing harkens back to the kinetic energy of Raimi’s films, when it looked like Ash was being assaulted not only by demons, but also the camera.
Once the film kicks off proper, it is a thorough thrill ride. The gore is off-the-scale and even has several fresh gross-out sequences, but that is really all it has going for it. The relatively disappointing aspect of the violence in Burn is how the film’s marketing campaign spoils most of it. If you have seen even a single trailer, you have seen almost all of what the first half of the film offers.
Once the second half begins with the cheap computer-generated fires and final demon, Burn will have viewers hoping the cinema staff show up with flamethrowers and burn them alive in their seats rather than sit through a poorly lit and paced infernal third act.
