By Ryan Dailey
Going into Evil Dead Burn keep a few things in mind.
1: ALWAYS stay through the credits.
2: NO ONE can or will ever take away the Raimi trilogy or the Ash VS Evil Dead television show.
3: If jump scares aren’t your thing, you may want to pass on this.
Now, into the review proper.
The modern trilogy is definitely not the “schlockstick” films that the original trilogy was, and that’s fine. Evil Dead 2013, Evil Dead Rise and Evil Dead Burn, in my and others opinions, are worthy alternate universe tales set in the aging film franchise Raimi created all of those years ago.
Evil Dead Burn opens on a familiar location to those of you familiar with the previous installment. This prologue is definitely one to remember, with a fisherman “being of two minds” about things and his friend becoming a human seafood boil, the film shifts its focus to a nightclub owned by Will (George Pullar) as he celebrates the birthday of his brother, Joseph (Hunter Dohan). After Will throws a fit in the club, feeling upstaged in the gift-giving department by Thya, Will’s partner, played by Luciane Yacoub. Will races off into the darkness, only to fall victim to a Deadite waiting just for him.
Will and Joseph happen to be grandsons of a man that studied the Kandarian dagger, a series mainstay alongside the Necronomicon. The dagger is the only thing capable of ending the Deadite menace. The demons are not going down without a fight.
The Deadites infect the family one by one, Edgar (Errol Shand) kicks the party off with a very inventive scene where everything found in the interior of a car is used as a weapon. Top tier stuff.
At the point in the film when the family is together, this is where audiences become divided, looping back to my statement about how no one can take the Raimi films away from you. Evil Dead Burn has undertones of being a tale about an abusive family dynamic. Most people complain that there is no humor and that it’s a miserable film that strays from the Three Stooges type humor found in the earlier entries. If you enjoyed the other two modern entries into the franchise, you should love this. The plot “ain’t Shakespeare” as the saying goes. This film is modern Evil Dead all the way. Stay through the entirety of the credits, enjoy the ride and if you leave Burn feeling disappointed and “icky,” go home and toss in a copy of Army of Darkness.
Evil Dead Burn is currently playing in theaters.