"Evil Dead Burn" — The Franchise's Darkest, Most Nerve-Wracking Chapter
The new Evil Dead film, taken over by Sébastien Vaniček, sets aside splatstick laughs and turns into pure nightmare. Souheila Yacoub leads, with Deadites out in full force.
According to Ben Travis's review in Empire, the Evil Dead franchise has swung on a tonal scale from the beginning: on one end the splatstick laughter of Evil Dead II and Army Of Darkness, on the other the raw horror of Sam Raimi's original and Fede Alvarez's 2013 remake. Lee Cronin's Evil Dead Rise merged the two strands; Sébastien Vaniček's Evil Dead Burn, which he's now taken over, resolutely swings the needle to the darkest extreme — with nerve-wrackingly effective results.
The story centers on Alice (Souheila Yacoub), who loses her abusive husband (George Pullar) in a car accident. Her personal hell shows no sign of ending: as her husband is laid to rest, the Deadites come knocking. Vaniček doesn't shy away from piling supernatural horror on top of the metaphorical weight of domestic violence; that choice leaves a lingering subtext even in the film's most disturbing scenes.
Vaniček's directorial language favors a paper-thin tension: the camera holds wide shots for long stretches, the sound design throbs, and the gore is as generous as Cronin's but far less fun. Yacoub's performance is the film's anchor — she makes it believable that a body carrying trauma can suddenly flip from prey to predator.
According to Empire, Evil Dead Burn isn't so much about winning the franchise new fans as it is reminding longtime fans that "this stuff can genuinely still scare you." Those looking for splatstick are in the wrong theater; for those seeking a nightmare, this is one of the most uncompromising Evil Dead experiences yet.
Source: Empire — Ben Travis