Evil Dead Burn
Writers: Sébastien Vaniček, Florent Bernard
Director: Sébastien Vaniček
Cast: Souhelia Yacoub, Tandi Wright, Hunter Doohan, Luciane Buchanan, Erroll Shand, Maude Davey
There is an undeniable intensity thrumming through Sébastien Vaniček's Evil Dead Burn, and it is the film's greatest asset by a mile. For nearly two hours, Vaniček's film puts its characters through a wringer of gore the likes of which few mainstream horror films ever truly reach, along with a mean streak a mile wide that would feel just as at home in a New French Extremity film as it would in this particular franchise. It's so effective that, as the film made the turn toward its grande finale, I was slightly shocked at how much time had passed back in the real world.
But watching Evil Dead Burn, particularly as it maneuvered the pieces of its third act into place, I couldn't help but feel like something was missing, or perhaps several somethings. There is so much to like about this movie and the way it tackles the kinetic fury of Evil Dead as a franchise, and yet despite its relentlessness and its attention to gory details, I left feeling like I'd watched a movie half-formed, a movie so focused on brutality that it forgot to finish what it started with anything else on the screen.
Set almost entirely in a secluded old family home in the wake of a funeral, Burn begins as the story of Alice (Souheila Yacoub), a young woman still reeling from the sudden death of her husband William (George Pullar). In keeping with William's family's wishes, Alice shows up for his memorial, then heads back to the family's ancestral home in the woods alongside brother-in-law Joe (Hunter Doohan), his girlfriend Thya (Luciane Buchanan), mother-in-law Susan (Tandi Wright), father-in-law Edgar (Erroll Shand), and grandmother-in-law Polly (Maude Davey). Everyone is, of course, wracked with grief and frustration, and Alice has never been close to her in-laws, so there's lots of natural tension hanging in the air, tension that escalates to a fever pitch when monsters known as Deadites infiltrate the property, searching for something that will push the entire family into a nightmare.
Vaniček and his co-writer, Florent Bernard, waste very little time in digging into the horror meat of this plot, including delivering a very satisfying opening sequence that tees up the rest of the story. When Alice and her in-laws show up, the film takes on an air of menace from the very beginning as it grows clearer that none of these people like each other very much. They're together out of obligation, out of shared grief, and out of an unwillingness to be honest with each other. That repressed malice, and guilt, and flat-out rage, comes in very handy when the Deadites start picking the family off one by one, turning them into monsters from hell who can put all that anger to very good use.
And again, the horror sequences mostly work. Evil Dead Burn does not pull punches, from its searing (literally) opening sequence to its final chaotic setpieces, and Vaniček's willingness to take hold of this movie's throat and never let go is what makes it work at all. Relentless horror is a key ingredient to any Evil Dead film, and from a bag full of knives to a horrifying incident with a dishwasher, this one understands that to its core. I can't say enough good things about the violence and gore laid out in this one.
Unfortunately, in its haste to dig into the meat (yes of course the pun is intended, it's an Evil Dead movie) of its horrors, Evil Dead Burn gives everything else short shrift, including its focus on character and story. We understand the basics of who these people are, where their conflicts lie, and what they want out of this odd family reunion, but only because the film expressly tells us through choppy dialogue. We understand why the Deadites have come for this family because of a reliance on lore that, unfortunately, never really takes root and grows any soul to go along with it. More than that, though, the film seems intent on breaking its own narrative rules, creating near-invincible demonic beasts out of human flesh and then leaving them wait outside, or freeze completely after being wounded, or just sort of lose touch with their demonic influence entirely until the plot needs it again. Mayhem is important to Evil Dead films, because we want and need the characters to feel overwhelmed in their pursuit of simple survival, but the mayhem in Evil Dead Burn loses something of the nuance and strangeness of previous films in the franchise.
All things considered, I think I can safely say that there are still no bad Evil Dead movies, because for all its flaws, Evil Dead Burn is far from a failure. I'll be thinking about a lot of those gore gags and some of the better bits of dialogue for a long time, and I think that Vaniček and his team generally understood the assignment of hitting the horror gas and just never letting up. But relentless terror is not a substitute for solid storytelling, and there's a world where this film could have done both.
Evil Dead Burn is in theaters July 10.
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