Movie Review: Evil Dead Burn

2026 has held the release of the anticipated 6th instalment in the Evil Dead film universe: Evil Dead Burn (directed by French director Sébastien Vaniček). The film had big boots to fill joining a franchise originally created by Sam Raimi in the 1980s with the first film The Evil Dead becoming a cult classic amongst horror fans. 

Evil Dead Burn aims to bring the iconic Deadites to a new group of people and in this film, it is a grieving family after the death of Son, Brother, and Husband: Will. The family is showcased from the start as somewhat dysfunctional, there is a clear tension between Will’s parents and their daughter in law (our main character Alice) but this relationship will be the least of the problems the family will experience while in their isolated house.

As mentioned, the film had big boots to fill with how iconic the franchise has become. The most recognisable thing of the franchise is the design of their monsters, the Deadites (who turn the human they possess into a zombie-like being) and for Evil Dead Burn it seems they tried a new design for them which, for fans of the franchise, didn’t quite sit where they wanted it to. On this idea too, there were a lot of things that felt very distant from things that are recognisable to the Evil Dead films which lead to some of its call backs to prior films feeling forced to at least allow it to latch to the name in some way. The franchise also became well known for its comedy elements throughout some of the film, Evil Dead 2 had moments that were potentially meant to feel funny but with the serious tone of the rest of the film, these moments just missed the mark (the one that stood out for me was them trying to remake Ash’s preparation for fight scene from Evil Dead 2). The film did find itself some interesting kills which for horror fans will be exciting, there is definitely some originality within the film and its choices which is always great to see.

In the vein of the film losing sight of the franchise it is part of, the ending of this film feels very far removed from what audiences would expect from an Evil Dead film with a character returning in a way that felt somewhat ridiculous compared to the rest of the film.

For people who know the franchise well, Evil Dead Burn is unlikely to live up to what they are expecting. The film would’ve worked well as a standalone film that perhaps in some ways had taken inspiration from the well-known franchise but by putting the name Evil Dead on it, it begins to fall flat in forcing itself to have a link to the prior films. Overall, the film is likely to be divisive between fans of the franchise and people who maybe don’t know it well. There are some great elements to the film however they lose out while trying to make it something it doesn’t need to be.

I’d rate Evil Dead Burn 2.5/5

Written by, Laura Wood