Evil Dead Burn

Title is giving me Halloween Kills vibes but that's okay.

Uh wow, holy shit what a movie! My God what a horror film. It is fascinating how I didn't see a shred of promotion for this film, I can barely describe the poster, and yet this is a hell of a picture on just about every front. It takes the family drama element of Rise and bumps that shit up to 12, it is a onslaught of a film before the demons start running rampant. Following the widow of an abusive asshole stuck with a family that not only grieves differently but cracks differently is soon set upon by Deadites and mayhem fuelled survival starts anew. The first and most important thing I gotta get out of the way is the visuals, Lee Cronin did not return instead Sébastien Vanicek takes over and I can already tell people are gonna either dig his visual style or be so over it like it's not even funny. There's a lot of long takes with involved choreography, there's a lot of almost Edgar Wright style editing to an even further extent, the camera gets weird in how it moves, the man clearly took a cinema class and got free reign to just go. I didn't hate it by any stretch nor did I love it to bits, I appreciate the variety and it is never boring to look at I'll say that. Performances wise because it's such a small cast and there's so much drama and bloodshed, they get to sink their teeth into some good material. Souheila Yacoub is undoubtedly our star and my oh my does she shine bright, harboring a lot of repressed rage and put into a family dynamic that is anything but welcome she just nails it, kills it in more ways than one, in a strange definitely fucked up way this movie is kinda cathartic if you got family issues. Hunter Doohan you could almost see being the main protagonist as he finds family secrets linked to the Deadites and seems like a very nice well rounded kid who has to survive the meat grinder, very akin to Ash in the first movie and he does very well. Our main star on the titular dead is Erroll Shand, fucking hell this guy commits 150% and is a powerhouse of opposition for our heroes, doing the prosthetics, effectively creepy and brutal, and no doubt will be one of the greatest performances in a solid lineup of possessed characters from this series. In fact this movie stays to the tried and true adage of anybody can die at anytime, it's shocking cause it happens so quick and gives you no time to brace or even get bored which I commend heavily. The gore is excellent, even though the movie does a lot of finger pointing set up, it still pays off well enough and it pushes the envelope for what we haven't seen from this series yet. It is a fucked up movie in the way that you want a horror movie to be, it is horrifying, it can be shocking, it's visceral and in your face when it wants to be. Even after writing all this I'm still kinda at a loss for words, and it undoubtedly will stay in my mind for a bit. If you're not squeamish and are even a casual fan of Evil Dead I say check it out. 3 stars, 8/10, and we got a proper set of reviews next week so I hope to see you there.

In Retrospect: Evil Dead Rise

Alright, from the top!

Yeah it has been about three years since I've watched this and regardless of if the new movie is any kind of follow up, it's nice to watch this again. Still pretty fucking horrifying just on a conceptual level I can tell you that, and I am going to be rather bold here for a hot second and just say Alyssa Sutherland...best horror performance of 2023. Now I know David was really really good in Late Night With The Devil that year, but Alyssa knocked it out of the park. And indeed while the characters aren't super intelligent, the writing is solid enough which is something I feel is grossly needed in the horror scene. That indicates several things to me, they don't half-ass a script, they want you to be invested and engage with these characters, and it just makes for a better story overall. Sure there's some fodder to up the kill count, but our main family unit is pretty damn good. I don't need airtight plots and ingenious characters, and to see a even more modern lens implemented to an Evil Dead film after 2013 works great! It all feels like a necessary evolution to the series, I don't think it's trying to match or top the original trilogy but rather just stand on it's own merits which it does admirably. Alllll the makeup, gore, and effects still are effective and the cinematography is anything but dull or unoriginal lending to a very good modern horror film. And considering the fact I haven't seen shit in terms of promotion for Evil Dead Burn, hell I can barely describe the poster, and yet I'm still very interested to walk into that theater Friday goes to show what a total underdog series this is. I mean really think about the trajectory of this franchise and the standing it has in the horror community, and it's kinda unbelievable we're at this point! Even I'm not that die hard a fan of the series despite reviewing every film, but I respect the living hell out of it and as long as we keep getting gnarly and good stories I'm totally game to see a new one. The score still stands at 3 stars, 7/10, and fingers crossed for even better this weekend.