Review: "Evil Dead Burn"
I have been watching the Evil Dead movies since they were shown to me in the 90s. The films of this new generation aren't messing around.
It's a party! Joseph is celebrating his birthday with his girlfriend, Thya, Joseph's brother Will, and his wife Alice at the club that Will and Alice own and run. Will gives his brother a pen, a very expensive Belvoir pen. Will explains that he hoped it would finally encourage him to finish his book. Unfortunately, he didn't tell Alice he was going to give his brother a $1200 pen. This expense, plus the mild insult that he can't finish his book, leads to a blow-up between Will and basically the entire group. Drunk and pissed off that no one appreciated his gift, he storms out and, after a further altercation with Alice, decides to drive drunkenly home. This would be the last mistake that Will would make.
As Will is speeding home, drunk and enraged, he doesn't see the lady standing in the middle of the road until it is far too late. He stomps the brakes and swerves to miss her, going off the road and flipping his car. He awakens in the overturned car with the woman calling his name. As her head slowly and noisily separates itself from the rest of her body, she begins to recite an incantation that will bring so much death and destruction upon him and his whole family.
Will is dead, and most of his family blames Alice for the tragedy that took his life. At Will's funeral, everyone is upset and in tears, and though Alice misses her husband, she harbors a secret about their abusive relationship. Stoic and unyielding as Will's dad appears, he can't come to grips with letting his son go. As Will's body is about to be cremated, Edgar makes a plea to the cremation operator to let him say goodbye to his son one last time. As he sobs and cries out to his son, who lies in a casket in front of him, he hears a knocking. Then he hears Will calling out to his dad. Edgar, consumed by sorrow and blinded by the sudden loss of his son, begins to tear apart the coffin. As the top explodes off, Will, charred by the explosive fire that consumed him, grabs Edgar's wrist, instantly burning him, and then stands up.
Evil Dead Burn is an unrelenting ride into the pain of loss and just how far a family will go to feel normal and complete again. Once it puts its foot on the gas, there is no stopping it. Burn is the third in the line of this "New" Evil Dead series and certainly is, in my opinion, the most brutal of the three so far. I don't often get "squemish" in horror movies, but there were several times in Burn that I found myself saying out loud, "Oh, come on!"
Most of the Evil Dead movies have given the viewer a sense of claustrophobia. Small houses, closed-off spaces, nowhere to run and certainly nowhere to hide. Burn doesn't feel as "small" a picture, but it creates a sense of dread and despair that I never got in the other ones. Every single time something happened, I had the feeling that things were going to get so very much worse. While the script may have been small, the bloodshed was plentiful. Again, I was actively wincing during a lot of the latter half of the movie. However, even as I was trying to look away from the gore on screen, there were times I was laughing at the absurdity of certain things. The acting on screen felt as though the actors were also really and truly feeling the pain, as well. Alice is put through the wringer and is never given a chance to catch her breath once things kick off.
After finally rolling the final credit sequence (yes, there are multiple "final" scenes), I was able to unclench my fists and toes. Apparently there is a fourth movie in production already for the series. The next will be called, according to reports, Evil Dead Wrath. The title will likely lead to some really bad shit, but maybe, just maybe it will end everything. Personally, I hope it doesn't because these films keep getting better and better as they go along. I ain't too proud to say that this is NOT a series that I see in the theater, but I will certainly check out the next one when it does come out. If you have been a fan of the series recently and think you can handle some REALLY rough pain sequences, Evil Dead Burn is one not to miss.
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