Evil Dead Burn
Image Credit: Evil Dead Burn (2026)
There’s a very specific kind of horror movie logic where a grieving widow visits her in-laws for emotional support, and by dinner the whole family is trying to eat her face. Welcome to Evil Dead Burn, the sixth installment in a franchise that has never once let “too soon” stop it from doing anything.
Directed by Sébastien Vaniček, the French filmmaker Sam Raimi personally tapped after watching Infested (2023) this is a movie that wants to punch you in the gut. Mission: largely accomplished, though a chunk of critics wish it had thrown a joke or two in between the punches.
So What’s It About?
Souheila Yacoub plays a young widow who heads to her in-laws’ secluded lake house looking for comfort after losing her husband. Bad move. Somewhere between grief counseling and pot roast, the Kandarian Dagger gets uncovered, a Deadite named Jessica shows up with murderous intentions, and a drunk-driving family argument ends with someone burning alive in a car wreck and passing the possession along like the world’s worst chain letter. From there, it’s the Price family reunion nobody RSVP’d for Deadite edition.
By the time the credits roll (stick around, there are two end-credit scenes), the “family that slays together” theme has been hammered home with fish hooks, corkscrews, a dishwasher, and because subtlety left the chat candle wax. Somehow, a possessed dog also gets involved, which is either the most unhinged or most delightful addition to Evil Dead lore, depending on who you ask.
The Verdict: A Gorefest With an Identity Crisis
Here’s where things get interesting. Evil Dead Burn (2026) currently sits at a fairly divisive 70% on Rotten Tomatoes and a much shakier 55 on Metacritic “mixed or average,” in critic-speak, which is Hollywood for “well, that’s a conversation starter.”
The consensus, boiled down: the movie is nastier, meaner, and more visually accomplished than anything in the franchise since Raimi hung up his own chainsaw but it may have left its sense of humor in the woods.
Half the critics think Vaniček delivered a legitimately great, formally impressive slice of “new wave French extremism” collides with classic Deadite mythology. The other half are somewhere between “solid but soulless” and outright exhausted by two hours of unbroken misery.
What Actually Works
Even skeptical reviewers agree on a few things:
- The camera work is genuinely great. A standout unbroken shot follows Alice crawling through the carnage like she’s dodging mortar fire, and it’s the kind of sequence that makes you forget you’re watching a franchise six movies deep.
- The practical effects are filthy in the best way. Anyone who prefers real gore over CGI slime will find plenty to appreciate here including one gag involving a dishwasher that we will not be spoiling.
- It’s the best non-Raimi-directed entry in the franchise, according to more than one critic, even with Raimi only producing this time around.
What Doesn’t
- The comedy is nearly extinct. This isn’t the “groovy” Ash Williams one-liner machine of old; it’s closer to a Greek tragedy where everyone happens to be covered in viscera.
- The lore connections feel forced. Longtime fans will notice some retconning around the Kandarian Dagger’s rules, and not everyone is thrilled about it.
- The ending underwhelms. Multiple reviews single out the finale as the weakest link in an otherwise unrelenting ride a classic case of a movie that can’t stick the landing after ninety minutes of throwing everything at the wall (and at the walls, and at the ceiling, and occasionally at a dog).
Box Office Reality Check
Evil Dead Burn opened domestically against Moana‘s live-action remake and pulled in roughly $13.7 million its opening weekend, landing at fourth place. Worldwide, it’s sitting around $26 million against a reported $20 million budget respectable for a horror sequel, if not exactly setting the box office on fire (pun very much intended).
Should You See It?
If you’re a die-hard Deadite who just wants more blood, more body horror, and more “is that a fish hook in someone’s eye” energy, Evil Dead Burn absolutely delivers. If you’re hoping for the campy, self-aware humor of the Raimi era, temper your expectations this one takes itself seriously, for better and worse.
Either way, with Evil Dead Wrath already confirmed for 2028, the franchise clearly isn’t done proving that being possessed by an ancient evil is a family tradition worth keeping alive.
Rating: 3/5 🔥 Gnarly, gorgeous, and grim just don’t expect to laugh much on the way to hell.
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