Sébastien Vaniček proves there is still gnarly fun to be had in horror’s most consistent franchise
I was ready to see the credits roll for Evil Dead Burn before I had heard why I should buy an Odeon Limitless card.
Nothing to do with the film itself, mind you. I enjoyed our introduction back into this universe in Evil Dead Rise, and the trailer promised this film would follow in the same gnarly footsteps.
It was the array of horror trailers before which stunted my excitement. I only have a certain amount of appetite for jump scares and gore which come with the genre, and each trailer had already satisfied that. A special mention for the Ice Cream Man trailer, which looks bizarre as it is gruesome.
I tried to shake off the blood and cobwebs before the film, but after the first five minutes, I was already dreaming of the moment I got to get out of my chair and walk to my unreliable Corsa.
As they say, evil doesn’t die; it reinvents itself, and the Evil Dead franchise has been able to do that better than anyone. From minute one to the last, this film is relentless with the shock and blood. The spirit grabs you by the neck and doesn’tlet you go, no matter how much you beg and cover your eyes.
I thought they had pushed the boundaries of ways to inflict torture on our cast in the last movie, but they up the ante here tenfold. Things happen in this film which have never been used as a means of terror.
Our unlucky hosts this time around are the Price family. After an altercation with his wife Alice (Souheila Yacoub) leads to their oldest son dying at the hands of the demonic presence, the family, along with Alice and their other son Joseph’s(Hunter Doohan) girlfriend Thya (Luciane Buchanan), have to face their demons at the wake.
They are tested more than they would have hoped. I’m sure they expected some awkward conversations and some charged arguments, but they definitely didn’t bargain for drinking candles and killer grandmas.
At many points in this film, I believed I had seen the height of the depravity, but each time they do something so twisted and gory you hope there is a line of questioning for the person who conjured them up.
Whether Sébastien Vaniček needs locking up for what is a nauseating 109-minute watch is neither here nor there, but untilwe decide whether his brain is fit for society, he should definitely continue in the horror genre.
He has a knack for inflicting ungodly amounts of pain on his characters, and he knows how to make us feel the weight of it all. We are put right in the middle of the action. Uncomfortable close-ups, long sprawling takes, erratic movements areall used to make us feel like we are scuttling away for our lives like the rest of them. I didn’t enjoy that. Not even a little. Well played.
You can sense he was having great fun making this film – again, a line of questioning is required – and so was the cast.Amongst a host of performances loaded with terror and angst, it’s Buchanan who steals the show. After she is brutally murdered, she is tremendous fun and plays the evil entity with a great level of sass and excitement.
Vaniček has proved there is still gruesome death left in this franchise even when you think they have squeezed out the last blood left. I will roll my eyes if another Evil Dead film is announced. Not because it’s unwelcome, but because I don’t know if I can stomach the trailer, let alone a movie. I never want to watch this film again; I’d call that a resounding success.
- Evil Dead Burn is available to buy on Apple TV
