With Evil Dead Burn, the sixth in the franchise, French director Sébastien Vaniček (Infested) continues with the kind of unrelenting, horrific gore this horror series has come to be known for, but he also brings stylish, inventive filmmaking and potent themes.
Joseph Price (Hunter Doohan) and his girlfriend Thya (Luciane Buchanan) celebrate Joseph's birthday at a nightclub owned by Joseph's brother William (George Pullar). William and his wife Alice (Souheila Yacoub) begin fighting and William drives off drunk. In the woods, he hits a woman with his car and crashes. The woman turns out to be a deadite and promises to come for the rest of William's family.
At the funeral, attended by William and Joseph's mother Susan (Tandi Wright) and father Edgar (Erroll Shand), and grandmother (Maude Davey), Edgar tries to say one last goodbye to his son and finds the casket occupied a deadite. Edgar becomes infected and, as they gather at the dilapidated house left to Joseph, begins to torment his family. The truth comes out about Alice and William's relationship, and finally it's up to Alice to find the secret weapon to defeat the deadites.
Vaniček begins Evil Dead Burn with a prologue in which two guys fishing come across a submerged deadite. The scene is colored by continued phone calls from one man's girlfriend, and teasing and mocking from the other man. This sets up the theme of domestic violence and lack of communication or understanding between partners.
Indeed, William is abusive toward Alice, as hinted in the way that he manhandles her, calls her names, and takes offense at her actions. It's easy to see how this poison has been passed down through the Price family, led by a patriarch who did the initial research into the Book of the Dead. (Joseph, in particular, is shown to be a coward, likely a reaction against the rest of the family's violent tendencies.)
As for the horror stuff, it does not disappoint. Vaniček's camera continuously finds interesting or shocking angles from which to film the chaos, including one amazing shot that follows Alice as she crawls, panicked, from room to room, while furniture and bodies go flying and crashing all around her. There are even a few moments of humor, which Sam Raimi's original trilogy (The Evil Dead, Evil Dead II, and Army of Darkness) had in spades.
The movie does grow a bit long in the tooth as the climax drags on (not to mention several credits and post-credits "buttons"), and some of the most intense moments may likely cross a line with some viewers. However, even seasoned horror fans will leave Evil Dead Burn knowing that they've really seen something.
