Evil Dead Burn (2026)

They're just releasing Evil Dead films willy-nilly now. This doesn't even feel like the event film it should be...just a casual release dumped in the middle of summer. I guess it's safe to say this is now considered its own trilogy and not a series of reboots as I had assumed, since one has nothing to do with the other. However, it won't remain a trilogy for long, since it's already being followed by yet another standalone, Evil Dead Wrath. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Sébastien Vaniček has been handed the keys to the kingdom, along with a cast of relative unknowns. At a wake, tempers flare and the dead indeed remain evil. You want buckets of gore? Check. Ridiculous over-the-top situations? Check. Despite the presence of the Necronomicon, Kandarian Dagger and a double dose of buzzsaws, this doesn't feel much like Evil Dead to me. It's too serious, too angry, too intense. It feels more like torture porn at this point, which was never the point of this series. Trading brutality for any sense of character development or story, it merely becomes a series of horrifying scenarios. Weirdly, it reminded me a lot of that Mummy movie from a few months back. Still, I'm of two minds about it; I enjoy the sheer balls of it, but feel like it's simply going through the motions. I really despise this blatant bastardization of the original Evil Dead brand. It's just not fun anymore.

2½ jackhammers out of 5