"Give them what they want and this ends..."
So growls one of the possessed in Evil Dead Burn, the latest instalment of a horror mainstay that celebrates its 45th anniversary in the autumn and which will undoubtedly go on the most rampageous bender possible when it turns 50 in 2031. In between, a prequel, Evil Dead Wrath, is due in April 2028.
And there's a Dubliner who deserves a large chunk of credit for the franchise being where it is today. Director Lee Cronin went through the pages of the movies' iconic Book of the Dead and then delivered the box-office hit Evil Dead Rise in 2023, a rager that swapped the woods setting for an apartment block to become one of the highlights of the year.
Watch: Lee Cronin discusses Evil Dead Rise with RTÉ Entertainment in April 2023
Cronin returns as executive producer this time around - Evil Dead lynchpin Sam Raimi is, of course, the producer - as French director Sébastien Vanicek makes his English-language debut on the back of his much-admired 2023 Gallic chiller Infested.
This is a case of swings and roundabouts (or fishhooks and pole saws, if you prefer): Cronin's bloody offering was more satisfying narratively, but Vanicek takes the entrails-and-all ferocity to a new level. If ever a film should've acquired the rights to Bachman-Turner Overdrive's You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet for the soundtrack, it's this one.
We're back in the woods as a family - wife, mother, father, brother, girlfriend, and, yes, grandma - grieve the loss of a wrong 'un in a car crash. His death was no accident, as it turns out his late grandfather had more than a bit of previous with demonic forces.
The backstory is badly rushed, and the character focus feels like it clunkily jumps early on from Hunter Doohan as budding writer Joseph to Souhelia Yacoub as widow Alice. Yacoub is, however, excellent in the lead role - and the only character you care about. Cronin's film was far better at making emotional connections with the ensemble.
Yes, yes, you say, but what about the violence?
Well, if you're going, it's going to be lit, chopped, smashed, pierced, and garrotted in no time. Evil Dead Burn veers too close to cartoonish in spots, but for the stunning shot of Yacoub in the blood-red night, it's worth the admission price alone, and the nod to the Tobe Hooper-directed TV adaptation of Stephen King's Salem's Lot is most welcome.
Now, there was a classic that had nothing by way of gore but delivered suspense in spades. Tension is lost here as Vanicek barrels along to the next kill, when all the while a better film was trying to get out of the cellar.
