Souheila Yacoub plays Alice, whose husband dies in a Deadite (person possessed by a demon) induced car crash. A very tense post funeral get together with her in-laws goes from grim to apocalyptic when the dead arrive looking for a dagger that is capable of sending them back to hell.
This is a slight change-up to the usual Evil Dead formula. Normally some fool reads from the Book of the Dead and the Deadites show up to torment and kill people with gleeful abandon. What distinguishes the undead nasties from those in other films is the fun they take in the mayhem. They are neither mindless monsters nor serious soldiers of Satan. They are just here for the love of the game. This somewhat softens the gore and allows the audience to enjoy the slapstick carnage. 2023's Evil Dead Rise was a harrowing story of a mother turning from protector to tormentor of her children, but for all the visceral violence it had eyeballs flying through the air and choking people.
Here, the Deadites are on a mission and have a more serious vibe to them. There is still humour but it is divorced from the violence, meaning people being impaled on a dishwasher's worth of cutlery or having their fingers lopped off by car doors has a strictly nasty edge. Vanicek shares series creator (and this film's producer) Sam Raimi's love for kinetic camerawork, with the audience POV zooming over and around the action, but the actual bludgeoning is more grounded. In that way, the film in the franchise Burn most resembles is Fede Alvarez's 2013 series reboot, although a focus on traumatic relationships makes this feel meaner.
Relationships are at the core of the film. It is a look at how toxic "traditional" family values have the potential to be, and the dangerous environment they can create for women. The Price family have an overbearing father figure and a mother who believes it is a wife's duty to shelve any self interest in complete service to others. This has led to one son who thought nothing of being aggressive to his spouse and another too meek to defend his partner, even when her life is on the line. It's a new angle for an Evil Dead film and adds pathos to proceedings but becomes more overbearing and less interesting as the movie goes on.
What isn't new is the lead of an Evil Dead film being put through the absolute wringer. Yacoub was unable to stomach the more gruesome parts of previous films when she attempted to watch them in preparation for her role, so a friend made her an edit that showed kittens instead of the roughest scenes. The friend will be busy if they do the same for this entry as things are pretty non stop once they get going and a scene involving a fountain pen and an ear is as wince inducing as anything you're likely to see this year. For someone who can't stomach gore, Yacoub does a good job throwing herself into physical side of the role and will have you rooting for her to overcome her possessed in-laws.
So while series die-hards may find Burn doesn't scratch that particularly Three Stooges meets buckets of blood itch, there is no denying it stands as a solid and gruelling horror flick in its own right. If nothing else, it keeps the series record of never producing an outright bad film. Although, with attempts to expand the lore and next year's Evil Dead Wrath already in the can, it seems the studio are going to keep going until they get there.
7 slobbery false teeth out of 10
Comments
Post a Comment