If you're not a fan of seeing people get boiled alive, impaled with the metal poles of a car headrest, or stabbed by every sharp kitchen utensil that exists, then Evil Dead Burn probably isn't for you. But if you have kept up with the trajectory of horror legend Sam Raimi's long-running demonic possession franchise, these types of brutally imaginative acts of violence are simply par for the course.
Directed and co-written by French filmmaker Sébastien Vanicek (Infested), Burn marks the third entry in the series to abandon the signature slapstick humor of Raimi's original trilogy (including The Evil Dead, Evil Dead II, and Army of Darkness) in favor of gleefully sadistic body horror. And this time, we finally get confirmation that, rather than serving as standalone sequels, the modern era of these films—which began with Fede Álvarez's 2013 soft reboot Evil Dead and continued with Lee Cronin's 2023 update Evil Dead Rise—all take place within the same universe.
While Burn's central story can be understood without any prior Evil Dead knowledge, fans of the franchise will likely quickly pick up on the connective tissue that ties the newer movies together—along with a few nods to Raimi's older lore.
Greta Van Den Brink as Jessica in the opening scene of Evil Dead Burn. Warner Bros. Pictures
Building on Rise's cold open, which saw the Deadites wreak havoc on a trio of unsuspecting lake goers, Burn begins with a possessed Jessica (Greta Van Den Brink, who previously served as the stunt double of Anna-Maree Thomas' Jessica in Rise) reemerging from the aforementioned lake to deliver a torturous end to two buddies attempting to enjoy a day of fishing.
After washing her hands of that mess, Jessica heads to a nearby road to await her next victim: Will Price (George Pullar), the abusive husband of final-girl-in-the-making Alice (Souheila Yacoub). The majority of Burn revolves around the Price famil
