Evil Dead Burn

My history with the Evil Dead movies goes like this: I saw Evil Dead 2 on like, Cinemax, when I was around 12 and it made an incredibly profound impression on my young mind. It was the perfect mixture of Loony Tunes absurdity and downright mean gore and horror.

That meanness is something that I think was a big part of what made the first two Evil Dead movies what they were. That's why I've never been such a big fan of Army of Darkness, and don't really think of it as an Evil Dead movie so much as an Adventures of Ash Williams movie.

Evil Dead has a flavor. The flavor is a surprisingly delicate balance to maintain.

When it came time to ultimately reboot Evil Dead in 2013 with Fede Alvarez directing instead of Sam Raimi, I was thrilled. I love Evil Dead movies, and this was no exception. Fede Alvarez's Evil Dead was just about everything I could have asked for in an Evil Dead reboot.

Then something interesting happened. When it came to do another Evil Dead movie, rather than doing what the first trilogy movies did, which was build upon the lore and characters (really just Ash) with one filmmaker (Sam Raimi), they instead decided to do another, unrelated, anthology style entry in the series. It was like another filmmaker, in this case Lee Cronin, got their own shot at doing an Evil Dead movie. It was great. I loved his movie, Evil Dead Rise. It was a new spin on the idea, with so much of the classic Evil Dead notes, played just right.

So when I found out that the next Evil Dead movie, Evil Dead Burn, was on the way from a director I wasn't familiar with, French filmmaker Sébastien Vaniček, I was thrilled. I love the idea of Evil Dead being a playground for horror filmmakers to muck around in.

Something that's true of all of the Evil Dead movies, since the beginning, is that the horror is mean. Ash has to chainsaw his own fiance's head. I mean, in the first Evil Dead movie a woman is sexually assaulted by a tree. In the second one too. And the 2013 one. I don't say that to make it seem like I have a problem with those scenes, but let's not pretend that Evil Dead has ever been nice.

I bring that up, because this is an American movie made by a French director who clearly wanted to embrace his French extreme horror roots, because that's exactly what this was. It was mean. It was mean in the way that High Tension, and Inside, and Martyrs were mean. Just brutalizing people emotionally and physically.

Now, was it good? I mean, not really, no. I saw Evil Dead Rise three times in the theater, because I loved it so much. I doubt I'll ever watch this one again. It was missing some things that I needed in order to feel like enduring some of the more gruesome bits of awfulness was worth it.

It was what it wanted to be. I'll give it that. But here's the thing: I don't really like French Extremism Horror movies. I liked High Tension, but otherwise, most of them have left me feeling just kind of bummed. They're bleak. So while I can recognize that the filmmaker mostly seemed to have accomplished what he was going for, I think, I'm not sure that's something I needed for me.

Some of the violence in this movie is so visceral and intense that I reacted physically in the theater. Literally putting my hands on my head in astonishment. That was impressive, honestly. I'm not easily moved in that way by movies. I don't often find myself cringing from discomfort. So good job on that one.

One thing I didn't really like about this movie, and I think it also comes from being French inspired, is that it seemed to want to be about something, without actually saying anything particularly profound about that something. It's sort about abuse, I guess, and it certainly uses that story element to mine a lot of horror. That, to me, was a little half baked. If you're gonna say something about abuse, and depict abuse in a really fucked up way, then you better actually say something. Otherwise, it just feels a little exploitative. It felt like they they were trying to give the appearance of "elevated horror' without actually doing anything particularly interesting or meaningful.

So no, this one didn't land for me. It had some cool moments, and some pretty gnarly visuals, but the story was a mess, and it embraced a lot of the more sadistic aspects of Evil Dead's horror, but it just wasn't the kind of horror I like. That's really what it comes down to. Not that it was BAD, just that it was not what I wanted. I feel like our values are different, me and that movie. So, it's not a good fit for me.

2.5 stars.