What separates the Evil Dead movies from the rest of the unholy possession / unstoppable zombie pack is that they usually try to be a little funny. What makes the goings on more than just a gore fest is that the Deadites aren't afraid to go way over the top when it comes to treating their possessed bodies badly. To quote another zombie movie, "they're all messed up".
But while Evil Dead Burn has a few jokes, for the most part it takes itself a little too seriously. Which has been a bit of a problem with the movie franchise since it was revived sans Bruce Campbell a decade or so ago. The previous film, Evil Dead Rise, seemed to suggest the series was finding its way back to the cartoony gore gags that made the whole thing work back when Sam Raimi was directing; that direction does not continue here under co-writers and co-directors Sebastien Vanicek and Florent Bernard.
Still, the whole thing has a solid foundation. After her abusive - hey, he's under a lot of pressure, okay - husband Will (George Pullar) dies in a car crash, French ex-pat Alice (Souheila Yacoub) has to attend a funeral where his parents - Susan (Tandi Wright) and Edgar (Erroll Shand) - don't quite openly despise her, but it's close.
Her brother-in-law Joseph (Hunter Doohan) and his girlfriend Thya (Luciane Buchanan) are a bit more sympathetic, but once everyone's back at the decaying old mansion Joseph's been given (and is struggling to repair), tensions are rapidly on the rise. Oh, and Will was killed by a Deadite who infected Edgar and the demons are looking for a magical dagger Joseph's nutty grandfather stashed somewhere in the house. Carnage ensues.
The gore is both excessive and inventive, which is good because the story itself struggles to get into second gear. There's plenty of conflict between the characters, both living and dead; being a bit of a self-serving dick when the Deadites attack might save you at first, but when the person you left behind comes back they're going to give you a serve. But nobody here is all that interesting, which makes the "family reunion from hell" angle a bit of a fizzle.
(it probably doesn't help that The Invite is also out this week, a more successful film that's also about a small group of connected characters getting on each others nerves. If they'd started turning into Deadites halfway through, then we'd really have something)
Putting technical proficiency ahead of character is something pretty much every Evil Dead movie has in common. But where the Raimi-directed films had the crazy charisma of Campbell to cover it, the later films just take for granted that we're not here to connect with anyone on a human level. That's not to say there aren't decent performances here, but the focus is on the blood and guts rather than the characters its spilling out of.
It seems a little foolish to be complaining about a lack of humanity in an Evil Dead movie. But with nobody to care about and only a handful of decent jokes to break up the mood, all that's left to offer is a whole lot of gore. Which isn't nothing, and some of the kills are fun (in an ewwww way). It's just that in the end, that's not enough to fully animate this particular corpse.
- Anthony Morris
