Evil Dead Burn (2026) Review: All Gore, Little Glee

Is Evil Dead Burn worth watching?

It depends on why you love Evil Dead. Evil Dead Burn is the franchise’s most savage and technically assured gore film, but also its least playful, and its thin characters leave little to care about between the set pieces. Director Sébastien Vaniček stages the carnage with real ferocity and a strong command of practical effects. What is missing is the anarchic humour that made the original films as much fun as they were frightening, and a story with enough substance to give the violence weight.

What is Evil Dead Burn about?

After the death of her husband, Alice (Souheila Yacoub) goes to stay with his family in their secluded home, hoping for comfort among the people who loved him too. Instead, the gathering turns into a nightmare: one by one, her in-laws are transformed into Deadites, the possessed, demonic killers of the series, and Alice must survive a family reunion from hell in which the vows she made in life seem to follow her even into death.

Evil Dead Burn is the sixth film in the horror franchise Sam Raimi began with The Evil Dead in 1981, following Evil Dead Rise in 2023. It is directed by Vaniček, whose previous feature was the spider horror film Infested, and was shot in New Zealand. The cast includes Hunter Doohan, Luciane Buchanan, Tandi Wright and Erroll Shand. It is an American production in English, released in July 2026, and runs 110 minutes.

Ferocious craft, relentless carnage

Vaniček is plainly a gifted horror director. The camera is restless and aggressive, the siege is staged with a strong sense of geography, and the practical make-up and gore effects are grotesque in the most accomplished way. The film understands that Evil Dead is a physical franchise, built on bodily horror and splatter, and it delivers that in abundance.

The premise has promise too. Grief and in-laws are fertile ground for horror, and the idea of a widow trapped with a family she only half belongs to, as they turn monstrous around her, gives the early scenes an unsettling emotional charge. Souheila Yacoub is a committed lead, convincing as a woman whose mourning is violently interrupted and who must find reserves of resilience she did not know she had.

Missing the mischief

What separates this film from the best of the series is tone. Raimi’s originals were cruel but also wildly funny, driven by slapstick invention and a mocking, gleeful energy, and even the more serious recent entries kept a streak of dark wit. Burn is almost entirely humourless. It is the meanest chapter the franchise has produced, and the unrelenting grimness can make the violence feel punishing rather than thrilling.

The film also lacks a defining villain. The possessed relatives function as a pack more than as personalities, which robs the siege of the memorable, taunting presence that has anchored earlier films.

Thin characters, familiar beats

Between the set pieces, the script offers little that is new. The in-laws are types rather than people, their relationships sketched in a few lines before the killing starts, and the grief theme that powers the premise is largely abandoned once the gore takes over. The structure, a group trapped in an isolated house as its members are picked off, is so familiar that only the effects work surprises. Those who come purely for spectacle will not mind; others will feel the film running on its franchise name.

Who should watch Evil Dead Burn?

It is best for committed horror fans, especially those who value practical effects and extreme gore above story. Newcomers to the series would do better starting with the earlier films. Expect relentless, graphic violence, dismemberment, possession, torture and strong language; this is strictly for adults with strong stomachs.

If you want other takes on horror at home:

• Get Out, which also turns time with a partner’s family into a waking nightmare, but with far sharper wit and ideas.
• The Gift, a quieter, character-driven supernatural thriller from Sam Raimi himself.

The verdict

Evil Dead Burn is a vicious, expertly mounted gore machine that will satisfy the faithful but rarely surprises. Vaniček’s craft and Yacoub’s commitment are real, yet without humour, a memorable villain or characters worth caring about, it is the first entry in the series that feels more like product than passion.