Evil Dead Burn (2026)

Show Opener

Kris 0:04

Yeah, please go to the subreddit and tell us whose dentures you would swallow.

Movie Introduction

Kris 0:12

Few horror franchises have reinvented themselves quite as often as this one. What began at Sam Raimi's crappy Cabin in the Woods Nightmare has evolved into an anthology of Standalone series, with each finding a different way to unleash the Deade. Now, for its sixth outing, producer Sam Raimi handed the series to a French filmmaker, whose breakout feature established him as a director with an eye for relentless physical horror. Now, rather than leaning into the series' trademark blend of splatter and comedy, this follow-up shifts towards a more severe, intimate story centered on grief, family, and the promises people make to the ones they love. The story follows a woman who's mourning the loss of her husband, and she accepts an invitation to stay with her late husband's family, hoping a change of scenery might help her heal. But instead, a gathering meant to provide comfort becomes something way worse as an ancient evil begins spreading throughout the household, forcing her to question who can still be trusted. And the question everyone seems to be asking right now: can this film be trusted? Is this edition of the franchise too brutal, too mean, too violent to enjoy? This week we're talking about Evil Dead Bird.

Greetings & Salutations

Kris 1:29

Greetings and salutations, and welcome to Hacker Slash. If you're joining us again, welcome back. If this is your first time listening, welcome to the party. We are a horror movie review podcast typically dedicated to telling you whether a movie is a hack.

Sean 1:41

A total joke. A waste of time.

Kris 1:43

Or a slash. Totally killer. Pun intended. My name is Chris. I'm your friendly neighborhood slasher enthusiast. This week I'm joined by the classic horror connoisseur Sean.

Sean 1:52

Everybody looks cute in black and white.

Kris 1:54

And the paranormal paramour, Binx.

Sean 1:57

Oh, fuck this. You're tuning into Evil Dead Burn, but if you support the show, you'll also get to hear our B-side at the end of this episode, where we get into more about the Evil Dead franchise, the upcoming prequel, and some other Dead Eight fun.

Kris 2:10

It really is a dream episode for Sean, but before we get into the future and the past of this franchise,

Spoiler-free Discussion

Kris 2:16

what were you all expecting going into this one?

Sean 2:18

I just remember coming out of Evil Dead Rise with really just a lot of high hopes for the franchise. We got a really dark, more modern take with Evil Dead in 2013, but still in the cabin. Very familiar, the setting and everything, but definitely a darker take in a modern setting, but still in a cabin. And then we got this kind of I don't know what you call it, like a punk rock blend of both the old and the new, and Evil Dead Rise talking, or it really took us out of the cabin and into this modern feel for almost the first time in the entire franchise. So I was expecting more of this tone. And based on the trailer that we got, it looked like it was shaping up to be pretty wild for sure.

Binx 3:06

Yeah, it was giving Resident Evil 7 in a way. I can see that element to it to an extreme, but the expectations were already pretty high. I'm thinking, okay, the gore is going to be immense because we've set a different bar now. And with a French director, are you kidding me? The French fucking love getting crazy.

Sean 3:26

He did Infested, right? And that film, I feel like, made you feel like something was crawling on you. That film was definitely a movie that made you feel something. The sound design was on point in that movie, from what I remember. And so really just curious to see what Sebastian Vonichek translates into the Evil Dead franchise.

Kris 3:48

No fucking thanks. I am so glad I did not know this man's game before going into this. I would have dreaded it. I absolutely do not want to watch a movie and feel like things are crawling on or in my skin. Mm-mm. Going into this, we have the is it joy or is it horror of having watched Evil Dead Rise? I really love the movie, don't get me wrong, but that shit was mean and it was brutal. And seeing that family get absolutely annihilated, seeing Maggot Mommy getting messed up, it was tough, right? It was emotionally a tough movie, but really good. And I'm not a lover of Evil Dead as a whole, but Evil Dead Rise really did it for me. So going into I expected, yeah, that brutal practical gore, sure. Nasty Dead. I expected relentless pacing. But uh what I was surprised about here is when you get into just what this movie is and what this movie feels like, it does give you all those things. It is very modern Evil Dead, it doesn't waste time getting disgusting. But despite being so close to I think Evil Dead Rise, there is something in its DNA that feels just not quite right.

Sean 5:08

That's interesting for sure. I think I'm with you. I think this movie was full of intense gore from the very start to the very end. It did not let up with the gore. There's one thing that's for certain the gore is there, the action is there. But yeah, I can see the tone is definitely different when you compare all of the films so far in the franchise, and especially when you're looking at 2013 to Evil Dead Rise to Evil Dead Burn now, they all have a different feel, and that's probably because we have a different director in every single movie, including the one that's coming, is gonna be another different director. So it's the catch 22. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but you're always gonna get slightly different feel. But the movie is relentless. This movie is wild. If I am audibly reacting to the shit that is happening in this movie in the theater, you know that it was probably pretty intense. But what I thought was interesting was maybe not so much of the tone difference in this movie or the feel of the movie itself, but I didn't feel any emotional connection to any of the characters in this one. In fact, I don't think I really liked any of the characters in this movie. Did yeah, I don't know what it was. I just could not connect to anything in this movie as far as character and story is concerned.

Kris 6:30

Okay. I can see a little bit of it because damn, we got the cast of the 2013 Evil Dead, and while I didn't like all of them, I liked our main girl. And then Evil Dead Rise gave you a family to really latch on to. So I can see how by comparison, at least for me, I didn't feel as much for this family, but I did feel a lot for Alice.

Binx 6:52

I was gonna say, I think that Evil Dead's pretty good at giving you a strong main character that you can buy into. And so I did really like our main character here, but I'm with you, Sean. Everyone else was just okay. But I I felt that way about the movie in general. I think, yes, gore, intensity, absolutely. But that's something that I would have been shocked if that wasn't actually the case, considering that I did see a bit of the trailer. And again, that's the bar at this point. So if they were going to meet it, I wanted to see what else this was going to bring to the table. And it just felt like okay. I think the beginning of the movie felt a little bit off for me. I was trying to get my footing. There were some technical aspects to that I didn't quite like. The setting was a little disordered, the setting was weird. I don't know. There was a lot of it that just pacing felt strange. But I think as a result of that's usually where we are establishing a lot of these main characters where we can then sink our teeth into them and we want to see them through. It was wasted a bit, with the exception of our main character. That was successful. But everybody else in that family, I was just like, all right, I guess. So it makes it a little bit harder for me to have that emotional connection when shit hits the fan later on.

Kris 8:10

You know what it is? You love to hate them. I didn't really give a damn about any of them except for her, which I found acceptable given that okay, I don't want to reveal too much here without any spoilers. Which that in the spoiler zone, I have a whole thing about this family, but I appreciated that this movie gave me someone to root for. And while not every person in the family is an absolutely terrible person, I was able to care enough about the one I was supposed to care about and less about the people who don't really matter who are ancillary to that. But what it also did was completely shift how I feel about even the matriarch and the patriarch of the family, a scene that I, for the first time in a very long time, had to cover my ears and look away from.

SPEAKER_02 9:03

Oh yeah.

Kris 9:03

I haven't done that in years, maybe since I was a small child. I could not look at the screen.

Sean 9:10

Yeah, it was terrible. That's actually, you're right. There's a correction. I did care about one thing in this movie, and it was this one thing that we're not gonna mention yet because we don't want to give anything away if you haven't seen it. But I gotta imagine that every, maybe not every, but most horror fans are gonna hate this moment in this film. It's just something that we never want or need to see in a horror movie, but they decided to give it to us. I don't know why. Maybe they just felt like they had to take it there. I'm not about it, but yeah, I did care about that. That was tough. That's that character I relate to. Thanks, Dad. Yeah, that was a tough one for sure. What I did, what I loved about this film though, what I really loved about this film was how it stayed true to the use of practical effects throughout the movie, the way that it still used all that. It looked great. Even the small amounts of CGI and special effects that were used, I feel like were used perfectly just to blend in with the practical effects. When we're talking about that partnership, it really was just used just enough to make all of the practical effects really come to life and look really solid.

Binx 10:16

Yeah, absolutely. And that's where I think it paired really well with the gore itself, because the gore still remained to be effective and inventive at that. There were some things that again, I was, oh shit, I never thought that I would be cringing at or expecting to see on screen. So when the practical effects are there, it makes those moments feel like 10 times worse. So that I definitely did appreciate. Now, on the other side though, I will say we've talked about the characters, wasn't really doing it for me personally. But I also feel like, again, I go back to the editing a little bit and the establishment of the setting was a little bit strange because it does, in a way, pick up where Rise leaves off, but only like it starts there, then it doesn't, then it goes back to it, then it doesn't. And it felt very 2000s a little bit with I'm thinking of Saw, was what my friend and I were saying, like with the James Wan effect with some, I don't know, it was like a weird party scene. And then there was like a weird like flashback moment. It was a little strange. A little strange. Bings, the 2000s are your fucking jam.

Kris 11:23

What do you mean it's they are?

Binx 11:25

But okay, but here's the thing. It is my thing, but it was not, it wasn't even done to be honest with you. I and here's the difference. It wasn't done well because it's not throughout. If you're gonna make a 2000s looking movie, then stick to it aesthetically throughout. But the specific flashback scenes looked the tint, everything about it, like the vignette of it all. I was like, okay, this is that aesthetic, but then why are we going back to the crispest fucking movie that I've ever seen type shit in 2026? It just doesn't seem like it didn't know what kind of look it wanted to go for when it continued to flash back between those things.

Kris 12:04

I think I know what scenes you're referring to. And if I'm correct, it was giving the it was giving the mummy meat saw. Yeah, okay, yes.

Sean 12:14

Interesting.

Kris 12:15

Yeah, it's a wild comparison, and I fully uh understand that. I didn't actually mind it. I wasn't distracted by this at all because the biggest thing that fucking works in this movie is the dead. And Sean, you're talking about the practical effects, the makeup, the gore. Oh, all of it is so fucking good, and it's gooey, it's slimy, it's rib-like. And you consider what deades mean to this franchise and just how they continue to escalate in every fucking movie. I look back to the original Evil Dead and just like okay. But it really has become something that I think is such a great calling card and a hallmark for this franchise. And I may have been a disbeliever in Jason being a deade in the past when you think about how the Evil Dead connects to Jason, and we saw that in Jason Goes to Hell. I was a disbeliever in the past, but now I'm like, yeah, fuck it. I wouldn't mind if Jason was a deadite.

Sean 13:14

And you never know, we could get that crossover somehow. We've seen crazier things. We've seen crazier things.

Kris 13:20

We got it in Jason Goes to Hell. And we've got it in comics.

Sean 13:24

Yeah, we I guess so. I guess so. That's true. But yeah, I think the Dead Eyes in this were pretty good. There was, I think it also comes down to that the how well I think the movie balanced the feel of the whole franchise itself, bringing it together. So you had Evil Dead Rise did this too, but this movie genuinely had this feel of it had a little bit of the old and a little bit of the new, the old and the modern fusing together, and you had the feel. Like it was you could tell it was modern setting, it was a new look, new they were adding more to the lore and the story in this one, but they still had these subtle things, and the deade's really shone through in a lot of those, specifically one deade that's going to be talked about that just felt really good. It just brought me back to the old Evil Deads, and then there was a lot of little we'll talk about this too, but there was just a lot of little nods and little things that they threw at you throughout the movie. You could call it fan service, but to me it was sprinkled in really well to be just really good nods to the whole franchise, even dating back to the original Evil Deads for me. I thought it was really well done.

Kris 14:30

Deshaun, he's just serviced.

Sean 14:32

No, I liked it. I liked it. Also, you have to say that from a surprise element, the ending is a surprise. And if you have if you're listening to this right now, you haven't seen the movie, then the only thing I'll say is you have to stay till the bitter end. You have to stay until the last credits rolled because there is a mid and a post-credit scene, and you just gotta see it. You have to. They're both great.

Binx 14:55

Absolutely great. I was very stunned. I was very much like, wait a minute, what the f so worth it? Worth price of admission at the very least. But I have to ask, that being said, I and this is maybe more so a question for you guys, because I know that I've definitely made my comments about this franchise for sure. I feel like mega fans, like OG fans like yourself, Sean, especially, like, I don't know how they're gonna feel about this movie. I don't it gives to me like this is not something that the real ride or die Army of Darkness is number one type fans would be about. Whereas the newer fans of Evil Dead 2013 on, right? Like, I think that maybe this is going to be their gem because they're coming into Evil Dead thinking that Evil Dead is gore. Whereas the OG fans are looking at Evil Dead like this is the balance between camp and comedy and horror, like the perfect in between.

Sean 15:58

It's uh yeah, it's a tough one for sure. I agree with you. I think that if you're just coming into the Evil Dead franchise with the newer films, you'll probably still really enjoy this one. You're right, there will be a divide, and I think the divide lies between, like you said, the diehard fans of the original trilogy. I think some might enjoy the new movies. I like the new movies. I am a diehard fan, I consider myself a diehard fan of the original trilogy. I would still put the at least I would still put at least Evil Dead and Evil Dead above every other Evil Dead that's been out. Like I'd still put them up there because I love those movies, but I still like the takes on the new ones. I still really respect what the 2013 one did and what it brought to the table. I still had it in a great time with Evil Dead Rise. And watching this one, there's a lot that I really like in this one too. There's just a distinct tonal shift with these new modern Evil Dead films, and I can see the Die Hard fans saying maybe they it lacks some of the heart and the fun energy of the original films. And I know that there are some out there that probably won't enjoy it as much, but yeah, there'll be a divide for sure. I think there's still room to enjoy. There's still enough to take from it, I think, that you could like. But if you're just if you're just looking for that original vibe, these new ones don't necessarily always have that, so you might be disappointed.

Kris 17:21

Okay, I'm gonna give a comparison here, and it's not gonna be a perfect one, but for me, and the way that I view this franchise, I feel as though the original Evil Dead films have big bro energy. The more modern even Evil Dead films have a more mature energy. And I'm not saying that the original ones are immature, but there is that comedic tone. It feels like you're having fun with the mayhem versus this is just a bummer of a fucking time, and sometimes you laugh at it too, and it's kind of weird and it's kind of why, but you're not there for the chuckles, you're there for a little ha ha ha, oh my god, this is so deeply uncomfortable. And when I consider who would enjoy this and the houses of Evil Dead and the factions of it, have we all seen The Mandalorian?

SPEAKER_02 18:10

Yeah, yeah.

Kris 18:11

Okay. For the listener, if you haven't seen The Mandalorian, I'm not gonna speak in a lot of jargon here, but uh the Mandalore of Mandalore, Mandalore is a planet, it's also uh like a way of being there are the segment of Mandalore who follow the ways of Mandalore, and they're like almost extremists and cultists, and they are very devout, like almost like a religious group, and then there's another group that are just kind of chill people by comparison, super chill. But they are the ones who will take off their helmet and just live their lives. That's how I imagined Evil Dead. It's like the hardcore fans of the original who are like, fuck this new shit, and then there are the casual fans who are like, yeah, I think this is kind of fun. And that's where I think I'm not in either of those camps. I am squarely in that I only really like the new shit. But I think if you are someone who, like a lot of folks now, love a bummer of a time, you're gonna have a great time with this. It's fucking weird, it's a lot. But if you're looking for the classic Zany Ash Williams, I will say that I think even though you get comedy in this one, you don't get as much comedy as you got in Evil Dead Rise. It's not as relatable as Evil Dead Rise. And there are a lot of movies, there are a lot of aspects of this movie that I think are relatable. And there's a central story that I think will resonate with a lot of people. But it's just not as funny, and it is way more intense. But we're gonna talk a lot about this movie in the spoiler zone without any regard, without any barriers to the depths we can go. But before we can do that,

The Gore Score

Kris 19:51

we have to get to that gore score.

Sean 19:53

Yeah, Evil Dead Burn is one of the probably the most graphic entries in the franchise to date. It doesn't just rely on gallons of blood, it mixes the body horror, the burns, the dismemberment, the crushed bones, mutilation, and prolonged just physical suffering into really this almost nonstop relentless assault. And it feels closer to the intensity, I would say, of Evil Dead 2013 than the more darkly comedic undertones of the original trilogy, and even more so, I would say it amplified even more so above Evil Dead Rise. The gore isn't thrown in for quick shock value, it's really filmed in a way that makes every broken bone, every burn, every flesh wound really linger. And there's a lot of just cringy moments when you're watching some of the gore take place in this movie. If Evil Dead Rise some did make you squirm, then I will say Evil Dead Burn will turn that discomfort up another notch for you because this one is definitely getting a severe gore

The Animal Report

Sean 20:55

score.

Kris 20:56

But what about the womp womp of it all?

Binx 20:58

Oh, the womp womp indeed, folks, because boy oh boy, this animal report is bad. Real bad.

Sean 21:08

It might be the worst. Is it the worst?

Binx 21:10

It might be the worst. Yeah, I was gonna say, at least for the year, you will definitely remember this episode and me telling you that you need to brace yourself immensely. And I mean that with my whole chest. So prepare yourself.

Kris 21:26

I will say that is the part that I could not watch. I sensed it coming. Sean had told me, because he saw it before me, that it was it would there was a point in this movie that feels utterly unnecessary. And the closer we got, and the more I was like, oh fuck no. I text him, broke the theater rule, could not fucking bear it.

Binx 21:48

How dare both of you not warn me? A B, I want it to be known. Here's the thing with the animal report. The second that I see an animal, especially a pet, I'm like, oh, we might be fucked. Chances are are not even 50-50 anymore. They're like almost 70-30. Okay. So I already was bracing for impact. But then a certain thing starts to happen and I'm like, oh, you've you've got to be kidding me right now. It was not well. It was all downhill from there actually. So it's not a good

Scoring

Binx 22:17

time, folks.

Kris 22:17

Well, it's time to see how that downhill momentum carried us towards our ratings. Evil Dead Burn from 2026. Was it a hack?

Binx 22:26

Or slash I gotta say, I think overall I thought that Evil Dead Burn was impassable. I think that there's plenty here that kept it moving. It's not necessarily a m a movie that I feel like extremely passionate about, unfortunately, like I do Rise or even the original and I even Evil Dead 2, my opinion has changed on that drastically actually. So there's other films in the franchise that I have grown to love even more with time, especially after revisiting. That's not exactly how I'm coming out of this watch feeling the gore definitely delivers sometimes almost show-offy though, to a degree that feels so evident that the studio felt pressured to one up Lee Cronin in a way. And that's not always a bad thing because I think it definitely was effective and the practical effects make that so but it definitely feels like it forgot the rest of the components of storytelling. The family that we see here doesn't feel very like real to me. It doesn't feel very sticky, doesn't feel like I'm impacted by any of their deaths by any means. The main character is really successful for you to root for because of certain circumstances. And I think the actress is actually really good. But I think that I feel passionately about her because the rest of the movie and the rest of the family themselves is so bad. So it kind of helps in that way. There's definitely flashes of what could have been. I mentioned Resident Evil 7 because it's very similar we've got that family we've got disaster and it's very good at establishing that or at least reminding me of it. And aesthetically it does that too but there still feels like there's a lot left on the table personally. And I almost wonder like what it could have looked like if Lee Cronin came back and if we really just stuck to one director again like we've have with Sam Raimi just to have that cohesion like you were mentioning Sean. So unfortunately for me, I've got to say that this one's a hack. It's not one that I maybe will stick to though as I've mentioned I felt differently about the others with time. So who knows? But for right now, it doesn't feel like something I would really like be honest about if I were to give it a slash so a hack it is.

Sean 24:44

It's fair. It's fair. I think Evil Dead Burn feels there's a lot of ups and downs with this one. I think more ups than downs though I think evil dead burn feels like an absolute adrenaline rush. It definitely just kicks things off from the very few first moments of the film and it just carries that all the way to the very end of the credits and from the yeah from the cold open to the closing it just barely gives you a chance to breathe I would say there's just a lot that's happening. If you're here for an Evil Dead film with just a lot of gore and stuff like that, this is gonna be something that I think still passes, you know I think the intensity it doesn't let up the gore is some of the most brutal in the franchise probably the most brutal the franchise has ever delivered so far and more importantly it isn't just excessive for the sake of being excessive it isn't just a bloody movie. It's a movie that really wants you to feel the injuries that are happening and I think that's what makes them really effective. And it's also the practical effects because the practical effects are amazing in this film. It's one of the film's biggest strengths and the reason why those gruesome moments and kills land as hard as they do. Obviously the movie we've already kind of mentioned it where the movie lost me a little bit was with its characters and with the story I never really connected with really anyone in this movie and I think because of that the emotional stakes never really hit the way I think they were intended to at least for me I was really invested in surviving the carnage more than I was invested in who actually survived it, if that makes sense. Evil Dead Burn, I think it's still despite the story that I couldn't really get behind, despite the characters that I couldn't really buy into, I think it still deserves a lot of credit for a couple of things. Evil Dead Burn finds a balance between the frantic chaotic and fun spirit of the classic Evil Dead films and also the darker more brutal tone of the modern entry and it also actually does the best job yet of connecting the franchise's mythology giving longtime fans plenty of Easter eggs, callbacks and really in my opinion clever nods that make the series feel more unified than it ever has before and I think despite its weaker characters the relentless pacing the incredible practical effects and the love for the franchise still makes this an easy slash for me despite its weaker elements.

Kris 27:08

This franchise is such a weird experience because I really fucking loved Evil Dead Rise. I think I like really fell in love with this franchise with Evil Dead Rise. And I find myself now in a place of peaceful acceptance and just okay yeah this is fun. This movie I want I want to be clear this movie is not fun. What a weird way to describe it this thing is vicious but I do still think that there are moments where the director remembers yes evil dead is supposed to be fun. But I think instead of just pure slapstick comedy we get that in really goofy little moments and the comedy is used as punctuation versus a whole treatment the practical effects as you mentioned Sean are just phenomenal. The Deadites are are wild in this and our central hero Alice continues the franchise giving us a fantastic female protagonist and I really want to linger in that because for me Bing she wasn't good by comparison. She was just solid and I appreciated and I empathize with her I sympathized for her and I wanted to see her win. Up to you to go see the movie and see if in fact she does this might be one of those circumstances which is how could you possibly win even if you survive Ash Williams is irreplaceable. We know that I love that these newer movies aren't trying to recreate him. They're just building their own heroes instead and while this family drama isn't perfect and while oh my gosh one of these guys can be utterly infuriating and frustrating none of that manages to outweigh how absolutely brutal and simultaneously entertaining this one is soan it was easy for you it's also an easy slash for me. But we have so much more to unpack when we return from a brief break so we can dive into that spoiler zone together.

A Word From Our Sponsor

SPEAKER_00 29:11

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Welcome to the Spoiler Zone

SPEAKER_00 30:54

welcome folks you're now entering the spoiler zone for Evil Dead Burn from 2026 which has earned one hack and two slashes.

Kris 31:02

Now we have so much to unpack here but we have to start with the utter macog and brutality that was

The Slay by Slay

Kris 31:10

the Slay by Slay.

Sean 31:12

Yeah it's literally one of the biggest strengths of this movie the kills aren't just gory they're creative they're brutal they're relentlessly escalating they feel like they're designed to make the audience wince rather than simply spray blood across the screen and every single kill feels or maybe almost every single kill feels distinct and avoids that kind of repetitive stab and done formula and they're exactly what you'd want from an Evil Dead movie at this point. The track record that we have these are the kills that you're probably looking for that you would expect in this franchise by this point. And there's 16 total kills in this movie. There's a lot of death happening in this movie and with like every evil dead movie you know we do have some double taps you can call it right because we've got the people that turn into dead so they die and then they maybe die as Deade as well. But the film kicks off right away with Jared getting hooked on the line and dragged into the lake then what seems to be like boiled and burned alive by the Deadite in the lake just boiling the water which was interesting. What a way to kick off the film.

Kris 32:28

Evil Dead Boils yeah they really brought the burn to life in this one didn't they evil boils tonight we didn't get any freezer burn though you know oh you know the animal report really was way more than just the dog oh yeah the fish tons of fish his death was absolutely brutal and to not just think about the hooks all over his face but also to be essentially like almost strangled by that fishing line. I mean granted he then gets bisected what the fuck there is so much going on with this guy.

Sean 33:05

I thought he was gonna get like decapitated with that fishing line just going straight through I'm surprised he didn't to be honest with you.

Binx 33:11

That's where I thought that was going as well.

Sean 33:13

Yeah. And it didn't stop his buddy Leo also got boiled in the lake like some kind of like crawfish or something and slowly died in there. It was a crawfish boil. That's what it was so fucked.

Kris 33:25

Okay so this guy getting boiled the burns on his hand when the Deadeye steps on his hand oh and it's yeah it slides off. It falls off the rib.

Sean 33:38

Yeah it falls right off the rib for sure. I mean I guess that's not even the whole cold open to be honest with you but that's how we start the movie. And it doesn't let up from there. We definitely jump into kind of like going into our main characters here and we get into that story and we get Will who I'm sure we're gonna unpack this character a little bit we're gonna unpack the dynamic of his relationship with Alice and all that stuff but crashing his car because he was drunk in a a drunken rage going probably 90 to 100 miles an hour down a wet road in the mountains or some shit and nothing good happens from that. We've seen all kinds of horror movies like this and he runs right into the Deade literally runs right into the Deade girl from the lake and crashes and there's a whole thing that ensues and he ends up also getting burned alive but not from boiling water from actual fire this time real convenient real convenient that this Dead Eye gets absolutely annihilated by the grandson of the guy who's doing the research and has the dagger coincidence?

Kris 34:47

I think not Will's a son of a bitch well you know literally and figuratively it's interesting because as you look at his character and you see the way this whole movie is set up you only see certain perspective until you get the full truth revealed later.

Binx 35:05

Yeah listen even if Will wasn't who he was getting pissed at your wife after having been drinking and denying your brother the opportunity to drive you home he had a coming yeah for sure definitely I didn't even need the other context to be like oh that guy is definitely the guy that kind of guy and that means he's the worst and goodbye farewell.

Sean 35:28

We got hints as to who he was and what kind of person he was like they definitely showed us the extent of it a lot later in the movie but like they gave us the hints of the kind of person he was and so definitely deserved to die. The headless laugh of the Deade girl though from the wreck was also wild and very witch like it actually was one of the things that reminded me of the Deade's of old was that moment right there. I thought it was pretty cool. And that right there those three kills that is the cold open that's when we get to the title we get all of that happening in the first what five minutes of the film five ten minutes of the film that's a lot that's going down.

Kris 36:10

Once again it's like the Friday the 13th 2009 it's a whole Friday the 13th movie before you even start the Friday the 13th movie. Fucking love it.

Sean 36:19

I'm here for it. I'm here for it. I thought another death we got that I I think we could have gotten more from was the cremation dude. I don't even think he has a name as I couldn't find one but the cremation dude that was like literally at the morgue or at the funeral home that was burning the bodies there was just he was jiving man. He was having a great time he put his headphones in he was getting down and he was doing his thing and then he gets interrupted and then all this stuff ensues right and with with Edgar and all that trying to see his son one last time but presumably gets ripped to shreds we just didn't really get to I think we should have seen a little bit more of that. Or it would have been actually funny if somehow he got put into the crematorium or whatever we're calling it and then getting burned alive there would have been an interesting way to go as well. I don't know just putting thoughts out there.

Kris 37:07

Could have stood to have more burning or burn.

Sean 37:10

If you're gonna title the film burn let's get more burn again I'm gonna I'm gonna sprinkle this in everywhere we miss the freezer burn. I'm telling you you can't just have fire you gotta try to you got to do the other kind of burn as well.

Kris 37:20

And having a morgue was a great opportunity to do a freezer burn somewhere.

Sean 37:25

Maybe like a rug burn too there's a lot of burns we could have gotten away with in this movie I feel like guys the movie's called Evil Dead Burn, not burns.

Binx 37:33

So there was only one burn. It's a shame.

Sean 37:36

You know and then of course all of this that happens during this scene we know that this is the moment where Edgar slowly starts becoming and transforming into a deadite so we know he gets basically you know infected in whichever way that this happens. And then we get to the dinner scene which is nobody's favorite scene and I had to include Max the dog into the six I had to because with a death that significant it has to be at least honored in the sleigh by sleigh. As much as we don't want to revisit it it was one of the most brutal kills with Edgar like stabbing brutally stabbing the dog to death with a fork in the face no the whimpering it this movie was so fucked.

Kris 38:22

As you hear him rambling and ranting and you hear Max's whimpers and just like the begging and then the reaction first off the reaction that he even gives to Max like get him to get away or to leave him alone reminiscent of the conversation we had in Good Boy. The more I saw him grab this thing and the angrier he got I was like Max needs to get the fuck out of here but I will say this because I was such a chicken shit and could not look at that screen I'm really in a soft spot for dogs. I had the pleasure well the misfortune of still being able to hear the whimpers and still knowing what happened but when Deadite Max comes back and looks pretty normal from you know I was trying not to look too closely I was like okay yeah we're good we're good.

Sean 39:12

I was trying to look at that too and I honestly did not see any injury on the face it wasn't very a lot of like lingering close ups but like I pretty sure he got stabbed in the eye a few times in that process and his both his eyes were glowing and good to go as a dead eye so I don't need to be looking that close it's fine I saw his silhouette and I'm like all right cool my boy's good I don't know unspoken rule or something we just don't just for the record we don't want to see dogs die really that's not really what we come to horror movies to watch but Tia actually probably has one of the most brutal initial deaths in the whole film. The all the shit that happened to Tia in this whole thing she was stabbed like repeatedly with these like little scissors she was beaten with various objects her fingers were fucking cut off in the door of the car. She was then beaten with the car seat headrest and then stabbed in the face with the prongs of that headrest there were there was so much happening and I was like how how why what's happen oh my gosh so much.

Binx 40:20

Here's the thing though unfortunately because I just have to stop watching these damn trailers and just close my fucking eyes every now and then she is the main star of all this marketing of the movie. Yeah so you knew Eddie if you were a victim to this you already knew the headrust thing those missing fingers were the star of the show like every chance that cinematographer had he was focusing in on those damn little stubs so you knew also that she was gonna be the one I you know what I'm saying like her kill was crazy but I already knew the kill because I had seen it so many times.

Kris 40:59

Having seen the kill didn't ruin the kill for me at all. It was more so that I wondered how the fuck are we even gonna get there? And because I knew where it was heading to see whoethe is all the way up into that and then to really start to care about her because I actually really liked her. Of course unfortunately she you know she's not with us very long but it made the kill even more gutting especially because Joseph's bitch ass just abandoned her sir you had so many fucking opportunities to save your girlfriend.

Sean 41:36

I couldn't believe it okay I could see that he had I can see it okay I can see the initial hesitation of not wanting to shoot your father in the face with a gun because you're still like there's still that kind of debate on whether what what is happening right now why is this happening do I really want to kill him can I stop this whatever I got that for a second but then as soon as I realized that this guy was literally crawling outside of the car and was looking down through the sunroof the moonroof whatever the fuck we're calling it and just watching it happen I was like oh man buddy what are you doing guy here's the thing I would say unfortunately the actor that plays Joseph is also funny enough on my water bottle he's the villain in Wednesday and the moment that I saw him I was like oh I wonder if he's gonna be a little bitch like he is in Wednesday.

Binx 42:27

He's a villain but he is a little bitch there. And then it happened and I'm like no they're doing the same thing that they do to Jack Quaid which is they're gonna typecast him in these same little oh he's a little bitch type roles now the difference here that I thought was pretty interesting was I want I was rooting for Deadeye Theo at the very least like I can't even believe that she went down by his hand because fuck that guy I would have preferred anybody else be the one that takes her down but he doesn't deserve that he did not like okay for him to just completely abandon her and actually cause her death and then be the one to take her out as a deade absolutely not take out Edgar and then let The get her license I know it is she did get her licks back.

Kris 43:16

She did get her license she got a lot back to be clear she was doing all kinds of things with her mouth but the reality is she deserved better as a Deadeye. This is the first time listen okay Maggot mommy in our last movie Evil Dead Rise she's a badass and oh my god she was horrendous but I was rooting for Thea I really wanted her to come through and destroy Joseph Yeah we definitely wanted more of her for sure she just ended up getting the shit end of the stick in both kills.

Sean 43:50

Her kill initially was very brutal and then her kill that it hurt Joe like smashing a piece of what looked like the I don't even know what it was like Like the track of the dishwasher that they were fighting over initially, it was just something was he was just beating her face into a bloody pulp, and it was like intense. We actually got some really good shots of that happening. Literally, there wasn't a face left. There wasn't a head left, really.

Kris 44:17

It was the Dr. Sartain special, and the fact that his face then gets smushed into that to like start kissing it later.

Sean 44:24

Oh my gosh. Wild. Sticking up kiss. Yeah, and then we and then we get like the weird, like we're just making out with each other and turning people into deadites through, you know, mouth to mouth, whatever is sharing saliva, blood, whatever it is. I don't know. But Susan now becomes a deadite or slowly, and it's weird because there's moments where there's like either they are or they aren't. After that kiss, it looked like she was, and then there was like a moment where she was seeming semi-normal, and then she turned back into it. I'm like, where what's the dynamic of this? Like going in and out of it, you know what I mean?

Kris 44:59

Yeah. We though also have the saliva transferring through her dentures, and then Susan fucking like has this heartbreaking moment of, oh, I I missed you. Like Polly has what I'm presuming to be dementia. And in Susan's mind, she's already kind of lost her. But to be confronted with okay, Susan is such a complex woman already, and we don't like her, but she's dealt with some tough shit. She's been dealt a really tough hand in terms of like being the rock and the person who's kind of taking care of everybody for everything, and then also losing your son. It's a whole weird dynamic. But then to see that heartbreaking moment with how she is with Polly with her mom. To go from that and then to also be making out with Edgar, it's just it's a lot, and it's fucking gross, and it's preying upon her emotions and her insecurities and her fears, and just yeah, oh man, that shit was tough.

Sean 45:56

It yeah, I could see it. I still didn't emotionally connect in those moments. I think it was because I was too maybe captivated by you know, like the now the deadite grandmother of it all. But I just think I was like focused on this is like the old evil dead. Like this is the deadite out of all of them that feels like I'm watching the original twil trilogy a little bit. And so I was focused on that instead of the mother dynamic and like how they were preying on her stuff.

Kris 46:22

Yeah, this is just me and my own fucking experiences and and sensibilities just pouring out into the fucking movie. That's it. I'm just projecting.

Sean 46:30

But I totally get it, I totally get it. Talking about it now, I totally understand like how the movie is playing on the emotions and like there's a lot of family grief and trauma and everything. There is a lot here. I just don't know what it was, it just didn't click with me. I'm not sure. Maybe I was just too caught up in the gore of everything. Maybe that's just what it was. But yeah, we get that. We get Joe finally getting what he deserved. He gets beaten to all hell, like, literally gets beaten to all hell. This could have been like a boiler room brawl in WWE. This literally could have been just like a uh a no-holds barred, like we're just going at it. This guy got thrown into everything. He got thrown into walls, down the stairs, his head was smashed. He got everything you could think of. He just got beaten to all hell, and then eventually also turned into a deadite. And so he got that beating, which is good, and then he finally gets stabbed by Alice with, I don't know, like a bunch of daggers until we find the right Kendarian dagger, which is interesting because there was like a little nod to the original films in that too, because with the first dagger she pulls up looks like the dagger that we got in the original film. So everyone probably, at least if you really were heavily invested in the original trilogy, when that dagger happened, you're like, Oh, there's the Kandarian dagger, and then it nothing happens. And then she picks up the finally gets the other one, and then that works. And I was like, Oh, that's weird.

Kris 47:55

The small little stubby one that looks like a shiv.

Sean 47:57

Yeah, that goes, okay, that that was weird, but okay. I'm with it. That's fine. That's fine.

Kris 48:03

Although, speaking of the stabbing, can we just hearken back just a tiny bit? How fucking crazy it is to me that she gets stabbed with a fountain pen in her ear after I have just in my life began collecting fountain pens. I have been writing with fountain pens non-stop for the last six months. And here I am seeing that little fucking nib go into her ear, and then her having to tweeze it out. I haven't been able to look at them since watching this movie.

Sean 48:37

Any of like oh well, pens aside, like any the that kind of injury, those are the cringy moments. It's the things that you can almost feel happening when you're slowly like putting like a knife, a pen, whatever the hell into somebody's ear, and you know that feeling can't be good as it penetrates your eardrum and things like that. Oh, absolutely brutal. It's the same as if we were slowly watching the beginning with all the fish hooks in his face. Like that stuff makes you feel a little bit. It was just a lot, it's a lot for sure. But okay, so Joe dies, then Deade Susan dies in the chimney with the dagger, and then Deade Eggger dies finally with his fucking face sawed in half by Alice at the maybe also burned with the dagger and the house fire all together. There was a lot happening. There was a lot happening in that scene. But the whatever that saw thing was, I don't even know what kind of tool that was. Is that like the cut tile? Was it like what it was like it looked like a weed whacker with a saw on the end of it? Is it edging the grass? I'm not really sure what it was, but that motherfucker got sawed his face off in it. It was awesome. It was cool. It like reminds you of the chainsaw, even though we got a chainsaw moment, you know what I mean?

Binx 49:45

Yeah. Yeah. That I thought was pretty clever. That I was like, okay, it's a little the same but different.

Sean 49:51

Yeah.

Binx 49:52

Just very like different because I'm like, damn, that what is that thing? And then I realized, yeah, I guess it is maybe for the weeds, which is kind of funny.

Sean 49:59

So you have all that happening. Deadite will makes a return, or maybe I like to call him Charred Will, because he's just like, I don't know, he's just a crispy guy.

Binx 50:08

And he's just one of the-he's basically Vecna.

Sean 50:11

Yeah, he's Vecna.

Binx 50:13

Identical.

Sean 50:13

Identical. Pretty much, pretty much. He's the Vecna of Evil Dead. He gets fucking literally jackhammered in the oil pit or the tar pit or whatever they were. And it I did the call back with the chainsaw that we got, but we didn't use it, so okay, that's cool. And got ended up getting shanked with the Candarian dagger. But the jackhammering it of all was pretty good. That was a good spot. And then so we got all these kills in the movie, and then we get a little treat. We get the treats in the mid-credit scene. We get this random girl that's stopping as Deade Polly, Deade Grandma Polly is crawling all over the road, and they stop to help her out, and she tricks her until she presumably probably turns the girl into a deade because it looks like she just slashed her leg and so maybe got infected or something. Who knows what happened, but presumably died and became a deadite. Maybe they're growing an army. Who knows? That's probably what's happening, right?

Kris 51:10

Yeah, no, that has to be what's happening. I wanna oh man, okay. We moved on from Will pretty quickly, but I just had to I have to tell you what happened in my brain when I saw him. It was to quote the good lord Busta in Halloween Resurrection. Looking a little crispy over there, Mikey. Like some chicken fried motherfucker. Well, may he never ever rest in peace. That's exactly what I fucking thought about, Will.

Sean 51:37

Extra crispy.

Binx 51:38

Meanwhile, I was thinking of scary movie too when Brenda's telling Cindy, this is skeleton, this is bones. Would you kill Calissa Fock Flockhart? Is basically what it was giving.

Kris 51:48

Nothing. Basically, the mummy is also basically Bubbahotep.

Binx 51:53

I'm oh no, God. We're going back there, but you're absolutely right.

Sean 51:57

Bubba Hotep. Man, throwback. Yeah, and so that was a little treat that we got with Dead Eye Grandma Polly killing the random girl. And then we get through the rest of the credits and we get yet another scene. And we've got this little girl from the funeral home that meets none other than the return of Dead Eight Ellie.

Binx 52:20

Listen, I felt like that meme where that guy is with his hands next to his head and he's just like spinning because I was so confused. I was so, what the fuck's going on? First of all, the first name that we see, I was like, am I supposed to know that name? I'm not too sure. Then I saw her name and I was like, oh. And then when she shows up, I'm thinking, wait a minute, was that little girl supposed to be the little girl from Rise? I can't quite remember if she made it out alive. She didn't because she became this monster thing, didn't she? I don't know. I at that point I was like, man, maybe my brain fog's gotten real bad. But I was just trying to rationalize in my head how Dead Eight Ellie could even be back.

Spoiler Zone

Kris 53:04

Listen, here's what I would offer. This is a world with a lot of bullshit in it. This is a world where a dead girl is boiling and bisecting men in a lake. This is a world where a guy who's the grandson of a guy who's into this weird shit happens to get drunk and get mad at his wife and drive and hit a deade in the road. Nothing really fucking matters. Let's just sit back, turn the logic off, and just fucking have fun with it. You know what? I don't give a shit that it doesn't make sense about Ellie to come back because I'm happy she's back.

Sean 53:42

Yeah, it doesn't matter because mommy's back, but it was a nice surprise. It was also brutal, right? The little girl gets her neck snapped, and that's the final kill, so we're ending on a high note, or just really just boom, that's the the last seconds of the movie. We're getting the child death, which is you know, it's on pace for this franchise at this point. Pretty wild. The only thing I will say, which will kind of lead me into what I loved about this movie, which is gonna feel weird, but this was like one of the moments when we saw Deade Ellie that there were I felt like there was too much CGI in play. There was something off about the way she looked in just a couple ways. I couldn't tell if that was all practical effects and makeup, and if there was also some CGI in play. It just something about that scene just looked a little bit off. Maybe I was just tired and I was ready to get out of there and I waited for the end and finally got it and whatever. I don't know, but something looked off a little bit. Which seems weird as I kind of transition into what I loved about the movie, which was the practical effects, because I thought everything in this movie really looked really great, which I don't know why that moment stood out to me so much. But it's 100% the practical effects as they continued the franchise tradition, which I love, I absolutely love, relying heavily on the practical effects first, and only really used, like I said earlier, the CGI to really enhance shots that couldn't be achieved safely or convincingly on camera. They used it to remove wires and rigs and things like that, and maybe enhance a little bit of the blood and things like that, but everything else was makeup, prosthetics, and really great practical effects. The filmmakers were really vocal that they wanted the movie to feel physical, they wanted to feel messy and tangible, much like Evil Dead 2013 and Evil Dead Rise. That was the goal. I think they definitely accomplished that from a gore perspective, and then some. We just got some really great prosthetic makeup for the Deadites in this movie. We got all the blood rigs and the squibs, the full body prosthetics, the animatronic effects, the mechanical effects, the breakaway pops, all that stuff was here. They did a lot of really great stuff. The makeup by the special effects scene. I can't praise it enough for what they did. I think one of the biggest practical choices was also the fire in this movie because it just really brought a lot to the film. And Vanachek insisted on using real flames instead of CGI whenever possible. Really, his goal was to create this natural lighting, the imperfections that the fire brings, the light, the smoke, the performances that the actors brought that digital fire just can't replicate. We know when we see bad digital fire, it doesn't look good. And so the use of real fire was really great. Yeah, I just really loved everything that they did with the effects in this movie.

Kris 56:27

Yeah, there's a lot fucking happening in there. The fire is actually something that I was gonna point out because maybe it's just a sucker in me thinking about uh Halloween kills. I realize I love horror movies with a shit ton of fire now. I think I'm just like entering a new phase in my horror palette. Fire. Sean, you've said so much about just like the quality of the effects in this movie. There's so much to really appreciate here. I absolutely I agree with you. But I I want to at least shout out the sound design because damn, I don't like hearing this movie. I don't like Max's whimpers, I don't like the sound of squelching flesh, I don't like the sound of the dentures exiting in the mouth, getting licked and then putting getting put back in the mouth. There's a lot in this movie that is actually just like an auditory experience. Even when Alice is crawling on her belly, really, and Joseph is just being absolutely decimated and tossed around. And to hear how there's just pure chaos around her, but she's still so grounded in reliving these memories and this trauma, the sound I think actually fucking elevates this movie a lot.

Binx 57:41

And I think that watching this movie in Dolby or IMAX would be absolutely brutal but essential because of it. Because even from what I really enjoyed and was surprised by, I mentioned this a little bit earlier, was the set design. I think everything about the environment in this movie is really good. The from what we've talked about, the sound, the look, the environment, like the place itself, that house already starts off by looking a little bit unkept. But for some reason, and this could not really even be the case, but as each family member gets impacted and becomes a deade and it just keeps going one after the other, it almost feels like the house itself is rotting. It looks almost dirtier, it looks grimier, everything about it. And that really could not be the case, but I I think it just created this like large space and then what felt very suffocating situation. And everyone like was just wreaking havoc, things were fucking breaking everywhere, obviously. Joseph was just being tossed around like a little toy, and it was just chaos. The bathroom scene with the blood everywhere from oh, from Susan, it was just great, but it all felt suffocating, even though when we see the house at the beginning, it looks massive. I'm thinking, okay, well, we've got a whole family, sure. So we could be seeing all kinds of rooms and things like that. And we do in in some ways, but we really don't. It feels very contained and disgusting and grimy because of it.

Kris 59:16

This m this house is so gross.

Sean 59:18

It's nasty. I don't know how they're living in there. It's wild, but staying in there, I guess.

Kris 59:23

Yeah, there's a lot to really sink your teeth into, and uh a lot of it's gross in this movie. And just to zoom out for a little bit of perspective here, because there's so much that happens. We've already talked about the opening scene with the lake. We've talked about that decapitated head and the fishing wire, we talked about the dinner scene, we talked about Dead Eye Max coming back, we talked about Joseph being a bitch and abandoning Gia. But oh we also fucking talked about Susan making out with Dedger. I want to give a shout out for a couple moments. Uh one happens earlier in the film when Polly is still Polly and Grandma's just still grandma, and then again later when Alice does it, and that is buckling her into the stair lift because Polly is, I think, 99% of the comedy that works in this movie for me.

Sean 1:00:14

A hundred percent.

Kris 1:00:16

She reminds me of how sassy my grandmother was, and absolutely just like fiery. And my grandma did not accuse anybody of stealing from her, but the fact that Polly gets sent up the stairs, and then this is when Tia comes back in the house, and then she's like, I told you she'd come back. It was just fucking hilarious. But for her to then be a deade and for Alice to buckle her in and then she just gets dragged down the stairs, fucking iconic. Like that was a comedy that really just made all the mean shit worth it.

Binx 1:00:49

Reaching out and everything was at the peak. Absolutely hilarious. Now I will say everything was moving so fast when she was already in the attic that I didn't realize that Polly wasn't the one that got got. I almost forgot that she was still there in the house. You know what I mean? Like we don't really know what ends up happening to her. So I appreciated that end credit because that was really funny. But the whole bit with that stair lift was prime stuff. That was definitely like the comedy and very effective for sure.

Sean 1:01:21

Yeah, she was my favorite Deadeye. The moment that she stood up in the bed with the sheet over her, all of that was really great. And as I said before, and I'll tie it back to this staircase too, but as I said before, one of the coolest things about Evil Dead Burn is that it does more to connect the franchise than any other film, probably since Army of Darkness. I think rather than just throwing in only visual nods, it really expands the mythology in ways that kind of seem to set up future movies, even and things like that. And there's a lot of really cool moments in this film. The Cold Open we talked about, the opening scene at the lake we talked about, and we already briefly mentioned it, but that is the film opens by resolving the fate of that lakeside Dead Eight from the opening of Evil Dead Rise, and it's like the first time that one standalone Evil Dead film directly continues the other, like making Burn actually feel like a sequel to Rise rather than sharing the same universe. So that actually felt really cool to watch. I thought it was really a good way to open the film. Professor Nobi is finally tied into the modern timeline. That was something that I felt like was lost for a while. So now Will and Joseph's grandfather is has revealed to be to have known Professor Raymond Nobi, who is the archaeologist, if you remember, whose recordings unleashed the Deadites in the original film. So now we have this kind of connection to the story. I mean, I think this is probably one of the strongest links between the Raimi trilogy and the newer movies. So I thought that was really clever. And then you've got all of the references to the 2013 Necronomicon, which is really cool. The sketches of the 2013 Necronomicon that we saw in the grandfather's journal, the copied pages from the Book of the Dead, the newspaper clippings from the Dead Eight events. It it just subtly confirms the events of 2013 happening in the broader universe. Obviously, we have the Kendarian dagger situation. We got the little Philly fake out with the dagger, too, which is fine. We talked about that. The biggest lore addition, though, is this Circle of the Wise Men. This is probably the biggest addition to the lore. The film introduces this Circle of the Wise Men, some ancient group dedicated to fighting the Deadites. So this is gonna expand on that, I would assume in the coming films. So we'll see. But interesting, right?

Binx 1:03:50

Absolutely. That was one of my questions for you because I haven't seen the show. So I thought maybe is this something that's brought up there or the comics, maybe. I was very confused by this, but I honestly also forgot about the dagger too. I'll be real. I have no shame in admitting that. So I thought maybe, man, was this something that was introduced when the dagger was introduced earlier? I just thought that it was something that maybe flew over my head and I completely forgot, but I found it to be strange, like an Avengers type shit.

Sean 1:04:17

You know, when you think of like the circle of the wise men, I think longtime fans probably can try to connect this to the wise man from Army of Darkness. Like you can try to make some connection there. Maybe there's a there's a link there somehow. There was a mysterious group scene in the opening of Evil Dead 2013, so we never really got an explanation there, I don't think, either. So that could be part of the connection that they're trying to make. It's never explicitly confirmed that they're the same organization, but the implication is there, I guess. So I don't know. We'll see what becomes the Circle of the Wise Men and the ever-going fight to take out the Deadites who are now looking for the Kendarian dagger and the Book of the Dead and all that good stuff. A lot of lore expansion there, but then you also have what fans always look for in these movies. You have the Bruce Campbell Easter eggs. Obviously, in this one, we don't get to see Bruce Campbell appear as Ash, but there are subtle nods. There's visual references that those eagle-eyed fans can pick out. If the one of my favorite moments is also when all the shit is hitting the fan and grandma Polly's deuces and gets in the thing to go up the stairs as she's going up the stairs, you can see a picture of Bruce Campbell. And right next to Bruce Campbell, we get the Delta 80 fucking eight returning, because that's where I thought I saw it in a parking lot too. I could be mistaken. So the any mega fans that are always looking for those eggs, let us know if you saw the Delta 88 anywhere else. But if you didn't anywhere else, it definitely was in the picture right next to Bruce on the staircase. So the Delta 88 returns, which is awesome. And then, of course, you have the post credit scene that's tying Evil Dead Rise directly to this film. There's so much happening in this. Film. It did such a good job at tying everything together in a way that no other film has done since Army of Darkness. So I really appreciated that for nothing else, you know?

Binx 1:06:09

Yeah, he took that time to really make sure that he was incorporating as much as he could to tie everything together. And I read that he basically did the end credit scene because the studio told him to. And at that point, he was like, Well, you let me make the movie that I wanted to make. So I'm happy to do that. I'm happy to just do the end credit scene if that's what you want.

Sean 1:06:27

Okay. So now it makes sense why it might not look right because it was just thrown in last minute. Could be all CGI almost.

Binx 1:06:34

Okay. Here's the interesting thing. Yes and no. So Alyssa Sutherland, Alyssa, yeah, Alyssa Sutherland was actually there. She just posted on her Instagram what she said was my best kept secret, and it's her on set. Okay. So that was her.

Sean 1:06:49

Now maybe it was the mirror.

Binx 1:06:51

Yeah, maybe it was the mirror for sure. I think that I they wouldn't have to age her. She's so beautiful. And that's what I'm saying again. I I don't think it would be anything like that. But definitely that end credit scene was the studio coming to him and saying, Hey, do you think that this might be a good idea? And he was like, Well, you let me do everything else, so why not? And I think that that works out pretty well because that just goes to show that at the very least, the end credits scene fine, but that was really from his own volition, obviously, maybe being a fan himself, I would imagine, wanting to really make sure that he can still do this like French extremist type film, but still be true to at least a lot of the fan service and like the lore, expanding on that, giving people like the nods here and there. I felt like that DiCaprio meme pointing at the screen when the frame showed up in the car because those are the two things that I know to always look for if I'm watching any of these movies by this point. I'm like, I gotta look for them at and that's the only thing I really know. So I'm like, well, oh my God, that was great. But yeah, it was fun to spot those. But all these other Easter eggs, I also didn't realize that's awesome.

Sean 1:07:59

It's a good time.

Binx 1:08:00

Now, unfortunately, I would say that the family themselves, not much of an Easter egg there, not much of a good thrill. I they felt pretty inconsequential and definitely felt like they needed to be there so that we could get some of these Easter eggs, so that we could get that tie and that expansion of the lore. So not mad at it. And you needed kills.

Sean 1:08:20

You needed kills. You needed more deadites and more kills. I mean the whole family dynamic. I just don't even know where to begin for me. I just didn't connect to it at all. I get the whole thing with Alice and Will and the abusive relationship and everything, and like I'm not set I'm not like desensitized to that, or I just didn't care about that. It just didn't feel like I just didn't feel like they they brought it up in a way that like made me feel for the characters because he died so early on in the movie, so then it was really just a matter of Alice surviving this funeral type setting, and then they introduced like how brutal the abuse got to in the relationship way later in the movie. So I just felt like I never truly connected to it from an emotional level, and maybe that's just a miss that I had, but that I get was Alice is probably the strongest character. I totally get that. We're rooting if we're gonna root for anyone, it's her for sure. I was also rooting for Tia, but like we didn't. I was rooting for Tia as a dead eye to just take everyone out at that point because she was just got the shit on the stick and got annihilated. It's crazy. But the dad, Edgar, I don't even get it. Like there were moments in the setting, it felt like I was in I was in like some weird backwoods of Europe or something. It didn't even feel like we were in the I don't know where we were, like he didn't make sense. He likes just a very strange character. The mom didn't make sense. I don't know. None of it made sense for me.

Kris 1:09:44

I think they made more sense, but are just not very likable people.

Sean 1:09:49

Yeah, they just were not likable. I didn't like any of them.

Kris 1:09:52

I liked you. I liked Alice.

Sean 1:09:55

She's not in the family though. Alice was by law.

Kris 1:09:58

You become a part of the family in these moments, and that's okay. Edgar, Dedger, fuck them, terrible. I found to be interesting and complex, did not like her. But again, with the details that you get about her having been an artist and then giving that up and Alice's perspective, like, oh what a shame you had a gift, but that Sue was on no without without my family, I'm nothing. I would gladly give that up for the people that I love. And you see the labor that she puts into taking care of her mom, and what you hear that she the way that she showed up for her sister and just this entire family, it is uh Susan died a long time ago. And who she is in this movie is just like a very hollow shell of who she used to be, but who she has compartmentalized herself into being to be able to keep the family afloat emotionally. And uh there's this moment, and it's so fucking sad when her and Edgar kiss because she has this realization like you haven't kissed me like that in years, and she's just being manipulated. Yeah is disgusting. Nobody wants to fucking see it. But think about how much how starved she must be for this like affection and this connection uh beneath all this responsibility. I still don't like her, but I thought that the performance of Susan was actually really well done.

Binx 1:11:21

It's interesting though that you bring up that kiss and that starvation, because as you were saying it, I was thinking of how like in any other context that sounds absolutely heartbreaking. But you know what was interesting, my theater experience that people actually chuckled when she said you hadn't kissed me like that in years. And I feel like that is such a vastly different response to that scene. What's supposed to be very heartbreaking because of again, you explaining it, I'm like, holy shit, yeah. Like there is depth here of a character. If I read that story, I'd be like, Jesus, feel terrible for her. Not always the best. Can clearly see why we got here with her, right? But in the movie, for some reason, the the response was chuckles. I think also maybe is it a response from uncomfortability, considering uh Dedger's jaw was half open, the tongue was sliding a little bit to the left outside of his jaw.

Kris 1:12:15

To be clear, you've also watched possession in a theater full of laughs. And oh, don't even send me back there. Audiences laughing at something is not exactly the biggest litmus test for whether or not something is emotional or not. Like some people will laugh at the most uncomfortable and heartbreaking moments, and also, yeah, the line was set with a little bit of comedy. I think I'm just fucking again projecting my own experiences on this and like just people that I've seen and been surrounded by in my life. That fucking sucks. It really fucking sucks. There was more than meets the eye to Susan. Now, Joseph he is a man who cannot finish anything that he starts, and he takes no action, only hesitation. And what I love, love, love, love about what this movie does to reckon with who he is as a person, sure, he's not an evil person, he's not a villain, but he's not a hero. He is a decent person. That's such a stretch to even say, because like his his own inaction makes him impossible to really root for. But he endures a lot of pain and a lot of violence while uh Alice is trying to find this dagger, and he is basically resigned himself to not surviving this, but he's like holding on by a thread. What I appreciate is this movie taking him from this person who does absolutely nothing to this person who finally does something. But I am just so fucking glad that he's not the main hero of this story. Even though he is the heir apparent, he is the grandson of this guy who's like into this research and knows all this shit and he discovers all of this up in this addict and he hasn't thrown it away. This movie could have very easily centered its perspective on him and forced him into the hero seat in the driver's seat. And I'm just so glad that they didn't. I think it was a better redemption for him to go out the way that he did, versus to become the face of the franchise.

Sean 1:14:21

Yeah, he played his role. He definitely played a significant pivotal role in making sure that the that Alice got the things that she needed to be successful, for sure. He, I guess, paid his dues in a way, for sure. In the beginning, maybe you're like, okay, yeah, this guy, we're probably rooting for him in some way, and then the turn of events happen and it shifts, and you're like, there's no way you can root for this guy. That's another moment that was actually fun was when he poked his head up through the uh attic trapdoor, which was like also another nod to Evil Dead and the original Evil Dead trilogy, Evil Dead 2, when the lady is popping her head through the trapdoor of the basement.

Binx 1:15:01

One of my favorite things ever. Great. Because how terrifying is that. It's great. No, absolutely. I don't, Joe, my boy, I don't know how uh intelligent he is as a person. That's still out for judgment. But as a character, we just needed to have someone that introduced exploration of these materials so that way they could eventually be found. To me, it's one of those ever long questions of if they actually were smart, then we wouldn't have a movie because at that point we wouldn't have Evil Dead to begin with if everyone just fucking paid attention to the actual things they were listening to, in which it said, don't do what you're about to do. The guy literally was tell his literally the tape was literally saying, do not open the thing I have wrapped as he is opening the thing that was wrapped. He went straight to where it was hidden, he went straight to open it, and then all of a sudden, Because of course, you have to look at it.

Sean 1:16:01

You have to see what it's why is this thing, why can't you open it? I want to know. I gotta see it for myself.

Binx 1:16:06

And the funniest thing of it though, Sean, is we got a whole movie here where all of a sudden he also has dementia and doesn't even remember a single thing about this exact dagger that he just opened and the tape that he was reading. As someone who is supposed to be writing a book and doing all this research, my buddy has an IQ of 10 because right. Then again, as I said, we wouldn't have a movie. He's clearly a little bitch, so can't expect much there either.

Kris 1:16:30

You know, Sean said you really gotta crack that thing open, spoken like a true white guy. Check it out, crying, always poking around, checking it out, seeing what's going on. It's probably fine.

Sean 1:16:43

Just gotta check it out, see what the hype is about. Let me take a little gander, a little read. Let me recite something, let me see what happens. We like to fuck around and find out.

Binx 1:16:51

But you know what? Speaking of fuck around and find out, that's why to me, I think that the best part of this movie is Alice. Because even she, as she's saying these things out loud, she's like, oh, fuck this. I'm not even gonna continue. She is someone who's relentless, she's someone who clearly has just had enough. I also love the fact that she's just talking French in the middle of this frustration because that is so real. At that point, your native tongue is coming out. I don't give a goddamn about I can't think straight at that rate. I'm just trying to survive. So I'm gonna talk my first native language, and whether you understand me or not, I don't quite care. I think she's ruthless, relentless. And I absolutely loved when she crushed Will Skull to a bitter motherfucking end. That was brilliant. I mean, I didn't like his character design, like the Vecna of it all, but I didn't care. The frustration that she like let out, I bought into it. So I am ready to see her in other things. If she comes out in another property or something like that, sign me up. Sign me up.

Kris 1:17:55

Yeah, yeah. Listen, Alice is great. A lot of things I like about this movie. It's not a perfect movie, but I am gonna still stand by the fact that the singular worst part of this movie is Max dying. I am so glad he gets brought back as a dead eye and he seems mostly fine. But I just cannot take, like, okay, it's not just that they killed the dog in a horror movie, because that happens all the time. We get it. We have the animal report, we've seen it happen. It was specifically how much we got of Max and Edgar beforehand and the bond that you see there, and then just a very sharp, sudden, violent end to his life. It was just brutal.

Sean 1:18:33

Yeah, it is probably it is actually probably the worst part. But for me, what I've been talking about is I just didn't connect to the storyline as much as I wanted to. I did appreciate the lore building, I did appreciate the ties to all the other movies, just specifically the story surrounding this family. It just didn't captivate me. I don't know. Maybe I've seen too much trauma, too much grief in these horror movies over the last 10 or so years that I just didn't attach to it, but that's okay.

Kris 1:19:02

I'm curious to see if you attach to it a little bit more on a rewatch.

Sean 1:19:06

You never know because I actually do want to watch this one again. I want to watch all three of the new movies so far back to back, especially when we get the prequel. I want to watch all of them, including the whole franchise at that point. You gotta watch the perfect timeline. If this prequel comes out, we're watching the prequel to the evil dead, to Evil Dead 2, to Army of Darkness, to all of these ones now. 2013, Evil Dead Rise, Evil Dead Burn. It's gonna be quite the dead eight kind of time. I don't know.

Binx 1:19:40

Even though I hacked it, I also would revisit just as you said that it told me that I have to watch Army of Darkness again. And I don't know so much about that one. I don't know so much about that one, but I would revisit this again in chronological order for sure. Just not anytime soon, I guess.

Kris 1:19:57

There is no way in hell I'm gonna watch this entire franchise back to back to back. It was it's gonna be like BCAD. It's gonna be it's gonna be either the Ash era or the Everyone Else era. I'm not doing that like mix back and forth. It's too much like I'm not a sweet and savory person. I'm a sweet or a savory person. I'm not blending those things together. And for as much as I appreciate, Sean, what you shared about Easter eggs and how this really loops back, I'd be down for the 70s version 2013 Rise and Burn. But we'll see. Maybe when Wrath comes out, I'll change

Toodles

Kris 1:20:39

my mind. But for now, there you have it, folks. Evil Dead Burn has earned one hack and two slashes. We've certainly had a robust discussion here, but the conversation doesn't end here by any means.

Sean 1:20:50

Yeah, if you actually want to converse further and you want to read from the Necronomicon with us and see what happens, fuck around and find out, consider supporting the show. Visit patreon.com/slash hackerslash. Or maybe you want to answer the question, would it be fun to be a deadite? Because I think it would be fun to be a deadite. It would what would you do? What kind of things would you have fun with? That question could be answered in our subreddit, hacker slash pod, but all of this to say you support the show, you go to Patreon, that's gonna help us out a lot. You can enjoy even more of the show, including bonus content, there's early access, there's extended episodes with the B-sides, which if you are, you're gonna stick around right after this to hear. And then there's movie nominations and you can participate in live shows.

Kris 1:21:33

Yeah, please go to the subreddit and tell us whose dentures you would swallow. Ooh. Crazy, violent. Yeah, well, it happened and it's gross. We'll see you next time, folks. And remember, without your family, you're nothing.

Sean 1:21:47

Are you serious with that whistle?