The Deadite franchise has once again proven that there is no more dangerous place to encounter otherworldly evil than dinner with loved ones. ‘Burn’ (original title ‘Evil Dead Burn’) is the sixth installment of the saga that started with Sam Raimi back in 1981, and director Sébastien Vaniček this time decided to do without the abundance of the series’ trademark black humor, focusing on domestic drama that is scarier than any demon. If you have already watched the film and left the theater with the question “what was that and what were the post-credits scenes for?” — you have come to the right place.

What is the film ‘Evil Dead Burn’ about?

At the center of the story is Alice (Suheila Yakub), a woman who lost her husband in a car accident caused by a possessed character. The problem is that rejoicing at this death is at least indecent, but Alice is secretly glad — because her marriage to Will was full of physical abuse, which his relatives preferred not to know about.

The family gathers at a country house to see Will off on his final journey, and then it turns out that Will and his brother Joseph’s grandfather was once one of the “sages” who studied the Necronomicon alongside the legendary Professor Nobby, and the Kandarian dagger — the only weapon capable of killing a Deadite — accidentally ends up in the house.

The awakening of evil triggers a classic chain reaction: first the demon possesses Will’s grief-stricken father, Edgar, then spreads to grandmother Polly, sister-in-law Taya, and brother Joseph. Formally, this is a horror movie about demons, but essentially it is a film about how toxic family secrets and years of silenced violence eventually break out in the most literal and bloody form.

Vitaly Gizatullin

‘Evil Dead Burn’: With Fire and a Lawnmower

The unsinkable part of the ‘Evil Dead’ franchise with the subtitle ‘Burn’ has returned to wide release. Another chapter from the Book of the Dead takes on a pale shade; as usual, gloomily sh…

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How Alice Survived This Inferno

From the middle of the film, it turns into a real massacre: possessed Edgar kills the family dog and his daughter-in-law, Joseph smashes the head of his turned lover, and Alice herself, armed with a lawnmower and later the Kandarian dagger, goes through the house and methodically eliminates the infected relatives. She kills Joseph, beheads her mother-in-law Susan (who defended her deceased son to the last, refusing to believe in his cruelty) and finishes off Edgar.

The climax is the confrontation with the Deadite version of Will himself against the backdrop of the burning house that Alice set on fire. She “lures” the demon into a pit of concrete and finishes it off with a jackhammer and the dagger simultaneously, finally destroying it.

However, the finale leaves an unsettling hook. In the very last shot, Alice’s eyes turn red for a moment. The authors deliberately do not explain what this means — whether it is a hint of an incipient possession or simply a consequence of the injuries and the hellish evening. Given that Alice now possesses the dagger capable of killing Deadites, it seems that the franchise is preparing her for the role of the central heroine in future installments.

Post-Credits Scene #1: Your Leg Will Do

The first bonus scene is, so to speak, for the mood. Grandma Polly, who was turned into a Deadite, somehow survives the house fire, although she loses her remaining leg (the other was not there initially in the script). She crawls along the roadside, and when a kind-hearted girl stops to help the elderly woman, she suddenly attacks — with the words “yours will do just fine”, hinting at taking the victim’s leg.

The scene is rather humorous and serves as a logical postscript for a character whose fate the authors initially wanted to leave uncertain. According to director Vaniček, the idea came after filming — they just wanted to nicely close Polly’s arc and confirm that the infection did not burn with the house. For the plot, this primarily means that a carrier of the curse is wandering somewhere.

Post-Credits Scene #2: Hello from the Past

But the second scene is much more important for the fate of the entire franchise. The action returns to the very crematorium where they planned to burn Will’s body. An employee shows her daughter the shelves with unclaimed urns and explains that not all families take the ashes of their loved ones. Left alone, the girl reads the names on the urns and comes across a plaque reading “Ellie” — and then the reflection of Ellie Bixler, the possessed mother from ‘Evil Dead Rise’ played by Alyssa Sutherland, appears in the mirror.

Deadite-Ellie materializes in the room, kills the child, and utters the iconic phrase “Mommy’s back”, echoing her famous line from the previous film. The meaning here is twofold. First, it is a direct link between the two films — until now, the only thread between ‘Rise’ and ‘Burn’ was the possessed Jessica who caused Will’s accident. Second, the scene demonstrates that the Deadite does not need a physical body at all — Ellie’s spirit survived the destruction of its own host back in the finale of ‘Rise’.

Interestingly, the upcoming installment of the franchise, ‘Evil Dead Wrath’ (2028), will be a prequel set in the 1970s — so Ellie’s revenge, apparently, is postponed until a separate full-fledged sequel.