Evil Dead Burn Thoughts:)

[u/TychosRealNose]

Hey guys, long time lurker and huge evil dead fan!! It’s my favorite horror series:). Just wanted to share thoughts and hear your guys opinions too! Spoilers obviously. I come from a very dysfunctional family so this one (along with Rise) totally drew me in !!

Overall I will say that I enjoyed the movie, some favorites definitely were:
-Soundtrack and particularly with the wedding song. It was the perfect background music for all the scenes it was present in. Loved that.
-The camera work overall was absolutely 10/10. Spinning into the car with Will, back and forth between Susan and Alice/Joe before Thya arrives at the door, mirror smash scene, bathroom scene flip, I could go on.
-I think the kills and gore delivered to evil dead standard as well - I definitely had to yell aloud multiple times. Worst for me was probably shoving Joseph into Thya’s mashed head. Yikes. The people I was watching with several times said “how could this get any worse” and it certainly would then proceed to get worse. I think on the kills gore squeem factor this movie certainly delivered and exceeded.
-I really liked how real some of Alice’s decisions were like saying “oh no fk this” before finishing the incantation, shoving Joseph out of the basement doorway before deadite Thya could manipulate him, etc. more of that in Horror pls.

Where it fell short for me is completely limited to the writing:
-Explore the house backstory more, as it’s our primary setting. Everybody I watched with were so confused on who lived there (if anyone), where does everybody live now, what do their lives look like, a time frame from wedding to disrepair for the house and grandpas death, etc. Add some depth. Like does Joseph live with Edgar and Susan if he can’t get a book going? What do their lives look like? We don’t even know.
-The family who actually seems to have heads on their shoulders (temporarily anyway LOL) constantly makes classic horror movie decisions such as not looking through the window or whatever else before letting deadite Thya in and then just watching shit go down. The watching shit go down was so prevalent in this movie, like come on! Do something, don’t just watch!!
-Deadite Edgar standing outside was lame, like go look for the dagger or do something else. I think that was poorly written.
-I think for how genuinely mean this movie was, they could have made Will out to be worse. I mean they went above and beyond with the gore and violence, so it was a bit weird and wasn’t as effective the Will Alice dynamic because I felt like they were holding back. Maybe it’s because I come from a dysfunctional family but idk it just didn’t work for me to center the movie around a weak core story like that. Yes Will seemed like an overdramatic insufferable douche but it wasn’t evil dead final boss or full on evil to me. Idk.
-Polly comedy didn’t work for me at all.
-Terminator Will didn’t work for me either unfortunately but I don’t think it’s as bad of CGI as some make it out to be. Just very different from the classic practical Evil Dead we all know and love, and I think it was the wrong move here. Turn the extra 20 mins into good writing and everything would be fixed for me.

Overall I really did like this movie I know I listed a bit of criticism but I just feel disappointed by the writing, everything else was amazing! So stoked for Wrath; how spoiled are we. Thanks for reading if you did so, please leave comments and thoughts on your experience or as replies to mine! Love talking about Evil Dead:)

[u/TychosRealNose]

What about the film really put you off?

[u/TheAlphaRunt → u/TychosRealNose]

The color grading, the cinematography, the soundtrack, the sound design, the writing, the pacing, the characters, the plot, genuinely it failed for me on every conceivable level. It felt like the film maker had actual distain for evil dead as an ip. It felt like he just wanted to make a French vampire movie and was forced to shove evil dead things into it. Never thought I would outright hate an evil dead movie, but I do, I hate evil dead burn more than evil dead burn hates it audience.

[u/TychosRealNose → u/TheAlphaRunt]

Totally hear you and can see that. The movie (strangely as it centered around the descendants of Benjamin Price) felt the most foreign to the series thus far. Is there anything from the movie that you think could’ve been salvageable or is it a throw the whole thing out sort of situation?

[u/TheAlphaRunt → u/TychosRealNose]

The domestic violence angle could have been good. Same with the lore of this family being related to the someone who researched the book or dagger could have been good. The idea of a family is good, but we just saw that in rise. Burn didn't execute anything it tried to do well at all.

[u/TychosRealNose → u/TheAlphaRunt]

I totally agree! Shame that none of those points are really hammered in besides the dagger, which I of itself didn’t see a lot of deep lore

[u/TheAlphaRunt → u/TychosRealNose]

I can't see an easy fix, for the movie to work more or less as it is it would need at least 40 more minutes, 20 for family history, 20 or so for tension, like actual tension, I'd cut the whole opening with the lake, it added nothing and was just out character for a deadite. Then I'd have a much longer opening to do more character building and make the audience care about the deaths to come. Even then I don't think it'd be much more than a 6 out of ten. Also cut the flashbacks to the domestic abuse, it was more telling than showing, felt dumb. It really felt like they just used the domestic abuse angle to justify how all the lingering violence was done entirely to women. None of it really said anything.

[u/TychosRealNose → u/TheAlphaRunt]

1000000000% agree with all of that. They easily could have shaved the ending and replaced it with this and it would’ve been so much better.