The Evil Dead franchise started in 1981 with Bruce Campbell reading from the famous Necronomicon and summoning the dead. His second film Evil Dead II, introduced his wielding of the iconic chainsaw. However, following the recent film, Evil Dead Burn, has the franchise lost comedic character since 1981?
(Ignoring the 2013 re-make) The Evil Dead series picked up again with the hit Evil Dead Rise 2023, where we saw slight easter eggs and teasers of the earlier films. However, the film strode away from the comedic horror to prioritise more gore and shock factors.
The contemporary outlook of horror films is to prioritise CGI and heavy editing. However in Evil Dead II, there are several moments where the rawness of editing increases its comedic value. For example, when an eyeball from one of the ghouls travels through the air and lands in one of the character’s mouths. Seeing the eyeball on a stick adds a little more character to the whole film.
Evil Dead Burn encapsulated slightly more comedy than the last two in the newer franchise with small comedic phrases and moments. For example, when Thya takes off the grandma’s false leg. The slight pause of realisation from the deadite was a comedic gem.
Although you will never be able to recreate the iconic Evil Dead franchise, Evil Dead Burn was certainly groovy.