Evil Dead Burn opens Friday, and the first reactions call it the most brutal film in the series

The reactions landed this week, three days before anyone can buy a ticket in the United States, and they are not subtle. "Evil Dead Burn" opens Friday, and the people who caught it early are describing something closer to an assault than a movie.

Simon Thompson called it "seriously nasty and pretty f***ed up," a "relentless, jaw-on-the-floor nightmare fuel" that "does not hold back." Peter Gray wrote that it is "gloriously mean-spirited and violent to the point it might even be offensive," then added, "I winced and had a ball." Jeff Nelson at WeHo Times went with "a relentlessly savage bloodbath that basks in its razor-twisting, stomach-churning brutality." Bill Bria at /Film reached for a genre lineage instead of an adjective, writing that director Sébastien Vaniček "brings a New French Extremity edge to the Deadites, one which cuts deep emotionally and physically."

That last line is the tell. The knock on late-period horror sequels is that they are loud and hollow. The early word on "Evil Dead Burn" is that it hurts on purpose and means it.

Who made it

This is the sixth "Evil Dead" film and the third standalone chapter, after the 2013 reboot and 2023's "Evil Dead Rise." Vaniček directed and co-wrote it with Florent Bernard. Series creator Sam Raimi hired him off the strength of "Infested," Vaniček's 2023 debut about a Paris apartment block overrun by spiders, a movie that understood dread as a function of tight spaces and worse decisions. Raimi and Rob Tapert produced through Ghost House Pictures, with Bruce Campbell and Lee Cronin as executive producers. Philip Lozano shot it. New Line and Sony co-financed, which is why Warner Bros. is releasing it in the States and Sony is handling most of the world.

Souheila Yacoub leads as Alice, alongside Tandi Wright, Hunter Doohan, Luciane Buchanan, Erroll Shand and Maude Davey. They shot it in New Zealand last fall, from late July to mid-October.

The premise, without the spoilers

A woman loses her husband and goes to grieve with his family at their secluded house. One by one, the in-laws turn into Deadites, and the wake becomes something you cannot leave. The logline the studio keeps repeating is the good kind of blunt: the vows you take in life live on, even in death. It is a haunted-house movie built out of a marriage, which is a sturdier engine than most of these things get.

The number to watch

Box Office Pro has "Evil Dead Burn" tracking for a $30 to $40 million domestic opening. If it lands anywhere in that range, it is the biggest debut the franchise has ever had. For context, the 2013 reboot opened to $25.7 million and "Evil Dead Rise" managed $24.5 million in 2023. Nothing in this series has cracked $30 million out of the gate.

There is a reason the projection keeps climbing. Original and near-original horror has been the healthiest bet at the box office all year. Kane Parsons' "Backrooms" gave A24 its best opening ever this spring at $81.4 million, and audiences have kept turning up for the stuff that scares them rather than the stuff that flatters them. A hard-R Deadite movie with a mean streak fits that appetite.

It also has room to run. "Evil Dead Burn" opens against Disney's live-action "Moana" the same weekend, but the two are aiming at opposite ends of the multiplex, and counterprogramming a family juggernaut with something this vicious is exactly the play.

When you can see it

The film reaches France and Italy on July 8 and the United States on July 10, moved up from an original July 24 date. Full reviews are embargoed until July 8, so the graded verdicts are still a day or two out. Ghost House is not slowing down either. A separate "Evil Dead" film from Francis Galluppi is already in the works.

For now, the pitch is simple. The series that started with a chainsaw and a Book of the Dead has a new entry that its first viewers cannot stop describing as the cruelest one yet. We will know Friday whether the crowd agrees.