Warner Bros. Pictures and New Line Cinema are planning to give the next installment in the Evil Dead franchise, Evil Dead Burn, a theatrical release on July 10th. Last week, the Motion Picture Association gave the film an R rating for strong bloody horror violence and gore, and language – but it didn’t make it past the ratings board unscathed. During a conversation with SFX magazine, director Sébastien Vaniček that some cuts were necessary to get Evil Dead Burn into R-rating shape for its theatrical release, but there will eventually be a “way more violent” director’s cut on home video.
What do we know about Evil Dead Burn?
In the build-up to the release of Evil Dead Rise (read our review right HERE) in 2023, Evil Dead franchise rights holders Sam Raimi, Bruce Campbell, and Rob Tapert let it be known that they were already looking forward to producing more entries in the series, with Campbell revealing they were hoping to make a new sequel / spin-off every two or three years. Last year, they proved their commitment to this idea by hiring Vaniček, who made his feature directorial debut on the French horror film Vermin, a.k.a. Infested, to write and direct a new installment in the franchise.
New Line Cinema and Sony Pictures are co-financing the film, which Vaniček is directing from a screenplay he wrote with Florent Bernard. Sony will distribute internationally, with Canal Plus distributing in the UK and Metropolitan distributing in France.
Details on the story Vaniček will be telling in Evil Dead Burn have been kept under wraps up to this point, but he has said that he has complete creative control on his Evil Dead movie, and intended to give it a French twist. Now, we have a synopsis: Evil Dead Burn unleashes the franchise’s most savage and terrifying ride to date, blazing onto big screens with an all-new chapter of carnage and demonic mayhem. After the loss of her husband, a woman seeks solace with her in-laws in their secluded family home. As one by one they are transformed into Deadites—turning the gathering into a family reunion from hell—she comes to discover that the vows she took in life… live on even in death.
Sam Raimi made his feature directorial debut with the original The Evil Dead, which introduced Campbell as iconic hero Ash Williams. Ash returned for Evil Dead II, Army of Darkness, and the Ash vs. Evil Dead TV series, with Raimi directing the films and the first episode of the show. After seeing a short film directed by Fede Alvarez, the Evil Dead rights holders gave him the chance to make his feature directorial debut with the Ash-less 2013 Evil Dead. Then Lee Cronin was hired to make the Ash-less Evil Dead Rise based on the strength of his own feature debut, the 2019 film The Hole in the Ground. So Sébastien Vaniček being hired to make the next Evil Dead movie right after entering the feature world with Vermin / Infested is very on brand for this franchise.
Vaniček’s Evil Dead Burn isn’t the only Evil Dead movie on the way. Two months after he was hired to make his movie, the rights holders also hired Francis Galluppi, who just made his feature directorial debut with the crime thriller The Last Stop in Yuma County, to write and direct his own Evil Dead flick, which is called Evil Dead Wrath. An animated series follow-up to Ash vs. Evil Dead is also in the works.
Who’s in the Evil Dead Burn cast?
Dune: Part Two‘s Souheila Yacoub, a Swiss former rhythmic gymnast who won the Miss Suisse Romande beauty pageant before getting her acting career started, plays heroine Alice and is joined in the cast by Hunter Doohan (Your Honor), Luciane Buchanan (The Night Agent), and Tandi Wright (Pearl).
What did Sébastien Vaniček say about a director’s cut?
Vaniček’s conversation with SFX magazine happened while he was in the midst of dealing with the MPA ratings board, and he told SFX that he had to lose a scene to secure an R rating for Evil Dead Burn. “There is a scene that is not R-rated. It’s a really, really hard scene. And I have to cut it, unfortunately, so you just won’t experience it as brutally as it is right now because I need to have the R-rated movie. So we are trying to find a good balance.”
He added, “The director’s cut will be way more violent than what we will have in the theatre.” Still, he promised that the theatrical version will still have, according to SFX, “its fair share of carnage.”
Are you looking forward to Evil Dead Burn? Does hearing that there will be a “way more violent” director’s cut on home video make you any less likely to see the R-rated version in theatres? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
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