Evil Dead Burn Trailer: The Gory Horror Franchise Crashes A Family Reunion

After Fede Álvarez's insipidly grim "Evil Dead," it was hard to see the point of continuing the deadite franchise. No one was ever going to come close to matching Sam Raimi's gleeful mix of X-rated gore and slapstick comedy, and going hard in the other direction made it feel like just another demonic possession movie. It was time to double-lock the Necronomicon in a drawer.

So it was something of a surprise when, 10 years after Álvarez's minor box office hit, New Line Cinema opted to reboot the brand with Lee Cronin, the director of the slow-burn horror film "The Hole in the Ground," at the helm. Cronin's debut feature worked by getting under your skin with its creepy atmosphere, which seemed at odds with what we expected from a gooey pas de ew with the deadites.

There was no need to worry: Cronin's "Evil Dead Rise" was one of the best horror movies of 2023 (an exceptional year for the genre). Rather than embrace Raimi's silliness or play it deathly straight like Álvarez, Cronin found a strangely stable middle ground where he could be playful one moment and tug heartstrings the next. The sister dynamic between Lily Sullivan and Alyssa Sutherland resists cliché at every turn, while the kids are far from off-limits. It's a gnarly, expertly directed film that keeps you off balance until its unsettling end.

I was hoping Cronin would stick with the franchise for one more installment, but he moved on to "Lee Cronin's The Mummy" (which hits theaters this weekend). Meanwhile, our next visit with the deadites, "Evil Dead Burn," directed by upstart French filmmaker Sébastien Vaniček ("Infested"), is a few months away and has just released its first trailer, which you can watch above. Can Vaniček hang with Cronin?

This new trailer comes with the first official synopsis for the film, which reveals that the story is set during a family reunion ... sort of. Here are the details: 

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.

While "Evil Dead" is often associated with comedy-tinged horror, the franchise seems committed to embracing full-blown terror at this point. And there's nothing wrong with that. "Evil Dead Burn" hits theaters on July 10, 2026.