Evil Dead Burn is going to swallow Sam Raimi‘s soul. Okay, okay, that’s going too far. But the latest trailer for the next entry in the horror franchise features both the audacious camera movements that have been the director’s calling card since he made The Evil Dead in 1981, but it also inserts something new for the series: a plot.
The trailer has lots of nastiness, as someone with a car seat headrest in their face chases a couple into a family home. But it also sets up some character stakes, with the loss of a family member driving a person to read from the Necronomicon Ex-Mortis, the Book of the Dead, on purpose. Intentionally. Not by accident.
That’s a pretty huge change from previous Evil Dead movies. From the first two films and Army of Darkness, directed by Sam Raimi and starring Bruce Campbell as Ash Williams, to the 2013 remake and 2023’s Evil Dead Rise, reading from the Necronomicon draws the attention of Deadites that possess the living.
However, no one in those movies does it on purpose, at least not to raise the dead. In the first two Evil Deads and Evil Dead Rise, the reading comes via recordings. In Army of Darkness and the 2013 remake, characters intentionally read from the book, but the former because it will allow him to time travel back to the present and the latter because the guy is a curious dummy.
