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Since the Evil Dead series began with Sam Raimi’s original film in 1981, there’s been some consistency across the franchise. No matter if the main character is Bruce Campbell’s Ash, Jane Levy’s Mia, or one of the new faces that have arrived, it’s been a series about capturing bloody horror imagery on camera. At first, it was a point of necessity, as practical visual effects were all filmmakers had at their disposal, but when 2011’s Evil Dead came along it was a point of pride about how much of the gore and violence wasn’t created exclusively with a computer.
Speaking with for the upcoming Evil Dead Burn, we asked filmmaker Sébastien Vanicek about carrying on that tradition with one major facet of the film, it’s immense use of fire, which he maintained had to be done with real flames. For Vanicek, it wasn’t just about paying homage to the DIY and practical nature of the entire Evil Dead series, but also because faking fire is even tougher than trying to fake blood with computer visual effects.
“As soon as I knew the title was Burn, I was like, I will need real fire on set because Evil Dead is all about practical effects. It’s not even about respecting the legacy. It’s because that’s why they work so well,” Vanicek said. “Things are done on set and things are real. And even if people are not like, oh, that’s CG right away, they can feel something is a little bit odd or something is less physical. There are a lot of imperfections in reality, and those imperfections are really hard to recreate in CG.”
He continued, “So I wanted all this imperfection. My movie is full of those imperfections. It’s talking about imperfections. So I needed the whole movie to have this camera that is handheld, to have dust and dirt on the camera… That’s how I think the movie is physical and visceral.”
That physicality is one of the things that Vanicek hopes sticks with audiences after they’re done watching Evil Dead Burn, along with it, another key descriptor of Evil Dead movies, the intensity.
“The feeling they have when they left the theater, and they were physically drained,” Vanicek said of his hopes for audiences. “I hope so because that’s what I tried to create, to have a roller coaster experience. I know the price of a movie ticket. I know it’s hard for people, and I know when they pay for that, they want to leave something huge. And that’s what I tried to create.”
Vanicek is also the latest filmmaker to put their stamp on the Evil Dead series, following in the footsteps of Fede Álvarez and Lee Cronin. The franchise is more alive now than it ever has been, with the next film in the series, Francis Galluppi’s Evil Dead Wrath, already done filming ahead of a 2028 release date. We asked Vanicek if he felt there was anything he added to the Evil Dead toy chest that he hoped other filmmakers would use in the future.
“We will see what happens in the future, but I’m sure Francis (Galluppi) did his own movie, and he will do a great movie. It’s his own piece, his own style,” Vanicek said. “That will be, again, a big surprise for the audience. I can’t wait to see it because he doesn’t replicate anything. It will be his own piece. It’s like playing the best video game. All of them are completely different, but they’re in the same universe. That’s what makes the franchise still alive.”
Evil Dead Burn debuts in theaters on July 10, 2026.
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