**WARNING: Includes major spoilers for Evil Dead Burn**
The sixth instalment in the Evil Dead franchise arrives in cinemas this weekend – and director Sébastien Vaniček has delivered another brutal entry in the series originated by Sam Raimi all those years ago.
In Evil Dead Burn, the Deadites unleash their havoc on a grieving family at a secluded house, where they have gathered to mourn their relative Will Price (George Pullar) after he was killed in a car accident brought on by a possessed character from the previous film.
We say grieving family, but one of the members isn’t exactly upset about the death. Will’s wife Alice (Souheila Yacoub) had suffered years of abuse at the hands of her husband and is glad to finally be shot of him, which doesn’t go down well with the in-laws.
Meanwhile, Will’s father Edgar (Erroll Shand) is so distraught that he demands to see his son’s body again before he is cremated. This is where the problems really begin, as this short window is all the Deadites need to take over a new victim and properly begin the mayhem.
Seen the film and need a reminder of where things go from here and what it all means? Read on to have the Evil Dead Burn ending explained.
Evil Dead Burn ending explained: How does Alice overcome the Deadites?
Following the aforementioned events, it doesn’t take much time before the Deadites are up to their usual mischief – and one by one they go about possessing each member of the family, putting Alice through a pretty horrendous ordeal in the process.
The chaos truly starts as Edgar begins to succumb to possession during a family dinner, with the father even going so far as to brutally kill the family dog before he collapses.
Assuming that he needs urgent medical attention, Will’s brother Joseph (Hunter Doohan) and his girlfriend Thya (Luciane Buchanan) decide to drive him to the hospital.
But that plan doesn’t get very far before Edgar goes crazy again – leading to an incredibly violent scene inside the car that sees him mutilate Thya’s fingers with the door and then murder her.
Things continue to go from bad to worse back at the house; Alice is forced to kill the now possessed dog, the Deadite version of Thya appears and begins wreaking even more carnage, and things get increasingly violent – with Joseph smashing Thya’s head in during one especially brutal scene.
Throughout all this, Alice has flashbacks to the abuse that Will had inflicted on her during their marriage – before arming herself with a rotary saw and trying to take matters into her own hands.
She ties Will’s mother Susan (Tandi Wright) up and confronts her for never believing her about Will’s abusive behaviour, just before Susan also becomes possessed and Alice escapes to the attic – where she retrieves the Kandarian dagger, which gives her the ability to kill Deadites.
She first kills Joseph, then Susan (whom she decapitates) and finally Edgar before leaving the house and setting it on fire. As the building goes up in flames, the Deadite version of Will arrives and a final struggle commences between the former couple.
During their fight, Alice is able to trap Will in a pit filled with tar and eventually manages to kills him once and for all using both a jackhammer and the dagger.
Paramedics arrive as the sun rises, and the main film ends with Alice explaining that her “ex-husband did this” before lighting a cigarette – one of the behaviours that Will had stopped her from doing.
What is the Kandarian dagger? And how does Evil Dead Burn relate to the previous films?
It’s important to note that the Deadites hadn’t chosen the Price family by chance.
We learn that Will and Joseph’s late grandfather had been carrying out extensive research – alongside legacy character Professor Knowby, no less – into the Book of the Dead, and Joseph had taken it upon himself to continue this research.
While rooting around his grandfather’s old belongings, Joseph had discovered the Kandarian dagger, and it was this which had first attracted the attentions of Deadite Jessica (who had previously appeared in Evil Dead Rise) to the family, setting the plot in motion.
The dagger had originally been found by Professor Knowby alongside the Necronomicon (the Book of the Dead) during an archaeological dig at King Arthur’s Castle Kandar many years ago, and previously appeared in both The Evil Dead and Evil Dead II.
It is a weapon with the unique ability to kill Deadites, and its appearance here helps to tie the previous films together – even if this version of the weapon does not have the same design as the one in the earlier films (but then again, continuity in this franchise has never exactly been perfect).
Quite how this will be developed in future Evil Dead projects remains to be seen, but the next entry in the franchise is a prequel to the original trilogy titled Evil Dead Wrath – which could well further explore the dagger. It is currently due for release in April 2028.
What happens in the Evil Dead Burn post-credits scenes?
There are two post-credits scenes in Evil Dead Burn.
The first occurs midway through the credits and sees an escaped but still very much possessed Polly (Will’s dementia-suffering grandmother) crawling away from the house, seemingly having travelled fairly far despite no longer having any legs following the brutal events of the film.
When a shocked motorist stops and offers to help, Polly quickly makes her another victim – taking her legs for herself and passing on the Deadite curse in the process, confirming that this particular outbreak is by no means over.
But the second extra scene, which occurs at the very end of the credits, has more significance for the franchise as a whole.
It takes us back to the crematorium from Will’s funeral at the beginning of the scene and we learn that this same crematorium is also home to the ashes of single mother Ellie (Alyssa Sutherland) from Evil Dead Rise.
A small girl – who appears to be the daughter of the crematorium’s manager – is reading the names of the urns, but when she reaches Ellie’s name, the Deadite version of the character suddenly appears in the mirror and quite brutally kills the girl by snapping her neck.
She then looks directly into the camera and says the chilling line: “Mommy’s back.”
Quite what this means for the future of the franchise is unclear at this stage, but it seems all but certain it is setting up more films in the franchise that could do even more to tie all the various instalments together. We can’t wait to see what’s on the cards…
Evil Dead Burn is now showing in UK cinemas.
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