Evil Dead Burn is the sixth film in the Evil Dead franchise, released theatrically on July 10, 2026, and directed by Sébastien Vaniček — the French filmmaker who made his debut with the 2023 arachnid horror film Infested. He was hired to write and direct from a screenplay co-written with Florent Bernard, with Sam Raimi and Rob Tapert returning as producers and Bruce Campbell serving as executive producer. The film earned $72.3 million worldwide against a $20 million production budget, making it a solid commercial success for the franchise. Its premise is specific and deliberately domestic: Alice, played by Souheila Yacoub, is a French woman who managed a restaurant with her husband Will before his death. Their marriage was abusive — Will was controlling and physically violent — and Alice attends the Price family funeral already conflicted, grieving someone who hurt her while being surrounded by his relatives, who are themselves hostile and unwelcoming. What she does not know when she arrives at the family's secluded house is that Will's grandfather Benjamin had spent his life as a researcher into the Necronomicon as a member of a secret society called the Circle of the Wise Men, and that the family property holds both the Book of the Dead and the Kandarian Dagger — the one weapon capable of destroying Deadites. Joseph, Will's younger brother played by Hunter Doohan, accidentally triggers the Deadite outbreak while going through his grandfather's research journals, removing protective spells from the dagger without understanding what he is doing. From that point, the confined family home becomes a killing ground, and Alice must survive not only the possessed Price family but also the psychic taunting of Deadites who know exactly what her husband did to her.

The Kandarian Dagger is the film's central MacGuffin and the element that most directly ties Evil Dead Burn to the wider franchise mythology. The dagger first appeared in Sam Raimi's original 1981 film, where it was discovered in the cellar of the cabin alongside the Necronomicon. In Evil Dead Burn, Benjamin Price — Will and Joseph's late grandfather — had obtained the dagger during his research as a member of the Circle of the Wise Men, a secret society dedicated to studying demonic possession and searching for ways to destroy the Kandarian entities. Benjamin had placed protective spells on the dagger to conceal it from the Deadites, but when Joseph searches through his grandfather's journals and inadvertently reverses those spells, the dagger's location is exposed. This makes the Price family an immediate target: the Deadites want the dagger back because it is the only weapon that can kill them, and they will possess every available body to get it. Edgar Price, played by Erroll Shand, is the first family member to arrive possessed at the house, having been taken before the main gathering even begins. The possession then spreads through the household — Susan (Tandi Wright), Polly (Maude Davey), and eventually Will himself, whose body was never properly cremated. Alice's final confrontation with possessed Will inside the burning house, using a combination of the Kandarian Dagger and a rotary saw, closes the film's domestic horror arc: the abuse she could not escape in life, she must destroy on her own terms in death. She kills him by driving the dagger into his heart, then traps his body in a tar pit before finishing him. The house is left burning behind her. The film's title is literal.

The film's connection to the broader franchise is more substantial than its standalone setup suggests. Benjamin Price's membership in the Circle of the Wise Men is linked implicitly to Professor Raymond Knowby from the original 1981 Evil Dead — both men were researchers into the Necronomicon operating within the same general intellectual tradition of dangerous demonology. Inside the Price house, eagle-eyed viewers will find Bruce Campbell's photo among the family portraits, depicting Campbell as a younger version of Grandfather Benjamin — a meta-acknowledgment of the franchise's founding actor. The Necronomicon in the Price house is also one of three canonical copies established in Evil Dead Rise's expanded lore, connecting the timelines without requiring a direct plot continuation. The film's most surprising franchise moment arrives in its post-credits scene: the crematorium manager's daughter is killed by a figure seen in the mirror behind her, who announces that 'mommy's back.' That figure is Deadite Ellie Bixler — Alyssa Sutherland returning in character from Evil Dead Rise, whose ashes were held at the same crematorium where Will's funeral took place. The post-credits reveal confirms that Ellie survived in some Deadite form past the events of 2023's film, and positions her as a potential thread in future franchise entries. The next announced film is Evil Dead Wrath, a prequel set in 1972 scheduled for April 7, 2028. Vaniček's contribution to the franchise is also notable for what it does stylistically: his previous film Infested was associated with a wave of new French extreme horror, and several reviewers described Evil Dead Burn as a meeting point between that tradition and the American franchise's own appetite for visceral practical gore. The film's opening lakeside sequence — which returns to the dock setting from Evil Dead Rise — establishes this merger of brutality and formal control before the domestic story begins.

Alice works as the film's emotional center in a way that distinguishes Evil Dead Burn from simpler possession narratives. She is introduced as a woman already in survival mode before any supernatural element appears — managing a restaurant she co-owned with a controlling husband, preparing to attend his funeral with his family while privately relieved he is gone. The Price family's hostility toward her is not random antagonism; it is the extension of a dynamic Will created, in which his family believed his version of their marriage rather than hers. When the Deadites begin taunting Alice with specific details about what Will did to her, it gives the franchise's traditional psychological torment a more grounded and disturbing dimension. The abuse was real, and the Deadites know it, which makes their cruelty not abstract but personal. Souheila Yacoub, a French actress, brings a specific quality to the role — Alice is an outsider to this English-speaking family in both language and origin, which compounds her isolation. Alice's father appears only as a voice (voiced by French comedian Alain Chabat), underlining how completely cut off from any support system she is once the house is locked down. Hunter Doohan's Joseph is the film's secondary sympathetic character — his grandfather's research is the source of the outbreak, and his guilt and growing understanding of what Benjamin was involved in gives him an arc distinct from simple victim status. Luciane Buchanan's Thya, Maude Davey's Polly, and Erroll Shand's Edgar fill out the Price household with enough individual texture to make each possession feel like a specific loss. The film's runtime of approximately 110 minutes keeps the pacing tight enough that once the outbreak begins, there is almost no pause. Vaniček told Konbini before the film's release that he specifically set out to make a film that hurts — a film audiences would come away from feeling tested. On that measure, the critical and audience response suggests he largely succeeded.