Three Evil Dead movies run back to back on HBO on October 3, and the last one is Evil Dead Burn. Sébastien Vaniček’s entry arrives on HBO Max globally the day before, Friday, October 2, twelve weeks after it opened in North American theaters.
The linear block starts at 4:45 p.m. ET with Evil Dead (2013), moves to Evil Dead Rise at 6:20 p.m. ET, and hands off to Burn at 8:00 p.m. ET. That running order puts Lee Cronin’s film directly in front of the one he executive produced, which is a tidier piece of programming than a cable horror block usually manages.
Twelve Weeks Is a Fast Turn
Burn opened on July 10 and took $13.7 million domestically in its first weekend, on the way to $32.2 million in North America and $72.3 million worldwide against a $20 million budget. Evil Dead Rise opened bigger in 2023, with $24.5 million domestic and $40 million globally, so the franchise stepped down at the box office even as it stayed profitable by a wide margin. Digital rental arrived on August 4, barely three and a half weeks after opening night, and physical media landed on September 22 in 4K, Blu-ray and DVD. Streaming follows ten days after that.
Vaniček Traded the Cabin for a Funeral
Vaniček came to the franchise off Infested, his 2023 spider picture, and he and co-writer Florent Bernard built Burn around a wake instead of a cabin. Souheila Yacoub plays Alice Price, a widow who takes refuge with her in-laws at their isolated house and watches the family come apart into Deadites. Tandi Wright, Hunter Doohan, Luciane Buchanan, Erroll Shand, Maude Davey and George Pullar fill out the Prices. Sam Raimi and Rob Tapert produce, with Bruce Campbell and Cronin among the executive producers.
Reviews came in at 71% on Rotten Tomatoes across 202 critics, with a 54 on Metacritic and a B CinemaScore from opening-weekend audiences. Those are the numbers of a film critics respected without quite embracing.
Wrath Is Already in the Can
Francis Galluppi has already finished the next one. Evil Dead Wrath shot in Auckland from February to the end of May, Warner Bros. has it dated for April 7, 2028, and the cast includes Charlotte Hope, Jessica McNamee, Zach Gilford and Josh Helman. An animated continuation of Ash vs Evil Dead is also in development, which would be the first new Ash Williams story since Starz cancelled the series in 2018. Whether Jane Levy comes back as Mia is still a rumor, and we have labeled it as one.
Burn is the sixth feature, and it is the first in forty-five years where the evil is awake and working toward something before anybody in the movie reads a word aloud. Our Evil Dead Bible takes that timeline apart in full. The shift is easier to catch on a second pass than a first, which is the best argument for spending Friday night on it instead of waiting for the Halloween rerun.
