{"id":415244,"date":"2026-05-06T22:46:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T22:46:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/415244\/"},"modified":"2026-05-06T22:46:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T22:46:13","slug":"evil-dead-is-fully-switching-genres-after-45-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/415244\/","title":{"rendered":"Evil Dead Is Fully Switching Genres After 45 Years"},"content":{"rendered":"

While 2026\u2019s Evil Dead<\/a> franchise reboot was exciting even before its first full-length trailer dropped, the revelation that Evil Dead Burn<\/a> will switch the franchise\u2019s genre for the first time makes this upcoming horror movie all the more intriguing. The Evil Dead franchise\u2019s high body counts<\/a> are just about the only consistent thing in the series. Starting out in 1981 with director Sam Raimi\u2019s explosive feature debut The Evil Dead, the first outing in the series was originally a gritty, gruesome, and thoroughly downbeat supernatural horror story.<\/p>\n

However, 1987\u2019s Evil Dead II upended things completely with a goofy, cartoon-ish, and intentionally over-the-top sequel. Although Evil Dead II did have its occasional creepy moments, the movie owed as much to Tex Avery as Dario Argento, and its gleeful comedic absurdity undercut the paranormal horror and underlying sense of dread. If Raimi\u2019s first film was a gory endurance test, his second was a vaudeville comedy routine. Evil Dead II\u2019s sequel Army of Darkness took things even further, ramping up the silliness with a historic action adventure plot.<\/p>\n

Army of Darkness felt more like a bloodier Indiana Jones movie or a precursor to Stephen Sommers\u2019 Mummy movies<\/a> than Raimi\u2019s original video nasty, but the franchise then took a hard turn back to its origins with 2013\u2019s simply-titled reboot Evil Dead. Director Fede Alvarez went with an even darker, bleaker, and nastier tone than the original movie in this terrifying story of college students getting killed off one by one in a remote woodland cabin. Director Lee Cronin\u2019s 2023 reboot <\/a>Evil Dead Rise<\/a> changed things up again, with more humor but no less gore.<\/p>\n

Evil Dead Burn Is Clearly An Action Horror Movie<\/p>\n

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\n A Deadite smiling creepily toward the camera in Evil Dead Burn<\/p>\n

Cronin\u2019s Evil Dead Rise, like his later Blumhouse horror reboot Lee Cronin\u2019s The Mummy<\/a>, was both scary and darkly funny. Fusing the over-the-top gore of Evil Dead II with the genuine dread of 2013\u2019s reboot, Evil Dead Rise also changed up the formula by transplanting the movie\u2019s setting from an isolated woodland to a busy inner-city apartment block. It would be tough for any follow-up to replicate Evil Dead Rise\u2019s successful experimentation, but Infested director S\u00e9bastien Vani\u010dek\u2019s upcoming Evil Dead Burn appears to have achieved this with yet another genre switch.<\/p>\n

Judging by both its date announcement and its first full-length trailer, Evil Dead Burn is a full-blown action horror movie, which marks a first for the franchise. The date announcement has one floating Deadite, but it mostly consists of brutal fight choreography that wouldn\u2019t be out of place in a movie from The Raid franchise or a John Wick spinoff. The trailer has a little more classic Deadite scares, but also a car chase, a boat chase, Deadites running on rooftops and, in one prominent scene, straight up a bathroom ceiling.<\/p>\n

In an era when Weapons director Zach Cregger\u2019s upcoming Resident Evil reboot is co-written by Shay Hatten of the John Wick franchise, it might not seem like a big shock that Evil Dead Burn is also jumping on the action horror bandwagon. However, from the novel setting and premise of Evil Dead Burn<\/a> to this genre switch, Vani\u010dek\u2019s movie marks a major risk for the series. After all, the ever-changing Evil Dead formula has worked well over the decades, despite the tonal shifts mentioned above, and the action horror genre itself is hardly known for its critical popularity.<\/p>\n

Evil Dead Burn\u2019s Genre Shift Is A Major Surprise<\/p>\n

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\n close up of a deadite’s face in evil dead burn<\/p>\n

There are a handful of critically acclaimed action horror movies, including the aforementioned Mummy movies by Stephen Sommers. However, there is also a reason that the sub-genre gained an ignominious reputation during its popular box office reign in the early 2000s. Thirteen Ghosts, Ghosts of Mars, 2005’s Doom, House of the Dead, the Underworld series, Van Helsing, Alone in the Dark, Priest, Daywalkers, and even the original Resident Evil movies were all unpopular with critics. Most reviewers specifically complained that trying to balance action set-pieces with traditional horror resulted in movies that were full of bombast, but light on scares.<\/p>\n

In contrast, the Evil Dead franchise has more than its fair share of authentically scary, intense horror. For every funny sequence like Ash\u2019s slapstick battle against his former fianc\u00e9e\u2019s reanimated corpse, there is a scene like Evil Dead Rise\u2019s upsetting Deadite threats<\/a>. Cronin\u2019s movie certainly had some action-heavy set pieces, but the 2023 hit was still very much a traditional siege horror like the original movie and its 2013 remake. In contrast, Evil Dead Burn looks more like Rec, 2004\u2019s Dawn of the Dead, or even From Dusk Til Dawn judging by its trailer’s bone-crunching fight scenes.<\/p>\n

Evil Dead Burn\u2019s Big Change Could Be Great News<\/p>\n

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\n A Deadite From Evil Dead Burn Preparing To Drink Candle Wax<\/p>\n

Given the critically abhorred history of action horror movies, readers could be forgiven for assuming that things look bleak for Evil Dead Burn. However, this need not be the case. Already, the movie\u2019s trailer features a memorably horrifying moment where a grinning Deadite swallows a candle\u2019s hot wax with a grin, as well as a finger-severing shock that will leave many viewers watching between their own fingers.<\/p>\n

Clearly, the series isn\u2019t toning down its gore or scares in order to ramp up the action, unlike some lesser action horror movies. Furthermore, it is worth remembering that the franchise hasn\u2019t gone wrong so far despite its many tonal changes and subtler genre shifts. 2013 went darker and grittier, 2023 went for an urban setting and more outrageous gore, II famously upped the cartoonish comedy. Still, so far, the Evil Dead series<\/a> is one of the most consistently critically acclaimed horror franchises ever.<\/p>\n


\n \"Lily<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Related<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\tEvil Dead Is Doing Something Other Horror Franchises Rarely Do
\n\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

The Evil Dead series is still releasing new films over 40 years after it started, and it’s doing something that’s rare for other horror franchises.<\/p>\n

Since Cregger\u2019s Resident Evil reboot looks great despite also being an unapologetic action horror, viewers might be relieved to hear that this genre shift isn\u2019t necessarily a kiss of death for Evil Dead Burn. On the contrary, this upcoming movie might see the franchise revive the action horror genre with a story that is as thrilling as it is terrifying. As proven by movies like 2004\u2019s Dawn of the Dead or 2007\u2019s Rec, an action-packed story doesn\u2019t necessarily mean an action horror isn\u2019t terrifying. Now, Evil Dead Burn can prove this applies to the Evil Dead series.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While 2026\u2019s Evil Dead franchise reboot was exciting even before its first full-length trailer dropped, the revelation that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":415245,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[156,409,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-415244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-entertainment","tag-movies","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=415244"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415244\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/415245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=415244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=415244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=415244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}