Gil MaciasMore than 45 years ago, Sam Raimi and his high school buddies Bruce Campbell and Robert Tapert changed the horror genre forever with The Evil Dead. Equipped with a 16mm camera, a small budget, and a whole lot of ambition and fake blood, they went into the woods of Morristown, Tennessee, and conceived what would become known as “the ultimate experience in grueling terror.” Little did they know, the film would evolve into a multi-generational legacy of chainsaw-revving, boomstick-toting, Deadite-slaughtering cinema (for the uninitiated, Deadites are parasitic demons who possess human hosts). In 2026, the franchise — which also includes three seasons of STARZ’ Ash vs. Evil Dead (2015-2018) — is still alive and well, with a sixth installment, Evil Dead Burn, set to unleash more unholy mayhem on July 10.
But the torch has been passed, this time to French filmmaker Sébastien Vaniček. Raimi, who hasn’t directed an Evil Dead movie since 1993’s Army of Darkness, has taken a backseat these days, producing new installments of the enduring franchise alongside series veterans Campbell and Tapert. Even Campbell — who played the wisecracking mascot Ash Williams for over 35 years — hung up his chainsaw and took a behind-the-scenes role as executive producer for the latest movies. From the bone-snapping intensity of Fede Álvarez’s 2013 reimagining to Lee Cronin’s skyscraper nightmare, Evil Dead Rise (2023), the series has thrived by allowing fresh new filmmakers to have some fun in Raimi’s blood-soaked sandbox.
Director SÉBASTIEN VANIČEK and LUCIANE BUCHANAN as Thya in “Evil Dead Burn.” (Matt Klitscher / Warner Bros. Pictures)
In 2023, Vaniček turned the heads of horror fans with his claustrophobic directorial debut, Infested (Vermines), a skin-crawling creature feature that weaponized real spiders and relentless pacing to prove he understood tension on a visceral level. It caught the eye of Raimi, who personally recruited Vaniček to take the reins of the sixth installment in the legendary franchise.
The result is Evil Dead Burn, a sequel touted as the most savage entry yet. Starring Souheila Yacoub (Dune: Part Two) as Alice and Hunter Doohan (Wednesday) as Joseph, the film follows a grieving family seeking solace in a secluded home, only for their gathering to morph into a literal family reunion from hell. Just a day after Evil Dead Burn’s jam-packed fan screening event in Los Angeles, Vaniček spoke with LA Weekly about the enormous pressures that come with making a sequel for a franchise with not just a long legacy, but also such a passionate fanbase. He also opens up about his ratings battle with the Motion Picture Association, whether an extended cut of the film exists, and how Evil Dead Burn ties into the lore established by the original movies.
LA Weekly: After your film Infested came out, you were approached by Sam Raimi and recruited to make an Evil Dead movie. I am sure you were excited, and ultimately, you were the right man for the job — the film really delivers. But was there ever a bit of pressure going into this knowing that you were going to make a sequel to a franchise film that has a 45-year legacy behind it?
Sébastien Vaniček: To be honest, it was the opposite. The pressure built up at the end. When I arrived, I was like just a young French guy arriving and being like, “Oh, that’s so cool.” I was just amazed by the fact that I was meeting such an important director. But then, when we started to write and prep the movie, it was very much like working with a family, because you are working with people who have known each other for a long time — they know their franchise. So it was very close.
(Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures)
And then shooting in New Zealand, it got bigger because a lot of people were working, but still, it was teamwork. So at the end, when you are making a movie, it’s all about craft. You have a camera and you are shooting an actor. So even if you have $50 or $250, whatever, in the end, it’s about capturing emotions. And then, when I was editing and we did screenings and things like that, that’s when I was like, “Oh, I’m doing something pretty big,” and fans are waiting for it. And yesterday’s screening was pretty amazing for me. I was amazed by the amount of people and the amount of love and how important this franchise is to them. It was amazing.
Sam Raimi, Robert Tapert, and Bruce Campbell are the holy trinity of this franchise. This is their baby. They made the first movie when they were teenagers. Did any of them give you words of wisdom that you will always remember?
I met all of them and I was lucky enough to be able to work a little bit with all of them. These are three high school friends who are just having fun with each other. So it’s so cool. And I was feeling very, very confident with these guys. They wanted the movie to succeed. They wanted me to succeed. And they were just like, “We want you to have all the weapons you need, all the tools you need.” So the only advice was like, “No limits, have fun and just go as far as you want to go and the movie will be great,” so they trusted me and that’s priceless.
(Matt Klitscher / Warner Bros. Pictures)
You once said Evil Dead Burn would be the most brutal yet, and you kept your promise. It’s no-holds-barred gore and violence from beginning to end. But you also injected just the right amount of humor. You used the Grandma Polly (Maude Davey) character for some comic relief, which brought in some moments of levity between all the chaos. The first Evil Dead is the most serious of the original trilogy, and Evil Dead 2 is where the comedy really came in. It seems like you paid respects to both without going overboard on the latter.
Yeah, nobody wants to step in Sam Raimi’s footsteps. It’s his work, his humor — he is Evil Dead. So when you are injecting humor, you have to be really careful, even more in horror movies. It’s all about having a good balance.
And I love to laugh when I’m watching a movie, especially when it’s a horror movie. I think it’s very cathartic to be able to laugh at some point. It’s also a question of managing all this tension and letting the audience be able to breathe at some point and then release the tension or whatever.
(Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures)
I always wrote things that are a little bit funny at some point, they are never 100 percent dark. So when we started writing this Evil Dead movie, of course, we wanted to have humor. We didn’t want the film to be like a comedy, but at some point, things are ridiculous if you are facing a Deadite who is cutting its head. It’s kind of ridiculous and the reaction can be really surprisingly funny, you know? So it’s about playing with that and trying to manage all of that and having a good balance.
I could be wrong here, but it felt like Polly was an homage to Henrietta from Evil Dead 2. Am I right, or was I just seeing things?
You can see it however you want, and you would be 100 percent right. We are dealing with a family, so we wanted to have all the clichés of a family. We wanted to have all the characters that everybody would relate to. And grandmothers are definitely something that we relate to. Taking care of your grandmother is something we know, and it’s a nightmare to think about your grandmother becoming ill and having to take care of her, and what was really interesting is what would happen if those Deadites would start possessing someone who already lost her mind. Maybe the opposite will happen, so she has her mind back. And that’s even scarier than having her without her mind. That’s kind of funny, but in a dark way.
(Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures)
It’s clear from the opening that this film connects with Evil Dead Rise. But there are also a lot of Easter eggs that fans are going to notice right away. Your film is set in the same house Ruby Knowby used in Ash vs. Evil Dead, so now fans are going to wonder if there’s a connection there. I’m also curious if there was any talk about how Evil Dead Burn connects to the original movies, because there are three different Necronomicon books floating around in this universe.
Yeah, but if you take the [Ash vs. Evil Dead] series — you understand that the lore is completely chaotic. And when you start to work in this universe, you are like, “Okay, so what are the rules?” It’s like, there are no rules [Laughs]. For me, it’s all about having fun and playing with things, playing with expectations, and playing with fans who want to see things and want to find things. So, of course, you want everything to be connected, but it doesn’t mean that you put that here because it means whatever. This is a work that fans will do better than myself. The only thing I wanted to do is give them tools and toys for them to have fun.
Famously, this franchise has always had battles with the MPAA and sometimes things have to be cut to avoid an NC-17 rating. Can you talk about things you maybe had to sacrifice or fight to keep in? And if there was anything too extreme that had to be cut, will there ever be a future unrated version on Blu-ray?
I’d love to see more scenes in an unrated cut. I don’t know what will happen. I don’t know if it will see the light of day, because, regarding brutality and violence, I didn’t cut too much, to be honest. I had to trim things, but not cut things.
(Matt Klitscher / Warner Bros. Pictures)
So, I did cut, but I’m not sure it would allow a director’s cut, or unrated, and we’d have like 15 minutes of more pure violence. I had my battles against the MPAA, of course, but not to be NC-17, but it was more like playing with cuts and shots and trying to release a little bit of pressure.
But regarding a director’s cut, the only thing I would miss are some scenes that are more dramatic. We have to wait and see if the fans are responsive to the other elements I added to the franchise, which are not just pure brutality and violence, but more like character and relationship moments.
As someone like Bruce Campbell will probably tell you, it’s the fanbase that keeps these movies alive. Are you in it for the long haul? And what I mean by that is, the cast of these films are invited to every comic book or horror convention year after year. There are also endless interviews, reunion panels, and commentaries for new anniversary edition Blu-rays that seem to come out every five years. So do you see yourself as an old man one day, maybe 45 years from now, talking to fans about Evil Dead Burn?
Of course, I’d love to. We’ll see what happens in the future, but yeah, when you put your hands in this franchise, you know what you are dealing with. There are a lot of fans, but there will be other movies, I hope. I think what Sam Raimi did is amazing. You know, those three first movies: those are the OGs. Those are the important ones. I’m not saying that we are not important — we are different. It’s a new generation, a new type of Evil Dead. It’s a new audience too. So the audience who’s going to those gatherings and signings — they basically want to see Ash — and everybody’s talking about Ash all the time. If that happens to Souheila for Alice’s character, that would be amazing. That would be so cool. But again, I can’t predict that. I don’t know. So we’ll see how the audience reacts to it and I hope it will be good.
(Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures)
It’s an exciting time for horror right now. A lot of people say we’re experiencing a horror renaissance. Horror’s dominating the box office right now. We’ve got Backrooms and Obsession killing it. And last year, Warner Bros. had a great year with the genre. Sinners and Weapons both took home major Oscars. For you, as a rising horror director, do you feel like it’s an exciting time for the genre and what would you like to contribute to it next?
It’s very exciting. It’s a little bit like changing the rules and that’s what I like. As an audience, I’m saying that we don’t want to see the same movies again and again and again. So, there is so much creativity in horror movies because these are movies that can be really successful even if they are really, really cheap. So you need a good idea, you need a good director, and you need good actors, a good story. And that’s pure cinema. It’s not about how much money you can put in CG.
So I think people are craving that type of creativity, imagination, and also, honesty. Because we are making these movies with a lot of love because they are really hard to make. And I think the audience is reacting to that honesty and they are feeling that love for cinema. So I would love to be part of it and I would love the audience to respond to my movie and understand how much love and effort we put into it for the experience to be huge in the theater, because we want the experience to be physical. We know how expensive the tickets are — and we want it to be worth it. That’s all we want. Horror movies are the best way to have a big experience in cinema. So I think that’s why they are very, very much alive today.
“Evil Dead Burn” is in theaters this Friday, July 10, 2026.
“Evil Dead Burn” Director Sébastien Vaniček on the July 10, 2026, cover of LA Weekly. (Photo: Matt Klitscher / Warner Bros. Pictures; cover design: Mark Stefanos)