Halloween 2026: September 23rd

Evil Dead Burn (2026)

For a many years, “Evil Dead 4” was high on the list of sequels fans were still clamoring for. Sam Raimi was busy making “Spider-Man” and the public had stubbornly refused to make Bruce Campbell a huge star, so it seemed like a long-shot for years. That was well before our franchise-driven future, where it seems any semi-recognizable “I.P.” gets happily exploited. Not only have we had the long-requested “Evil Dead 4” with Ash back – as a three season television series anyway – but we're now on the sixth theatrical entry in the franchise. The success of “Evil Dead Rise” saw Sam, Bruce, and Robert Tappert shepherding a promising young filmmaker into the franchise, allowing him a lot of freedom to expand the boundaries of the series. This is a strategy they intend on repeating. Sébastien Vaniček, based on the strength of his spider thriller “Infested,” got selected to make the next “Evil Dead.” While “Rise” was enthusiastically received by fans and audiences, “Evil Dead Burn” proved much more divisive. Now, it's my turn to weigh in. 

Will Price and his French wife, Alice, celebrate the birthday of his little brother, Joseph. Alice and Will's relationship is volatile and the two argue outside the night club, Will leaving in a huff. It's the last time they'll speak, as Will crashes his car into a Deadite and is consumed by the flames of the wreck. Alice attends the funeral with Will's family. Including his parents, Susan and Edgar, and his senile grandmother, Polly. At the home afterwards, the grieving family notices that Edgar is acting strangely, confrontational and violent. Alice soon learns that her late husband's family had a history of black magic and devilry. Their grandfather studied the Necronomicon and uncovered a Kandarian dagger capable of banishing the evil spirits back to Hell. The Evil Dead are aware of this connection, seeking to destroy the family before the weapon is found again. Alice is soon forced to fight for survival. 

“Evil Dead Rise” would reinvent the franchise by doing two simple things: First, moving the premise out of the isolated cabin and into an urban apartment building. Secondly, it left Ash behind and place the possessing spirits within a neurotic family. “Burn” follows this same formula but in, perhaps, too literal a fashion. Once again, we have a troubled young woman as our heroine. She is an outsider within her own family. Bitterness lingers, Will's family blaming his widow for unsettling his life and leading to this tragedy. As in “Rise,” the Kandarian demons are physical manifestations of the simmering anxieties within this group. This is made depressingly literal at times, the possessed Price family outright blaming Alice for Will's death. “Burn” also copies “Rise's” structure to a slavish degree. It continues the pattern of a slow infection of those around our heroine, building towards a confrontation with a “final boss” of a threat. The sequel goes so far as to double-down on “Rise's” habit of using unexpected household objects as implements of violence. 

I ended up liking “Evil Dead Rise” a lot more than expected because I became surprisingly invested in the plight of Beth, Ellie, and Ellie's kids. These characters had quirks, hobbies, personalities outside of their immediate roles in the story. “Burn” is unable to flesh-out its group in a similar fashion. Joseph is a would-be writer, something he's not yet found success at. Will's business of owning a restaurant is brought up a few times. However, the family is mostly defined by one simple characteristic each. Such as father Edgar's anger, grandmother Polly's dementia, or mom Susan's desperation to make it all work. Some of the cast, like Joseph's girlfriend, don't get that much. At the center is Alice, whose backstory is wrapped up in the abuse she suffered at her late husband's hands. Souheila Yacoub seems like a capable enough actress but the script lets her down. Alice's arc, of overcoming lingering trauma and dispelling personal and literal demons, feels extremely old hat after a decade of trauma-core horror films.

Focusing the film on this element, on a grieving family falling apart and directing all their pain at an outsider, results in a prickly ensemble. Everyone is hurting in “Evil Dead Burn” and so most of them are acting like assholes. That seems to be a statement of purpose for the film, the off-putting characters establishing an aggressive tone. The violence, naturally, follows that lead. There's a lot of splattering blood and dismemberment in “Burn.” Occasionally, the sequel finds some properly cringe-inducing pain. Fingers slammed in a car door, rebar through the meaty side of someone's leg, or a hard landing on a set of knives are effectively brutal. However, “Burn's” gory shenanigans are so persistent, that it soon looses much of its flare. When you start with the punishing visual of the family dog getting repeatedly jabbed in the eye with a fork, it establishes a mean-spirited tone that is not conducive to the harsh but playful mayhem of this series.

That might be my biggest issue with “Evil Dead Burn.” Vaniček and cinematographer Phillip Lozano throw in a few Raimi-esque tracking shots. There's the expected trick of the camera assuming the perspective of an otherworldly force as it swoops through the air towards someone. That includes a shot careening over a moving car. Vaniček includes a few other creative camera angles, such as the spinning sequence that inverts gravity or a neat aerial shot. Unfortunately, there's a distressing drabness to much of “Burn's” look. The film goes with the same overcast, overwhelmingly grey coloration that makes far too many horror movies feel lifeless. When “Burn” came out this past summer, I saw some folks bemoaning how “Evil Dead” movies weren't funny anymore. “Burn” actually does make a couple of attempts to recapture the chaotic comedy of Raimi's work. I like an atypical blunt object being used to bludgeon someone in one scene or the weirdness of, say, a lingering close-up on a big twerking ass. However, looser touches like this stand in stark contrast to the otherwise dour atmosphere.

There's one moment in “Evil Dead Burn” that I liked a lot. It's a scene wherein the unresolved pain between mother and daughter shifts into serenity. Obviously, this is one of the deceptive visions the Deadites tend to employ to trick their victims. However, the idea that Luciferian entities actually could be inviting to some people would be a new idea for the franchise. Instead, this is a brief moment in-between more gory set-pieces and route psycho-drama. My final verdict is that “Evil Dead Burn” simply doesn't feel enough like an “Evil Dead” movie. Its last act, in which the heroine is pitted against a CGI monster, feels especially uninspired. This is a shame, as I thought “Infested” was quite good and was hoping the new direction for the “Evil Dead” series would keep working. The next installment is already lined-up and I really liked the last movie that director made too, so hopefully this is not a pattern setting in. [5/10] 

Baxter (1989)

Very little information circulates about the author Ken Greenhall. We know that he was born in 1928 and that he died in 2014. That he was the son of English immigrants and a retired professor. What we most know about him is evident in his work: Six novels, published between 1976 and 1998. Some were printed under his own name and some under his mother's name, Jessica Hamilton. Almost all of them deal with evil lurking in innocent seeming packages, coldly commenting on the "normal" world they observe. Such as a teenage witch in "Elizabeth," a caretaker who murders her elderly wards in "The Companion," or everyday psychopaths playing a game of homicide in the small town of "Death Chain." (Or, for a similar but less malicious example, an African slave taken into white high society in "Lenoir," his final publication.) Greenhall saw little success in his lifetime. His books remained out-of-print until a few were rediscovered by Will Erricksson of "Too Much Horror Fiction" and reprinted as part of his and Grady Hendrix's Paperbacks from Hell imprint. Despite his obscurity at the time, one of Greenhall's titles would be adapted to film. His 1977 novella "Hell Hound" would become the 1989 French film, "Baxter." It has remained something of a cult classic over the years and is far more famous than the book that inspired it. 

The title character is a pure white bull terrier, that dog breed with the ellipsoidal heads, squinty eyes, pointy ears, and stocky bodies. Baxter is a mere canine but his thoughts are complex. He observes the human world, often not understanding man's behavior and frustrated by the roles they place upon him. He desires to be outside, to hunt and kill, but his first owner is a reclusive old lady. At first she is afraid of him but later demands he always be by her side. Once Baxter has had enough, he trips the woman and sends her falling down the stairs to her death. Baxter is next adopted by a newly-wed couple, who give him raw meat and play with him outside often. That is until they have a child, Baxter feeling resentment and jealousy over the new "Creature" who has usurped his place. After this situation escalates badly, Baxter finds his way to the home of Carl. Carl is thirteen year old boy with an unhealthy fixation on Adolf Hitler and especially upon his last days in the bunker. The two complement each other at first but soon Carl pushes Baxter too far. 

Most reviews refer to “Baxter” as being a story narrated by a dog that is also a sociopath. I'm not so sure. Humans inevitably tend to anthropomorphize animals, especially the ones they spend the most time with. We pamper our pets, tell them we love them, treat them like family. We assume that they feel the same way about us. However, a dog is still an animal. Its consciousness is not like that of a man's. They have no sense of morality, of social boundaries. These are human inventions. A dog is still running the firmware of a predator, driven to hunt and kill to survive. “Baxter” does a good job of reflecting this, of displaying how its canine protagonist relates to other living things through smells, emotion, and body language. Is Baxter a sociopath because he wants to kill the smothering, neurotic old woman who insists he take a bath with her, despite him making it very clear he doesn't want to do that? Or is he simply being a dog? Through these ideas, the film asks how to consider how well we actually know our beloved animal companions. 

“Baxter” goes a good job of reminding us of this, that dogs are instinctual. They must dig in the dirt, roll around in the grass, sniff everything. The girl next door to Carl has a Cocker Spanial that's in heat. Baxter has contempt for things smaller, weaker, squishier than him. Babies and females do not have his predatory impulse. Despite that, he can not stop himself from rutting with the bitch, feeling disgusted as he does it. He's more like the people around them than he would care to admit. His first owner is an old woman, isolated and alone. She is in need of companionship and sees that in the dog cohabiting with her. The married couple are similarly screwing all the time, sometimes caused to act on these hormonal needs when it's not convenient. When the baby – the “Creature” as Baxter calls it – arrives, they are similarly hardwired to protect and care for it. Are all living things, dogs and humans alike, slaves to their natural inclinations? If so, can we blame anyone for simply doing what they are programmed to do?

This question becomes especially brain-tingling when you look at the actions of little Carl. The kid is not like other boys, obviously. Hyper-fixating on Hitler and the details of his suicide, to the point that he's compelled to built a replica of the Führerbunker in his dad's junk yard, would qualify as concerning behavior to most. It's evident from the moment we meet Carl that his morbid fascination will bend towards attempted homicide eventually. Carl also gives Baxter something else he's genetically predisposed towards that nobody else does. Dogs have been bred for centuries to take commands from humans. The need for obedience is almost literally in their blood. Carl tells the dog to heel, trains him to act on this built-in tendency to serve a master. More than once, Baxter describes this not only as unavoidable but pleasurable. He's happy to do it. This becomes especially morbid in the final scene, where the dog's need to follow orders acts against his own interest. If obedience is in Baxter's nature, and all of us are victims of instinct, are people designed to follow orders too? When contrasted with Carl's Hitler obsession, I wonder if “Baxter” isn't one of those high-minded dissertation on fascism that European filmmakers love so much. 

“Baxter” usually gets classified as a horror film or pitch black comedy. I'm not sure what other genre it would comfortably fit into, equal parts too grim and absurd to be anything else. However, the emotion the film mostly made me feel was sad. Baxter's opening lines are about darkness, the blank non-existence from which we all emerge and all return to. He spends his life misunderstood, considered a harmless pet when he's hungry for blood or reduced to an accessory when he's made to chomp on rats. While Carl and Baxter can operate on a similar wavelength for a while, it is destined to fail. The dog is, ultimately, alone in this world. As loathsome a character as Carl is, I couldn't help but feel kind of bad for him too. He doesn't want to be a little bastard as much as the bull terrier doesn't want to be a dog. As the film heads towards its unavoidable and deeply sad ending, the feelings I had were more tragic than anything else.

The result is a movie that entombs the viewer in a chilled, distressing feeling. “Baxter” is surrounded by the animal's interior monologue, provided by the exact and calmly calculating Maxime Leroux. That sense of isolation and loveless hunger for violence spreads to the viewer eventually too. Another reason I might have found the movie sad is because there are several scenes where the actors are very obviously, actually hitting the dog. I don't like that. Don't hurt animals. Dogs don't know what a movie or acting is. Baxter might be unhinged in his blood lust but I'm sure the real bull terriers playing him was a very good boy, who didn't deserve any of that. But there I go anthropomorphize a creature that is basically still a wolf. I suppose my point is that “Baxter” is a very thoughtful, interesting motion picture if you can accept certain aspects of it. [7/10]

The Hitchhiker: When Morning Comes

“The Hitchhiker” was HBO's first dramatic original program and you can tell they were cautious about whether or not it would work. The show's first season is all of three episodes long, a trilogy of try-out installments that could easily be repackaged as a movie if the project went no further. Obviously, “The Hitchhiker” did go on to a successful run but one element from the “pilot” season did not. Before Paige Fletcher donned the denim and the mullet, the travelling host was played by Nicholas Campbell. After the show went to series, these host segments were re-filmed with Fletcher, casting Campbell's brief tenure as “The Hitchhiker” into the void. Luckily, static-filled VHS recordings still survive. Every previous episodes of this show I've covered have been from the Fletcher seasons, so this is my first exposure to Nic Campbell as the Hitchhiker. As absurdly easy as it is to make fun of the faux-philosophical nonsense Paige Fletcher delivered in the role, he definitely has a lot more charisma and screen presence than the non-entity that is Campbell. 

But what about “When Morning Comes?” Despite looking like if Casey Kasem had been left to tan in the sun, music executive Bob Ames is able to charm any lady out of her pants. He's driving to an isolated cabin he owns and arrives in a rainstorm. To his surprise, he finds a shapely blonde undressed before his fire place. She introduces herself as Cat and explains that she was simply seeking shelter in the storm. It's not long before the two are humping on the bear-skin rug. During their post-coital cuddling, Bob hears a news report on the radio: A female serial killer, known for slashing the throats of her lovers, has escaped a near-by mental institute. After hearing that she matches Cat's description – and noticing her odd behavior, which seems fixated on animals hunting other animals – Bob gets proactive. He fights back against the woman before she can kill him.... But is she really the killer or is this all a big misunderstanding?

Most episodes of “The Hitchhiker” play like a dumber, hornier version of “Alfred Hitchcock Presents.” This means the program is often attempting to misdirect the viewer, when it's not putting some bare T&A on-screen. “When Morning Comes” does both. It plays a game with the audience, asking us to double-guess what does and does not seem like the most obvious turn of events. Bob having unknowingly shacked up with a femme fatale is the immediate observation. Despite her extremely suspicious behavior, Cat denies his allegations. Alright, so is she really a murderer or is Bob violently leaping to the wrong conclusion? It's pretty obvious which is the likelier event. However, “When Morning Comes” actually has a third, dumber ending in mind. It's such a silly turn-of-events that I have to assume it's at least partially supposed to be funny.

The writing is, overall, a bit goofy. Basing the entire episode around the hoary old “escaped lunatic” set-up suggests a certain inability to resist cliches. Given the much lower number of female serial killers, making the murderer a woman makes the situation more improbable. Bob strikes me as an unlikely ladies' man, especially considering he successfully uses the same line twice. Despite these short-comings, I actually did like “When Morning Comes.” The title-lending chase sequence, the two parties facing off against each other in the early morning woods, is a decently suspenseful sequence. As for the more puerile interests, Pamela Bowman as Cat fills the nudity quota that HBO surely demanded and, I'll admit, that too is a highlight of the episode. [7/10]

Friday the 13th: The Series: Bedazzled

Most episodes of “Friday the 13th: The Series” revolve around the nature of whatever the chosen Artifact of Doom is. You can't write a story about a cursed magician's box and not have the episode be about stage magic. However, one suspects that sometimes the show's writers had a general set-up for an episode and combined it with whatever evil object was at the top of the idea pile. I bring this up because it describes “Bedazzled.” This episode sticks Micki and the ten year old boy she's baby-sitting into a home invasion scenario. A hurricane has blown in and Ryan and Jack are visiting a fortune teller's convention. A pair of bad guys pose as telephone repair men to make it inside. They terrorize and tie up the residents, as they seek out the demonic doodad that was recently taken from them. 

In this case, that item is a magical old lantern. Its light leads the wielder to buried or sunken treasure. In return, the lantern must shine its light on a human being, who are reduced to ash by the ray. But that's not all that important. “Bedazzled” featuring a deadly ship's lantern is relevant in the first scene, when the heroic trio steal it off the bad guy's vessal. Mostly, the only way it effects the story is by making the villain a salty sea dog. I don't know why the writers' room went in that direction. However, I must say that Alan Jordan is fittingly sleazy and intimidating as this murderous pirate. He's the type of on-screen baddie who is so focused on his goal – getting that damn lantern back – that he has no qualms about taking human life. When he strangles the actual phone repairman with a cord, he follows it up with a one-liner about how “they got disconnected.” 

The Curious Goods antique's shop is still the show's strongest setting, so I don't object to an episode being based in it. Micki makes a decent final girl, believable as both someone who could be caught off-guard but still be brave enough to fight back. The kid's main contribution to the story is that he scares Micki by jumping out in a weird tribal mask. That jump-scare is another indicator that “The Series” is drawing from the proper “Friday the 13th” films. There's a fairly bloody impaling with a spear and a dead body playing peek-a-boo at one point. Naturally, the villain gets an ironically gruesome final fate. By the way, the title is especially meaningless. If you do an image search for “Friday the 13th” and “Bedazzled,” most of the results are of rhinestone encrusted hockey masks. [7/10]