Watching Evil Dead Burn is the cinematic equivalent of a cardio workout. It’s an intense, gory, brutal movie that all but begs you to stay in your seat and take a breather when it’s over. Thankfully, director Sébastien Vaniček rewards fans who stick around with not one, but two end credits scenes, one of which teases something much bigger happening in the Evil Dead universe. Let’s discuss but beware, major spoilers follow.
In the first scene, located in the middle of the credits, we see that Grandma Polly’s (Maude Davey) Deadite form has survived. Yes, Alice (Souheila Yacoub) left her for dead in the burning house, but, unlike some other Price family members, we didn’t see her head brutally smashed to oblivion. So it makes sense she got out.
Deadite Polly is crawling on the street when a young woman pulls her car over to help her. The young woman sees an elderly, one-legged woman on the street and feels pity. Polly just sees a new body with two legs and, we assume, kills her, passing along the Deadite curse. The Price family lives on.
Then, at the very end of the credits, we get the even more consequential scene, one that Warner Bros. didn’t include in some early screenings. We’re back at the funeral home where the Price family held Will’s funeral, the event that basically started this whole thing. Well, the undertaker there is with her young daughter, and they’re placing urns on a shelf. The undertaker explains that these are remains that families never picked up, which is quite sad. So she holds onto them for a while just in case someone does come for them eventually.
The daughter looks at the urns and reads the names, ending on a name fans of the franchise should recognize: Ellie Bixler, played by Alyssa Sutherland. Ellie was the main antagonist of the previous movie, Evil Dead Rise, who we saw decimated by a wood chipper. The undertaker’s daughter hears a voice and then sees Ellie in a mirror. Ellie quickly emerges from the mirror and kills the young girl.
What, exactly, is happening here is purposefully unclear, but we’re going to try to unpack it. Here’s what we know. Ellie, the evil Deadite from the previous movie, has somehow come back despite being totally destroyed, and she returned at the funeral home where the Price family from Evil Dead Burn held services. So what does that mean? How can it all fit in?
The links begin at the beginning. Evil Dead Burn starts at the same lake that Evil Dead Rise started at. Rise showed that a woman named Jessica had become a Deadite and killed all her friends. Later, that film also revealed Jessica lived in the same building as Ellie and her family. Evil Dead Rise ends with the presumption that Ellie or at least Ellie’s Deadite power has transferred to Jessica.
Jessica is still around at the start of Evil Dead Burn, and gets things started by killing a few more people at the lake. Then, by either fate or evil, she’s able to locate and kill Will Price, the grandson of Benjamin Price, who studied the Necronomicon. Burn’s storyline is about a dagger that Benjamin owned, which is the only thing that can stop the Deadites. And so Jessica killing Will is the Deadites’ way to get closer to the family that still owns the weapon that can stop them.
That, of course, then becomes the entire plot of the movie, which, if you’re reading this, you’ve probably seen. Bringing things back to the end credit scene, we know that this dagger is almost like a beacon for Deadites. It calls to them, almost taunting them, which is how we surmise Jessica found Will, and the whole plot begins. Since Alice still has the dagger at the end of the movie, and we know at least Deadite Polly is still out there, we think Ellie’s reemergence could be the Deadites tapping into even more power to continue the quest for the dagger. Whatever power the evil creatures have can certainly be stopped for a while, but it can never be truly contained. Since Ellie’s remains still remained, so too did a part of her, and now she’s back.
Now, that’s just speculation. The movie itself doesn’t give us any answers except “Ellie is back, and she reemerged in the same funeral home that’s in this movie.” But we do know there’s more story to be told, and the link certainly leaves the door open for a more connected Evil Dead universe.
To this point, anything Evil Dead that didn’t have Bruce Campbell as Ash has been largely standalone. And yet, Rise and Burn have enough connections, both through characters and locations, that it’s very clear they’re in the same universe—a universe that will continue on the big screen in 2028’s Evil Dead Wraith. However, that’s expected to be a prequel to even the Sam Raimi films. Whatever is next for the dagger, Alice, Ellie, and the rest would have to come after that.
What did you think of Evil Dead Burn? Did you enjoy the end credits scenes? Let us know below.
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