The Evil Dead franchise is known for not holding back when it comes to gore, but it sounds as though the next installment may be the most gruesome yet, as Evil Dead Burn director Sébastien Vaniček says one scene was so violent, he had to cut it out.
“There is a scene that is not R-rated,” Vaničekin said in the latest issue of SFX magazine (which has House of the Dragon season 3 on the cover). “It’s a really, really hard scene. And I have to cut it, unfortunately, so you just won’t experience it as brutally as it is right now because I need to have the R-rated movie. So we are trying to find a good balance.”
At the time of the interview, Vaniček was in the middle of getting the movie rated by the Motion Picture Association. The goal was to achieve an R rating in the US (which equates to a 15 or 18 age rating in the UK), in line with the rest of the franchise.
Vaniček didn’t give any clues on what the scene entailed, but if it was too much for an R-rating, we can only imagine the level of gore. Evil Dead Rise contained a scene where a possessed victim grated their face with a cheese grater, and the 2013 Evil Dead remake showed a girl cutting her own arm off with an electric carving knife. Still, both movies managed to earn an R-rating in the US and an 18 rating in the UK. So, the cut Evil Dead Burn scene must have been extremely graphic.
Evil Dead Burn follows a grieving woman who has recently lost her husband, and in search of comfort, visits her in-laws at their secluded family home. However, the family reunion soon turns into the trip from hell as the Book of the Dead transforms them into Deadites one by one. Evil Dead Burn does not act as a sequel to Evil Dead Rise, but the first trailer did contain a cheeky nod to the 2023 movie.
However, fans of gore may still be able to see the cut scene one day, as Vaniček is already thinking about releasing Director’s Cut later down the line. “The director’s cut will be way more violent than what we will have in the theater,” said the director, who promised that the movie heading to theaters will still have its fair share of carnage.
Evil Dead Burn releases on July 10. In the meantime, check out our guide to the most exciting upcoming horror movies heading our way.
