This Grisly ‘Evil Dead Burn’ Image Appears to Bring Back an ‘Evil Dead Rise’ Victim!
Yesterday, Warner Bros. and New Line Cinema released a brand new batch of images from Evil Dead Burn. While most of them offered another look at the film’s blood-soaked nightmare, one photo immediately jumped out at me.
At first glance, it looks like nothing more than another gruesome Evil Dead image. Look a little closer, though, and you’ll notice something much more interesting.
Suspended above the water on a fishing line is what appears to be a decapitated, partially scalped head. And unless I’m seeing things, it looks an awful lot like Teresa from Evil Dead Rise!
If that’s the case, Warner Bros. may have quietly revealed our biggest connection yet between the last film and Evil Dead Burn.
Fans will remember that Evil Dead Rise opens at a remote lakeside cabin where cousins Jessica (Anna-Maree Thomas), Teresa (Mirabai Pease), and Caleb spend what quickly becomes one of the franchise’s most brutal opening sequences. After becoming possessed, Jessica smashes a broken wine bottle into Teresa’s scalp, ripping away much of her scalp before killing her. She then turns her attention to Caleb, who is gruesomely decapitated by his own drone, before Jessica rises above the lake as a fully possessed Deadite, creating one of the series’ most unforgettable closing images before the story flashes back one day earlier.
That opening has already become surprisingly important to Evil Dead Burn.
Back in May, I wrote about fan speculation that the mysterious Deadite seen floating over the river in the first trailer was actually Jessica returning from Evil Dead Rise. The wedding footage shown in the trailer also appeared to take place at the same lakeside location, leading many fans to believe the new film was picking up in the aftermath of the previous movie’s opening massacre. At the time, it was just a theory.
Now, this new image may have added another piece to that puzzle.
If that really is Teresa’s remains hanging from the fishing line, Evil Dead Burn isn’t simply referencing Evil Dead Rise. It’s continuing the story from that opening sequence in a very direct way.
The Evil Dead franchise has always preferred connective tissue over outright sequels. Fede Álvarez’s Evil Dead (2013) famously hid Ash Williams’ yellow Delta 88 in the background, while Bruce Campbell also appeared in the film’s post-credits scene. Evil Dead Rise continued that tradition by featuring Campbell’s voice on one of the ancient recordings warning about the Naturom Demonto, with director Lee Cronin later explaining he viewed the voice as a time-displaced version of Ash rather than a random priest.
None of those moments were meant to dominate the story. They simply reminded fans that these films all occupy the same twisted universe.
If this latest image is what it appears to be, however, Evil Dead Burn may be taking that idea further than any modern Evil Dead film has before.
It certainly has me looking at every frame a little more closely. I wonder what else we’ll see when Evil Dead Burn hits theaters on July 10?