Aahana Swrup
‘Evil Dead Burn’ charts a horrifying tale of survival where an unpleasant reunion with the in-laws turns into something much more terrifying. The Price family enters the deadites’ radar when an oblivious Joseph goes through his grandfather’s belongings and unwittingly sets off a beacon that sends out an alert to the nearby demonic spirits. Grandpa Benjamin Price was a member of the Circle of the Wise Men, a secret society that had managed to unearth the Kandarian Dagger, a powerful weapon capable of sending these parasitic spirits back to hell.
Naturally, once the spell of concealment has been broken, it compels the demons to target the family by orchestrating Will’s death and bringing the grieving family together under the same roof. After a long, arduous, and bloodied fight, in which each member slowly succumbs to possession, Will’s widow, Alice, finally manages to find the dagger and emerge victorious. Yet, the story doesn’t end with her survival, as seen in the two end-credit scenes. SPOILERS AHEAD!
Polly is the Only Deadite Survivor of the Price Family Massacre
Throughout the film, Grandma Polly remains out of the loop regarding the reality of everything that is unfolding around her family. The elder woman’s dementia diagnosis makes it difficult for her to hold on to facts and memories, especially newly developing ones. As a result, she’s constantly left behind in a state of confusion. Unfortunately for her and the rest of the Prices, this becomes a weakness that the deadites can easily exploit in their fight against her. Early on, when Edgar and his dog Max are circling the premises of the house, Polly invites trouble after letting deadite Thya out of the basement, opening herself and her family up to attacks. Consequently, she’s one of the first ones to be infected with demonic possession inside the house.
In the end, Alice traps Polly in her stair-lift, erasing her as a viable threat. Shortly afterward, she sets the entire house on fire, killing Edgar and presumably his mother in the process. However, as it turns out, the latter managed to escape from a fiery fate. As proven in the mid-credit scene, Polly manages to tear herself away from the stair-lift, in a literal sense. Leaving her chopped off legs behind, she flees from the house before it burns down around her and continues crawling away towards the road. The next morning, a passerby spots the severely injured grandmother crawling on the road, which compels her to step out of her vehicle to help. Alas, all the passerby does is offer a new victim to Polly, who can continue to spread her demonic influence.
Ellie Bixler Makes a Comeback
The second and final post-credit scene in the film takes the viewers back to the funeral home that hosted Will’s funeral. The crematorium’s owner and her daughter come across a wall of unclaimed urns that contains the ashes of people whose families never claimed their remains. The kid takes notice of the turns belonging to two specific people: Christopher Leroy and Ellie Bixler. The first name is more obscure and seems to have no direct connection to the franchise, at least yet. It could potentially be an easter egg for a future character or a simple reference to yet-undisclosed real-life trivia. Embedding real-life references and facts is a long-standing tradition in horror media, which makes this an equally realistic possibility.
On the other hand, Ellie Bixler is a name most fans of the ‘Evil Dead’ franchise will recognize. She is the protagonist of ‘Evil Dead Rise,’ the fifth installment in the series. In the 2023 film, she’s the first to become possessed by the Kandarian curse and suffers death via a wood chipper at the end of the story. Yet, death for deadites, at least of the mortal variety, isn’t always a dead end. As such, all this time, the deadite possessing Ellie has been alive, even if shut out of the realm of the living. At the crematorium, the same spirit leads the young kid to a mirror, where Ellie showcases her first glimpse. Afterward, she materialized behind the young girl and delivered her to a gruesome death before making a smug declaration: “Mommy’s home.” While the details of this resurrection are yet to be revealed, Ellie’s return promises to become a significant plot point in the franchise’s future.
Read More: Where Was Evil Dead Burn Filmed?
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