Evil Dead Burn credits scenes explained: The mid-credits and post-credits twists that change everything

If you blinked lately, you might have missed the commotion: there’s a new entry in the Evil Dead saga. Yes, Evil Dead Burn has finally landed in UK cinemas, and the early chatter’s been largely upbeat, although, predictably, you’ve still got the professional grumblers out in force. (If you’ve spent any time in horror fandom, you know the sort – nobody ever agrees if a sequel is ‘too different’ or ‘not different enough’.)

I actually had a good time with Burn – it’s a far sight more interesting than 2023's Evil Dead Rise, which to be frank was about as generic as microwaved white bread. Burn brings a family dynamic that actually works, and it’s not afraid to lean hard into the nasty, proper French Extreme energy we used to get in the mid-2000s. Yes, there are plenty of nods and winks for the eagle-eyed: Easter eggs aplenty, including bits that left even a grizzled Deadite veteran like me thinking, hang on, why exactly has that character popped back up?

Let’s Talk Spoilers: What Happened in Those Two Credits Scenes?

Now, if you've not seen the film yet and you'd rather be surprised, mark this spot and come back, because I’m about to get into the details. For those who stuck it out through the credits, you were rewarded (or punished, depending on your patience) with not one but two post-movie scenes:

• The first: Grandma Polly drags her newly legless self across the street, presumably having escaped in classic ‘saw-off-your-own-leg’ Deadite fashion. Out of nowhere, a woman pulls up, gets out to help (as you do, in horror movies), and promptly gets attacked for her trouble. Not particularly necessary, given that we’d already seen Polly make her escape, but hey – subtlety isn’t really a rule in Evil Dead, is it? I’d guess the filmmakers thought we’d need it spelled out: yes, evil still lurks about.

• The second: In a morgue somewhere, we meet the same Morgue Manager from earlier, explaining to her daughter that they keep the ashes of people with nobody left to collect them. The camera lingers on one urn bearing the name Ellie Bixler (recognise her from Rise?). After the manager buggers off, the daughter peers in a mirror, glimpses, you guessed it, Deadite Ellie, and is promptly taken out. Ellie drops a cheesy ‘Mommy’s Back’ one-liner, like she’s auditioning for a Marvel film. That’s your coda.

But Wait – Does Any of This Add Up?

Here’s where the logic starts to unravel a bit, even by Evil Dead standards. Bringing Ellie Bixler back is clearly a shoutout to her popularity – and to be fair, Alyssa Sutherland was one of the best things in Rise. But as for whether this makes narrative sense, well… not really. Some fans online have argued this breaks the ‘rules’ of Evil Dead. Trouble is, this franchise has never really cared about rules or continuity. The Deadite lore’s always been a bit wobbly; let’s just say consistency isn’t their strong suit.

Lately we’ve learned there are supposedly several Books of the Dead, each with its own brand of nastiness. Maybe the Rise book is the particularly vicious one, and perhaps, if you squint, it’s easier to bring people back from the dead with this version? Either way, it’s not exactly a continuity killer for me.

Still, even by ‘don’t think too hard about it’ standards, I couldn’t help wondering: why would Ellie’s ashes turn up at this countryside morgue in the first place? Didn’t she die in the city? The script made a point that she has no family, so who’s transporting her all the way out here? And since she wound up in a woodchipper, how’d they even collect anything to cremate, let alone label it ‘Ellie’? I get it, you’re not supposed to over-analyse these things, but the more you think about it, the less sense it makes. Throw in the fact that Evil Dead Wrath – which comes next – is a prequel, and teasing a story you won’t pay off next time seems a bit of a random move. Unless, god forbid, they’re about to try their hand at time travel. Please, don’t get any ideas.

Bruce Campbell Snuck In (Sort Of)

For the die-hard fans, there’s a quick giggle midway through: as Grandma Polly hauls herself up the stairs on that grim slow-moving lift, we get a wall of family portraits. Among them? No less than Bruce Campbell's own headshot – yes, the same photo he's had on IMDb for years. Is this proof that Ash Williams is, in some roundabout way, actually related to this cursed family? Probably not. It felt like a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it nod for the long-timers, but still, it’s there if they ever want to yarn about Ash’s distant cousins in the canon.

So, Is There a Next Time?

Evil Dead Burn didn’t quite match the box office numbers of Rise. That’s notable, as Rise already suffered from post-pandemic nerves with audiences not quite ready to pile back into cinemas. We do have another film on the way – Evil Dead Wrath, currently in post – so at minimum, there’s one more ride on the merry-go-round. Past that, though, it’s a bit uncertain. If Wrath follows the same downward trend, this could be the last gasp for the franchise... unless the sudden surge in Ellie Bixler fans pushes them to knock out a proper sequel to Rise somewhere down the line.

Evil Dead Burn is playing now in cinemas.