Surprise! A major fan-favorite character is back in the post-credits scene of "Evil Dead Burn." Let's unpack what it means.Show Caption
Spoiler alert! We're breaking down all of the biggest surprises in "Evil Dead Burn" (in theaters now), so turn away if you haven't seen the movie yet and don't want to know.The "Evil Dead" franchise has never really felt like much of a franchise at all – until now.The long-running horror series has always had a loose sense of continuity, with even the early sequels retconning the ending of the previous film in some way. And the more recent installments have shuffled the deck each time, with entirely new sets of lead characters replacing the old ones.This changes in a small way at the start of "Evil Dead Burn" when a minor character, Jessica, returns to bridge the film with the prior entry, "Evil Dead Rise." But the latest movie's surprise credits cameo is even more of a game-changer, possibly teeing up something "Evil Dead" fans haven't had in more than 30 years: an actual sequel.Let's break down what those "Burn" credits scenes mean for the series' future.Surprise! Alyssa Sutherland returns as Ellie in 'Evil Dead Burn'After Alice (Souheila Yacoub) confronts the fiery spirit of her abusive husband Will (George Pullar) in the bloody finale of "Evil Dead Burn," the movie wraps with two separate credits scenes.The first, midway through the credits, features the return of grandmother Polly (Maude Davey), who was turned into a Deadite earlier. She's seen crawling down the side of the road without her legs before she attacks a kind passerby who stops to help her. "Yours will do just fine," Polly tells her rescuer as she grabs her leg.This could be a way for "Burn" to carry the story forward into future movies, with this passerby spreading the chaos to the next set of victims, the same way Jessica did in "Burn." But that would presumably not happen right away, as the very next "Evil Dead" movie, 2028's "Evil Dead Wrath," is a prequel, set long before the events of "Burn."Mostly, though, this mid-credits scene was put in to give Polly's story a fun closing beat, director Sébastien Vaniček tells USA TODAY, after earlier versions of the movie left her fate more ambiguous."We wanted a very cool and funny ending for Polly," he says. "So it was after the shooting that we started to think about this [mid-credits] scene, because I loved the idea of leaving a leg inside the house, and we don't know what happened to Polly. And then we thought, 'Oh, we could do a bit more than that for the audience.' "The much more significant development, though, comes in a scene at the very end of the credits. The film cuts to a crematorium, where a child observes a shelf full of urns for people whose remains were never picked up by their relatives. One of the urns is for Ellie Bixler (Alyssa Sutherland), the mother-of-three Deadite from "Evil Dead Rise" and sister of that film's hero, Beth (Lily Sullivan). When the child looks in the mirror, Ellie abruptly appears, with Sutherland back in the role. Ellie then shows up in the real world to brutally murder the kid. "Mommy's back," she declares, calling to mind her creepiest line from the last movie: "Mommy's with the maggots now."The implication is that a follow-up to "Evil Dead Rise" could be in the cards with Ellie returning as the villain. And if Ellie is back, it would only make sense to bring back her sister Beth, who survived the events of "Rise" and ended the movie with Ellie's daughter, Kassie (Nell Fisher), in her care. If such a movie happens, it would be the franchise's first full-on sequel since 1992's "Army of Darkness," after years of taking an anthology approach.Vaniček notes this final credits scene was the studio's idea, suggesting the producers who oversee the franchise have bigger plans for Ellie up their sleeves."That's what happens when you work with a studio," he says. "These are the rules, and I follow them. I was able to do the movie I wanted, so as soon as they told me, 'What do you think about this and that,' and they told me about this coda, I was like, 'Yeah, sure. Let's go.' "But where the scene might lead is up to the producers, Vaniček says, noting he "won't be involved in the future projects."Yes, Bruce Campbell is in 'Evil Dead Burn,' sort ofEvery "Evil Dead" movie has featured original star Bruce Campbell in some form (he had a credits cameo in 2013's "Evil Dead" and a voice cameo in "Rise"). "Burn" is no exception, though if you blinked, you may have missed it: A framed photo of Campbell hangs in the family home where the movie takes place.So should fans take that as confirmation of an off-screen relationship between Campbell's Ash Williams and the family in "Burn"?"Maybe," Vaniček says coyly, laughing. "The fans will do the job. I just put things here and there, for them to raise questions.""Bruce will always be around 'Evil Dead.' He is 'Evil Dead.' He is Ash," the director adds. "So, you need him somewhere. Even if you don't put a photo of him, he's around."
