In years past, the last place a movie wanted to be was saddled on a release date with a Disney blockbuster as its competition. Whether it was a Star Wars project, a Marvel film, or any of their litany of live-action animation adaptations, Disney practically dominated the big-budget movie sphere throughout the 2010s, with record-breaking blockbusters like Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Avengers: Endgame and the live-action Beauty and the Beast.
All of these films netted predominantly positive reviews from critics, scored well with fans, and made tremendous amounts of profit for the studio. However, in recent years, Disney’s track record has begun to slip in some palpable ways.
Earlier this year, Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu proved to be a box office disappointment. Last year, Marvel projects like Thunderbolts* and The Fantastic Four: First Steps underperformed substantially. And now, their latest live-action remake, Moana, appears poised for failure. Not only is the film not tracking particularly well at the box office, but the new Evil Dead sequel, Evil Dead Burn, has netted unanimously more positive reviews than Disney’s would-be-blockbuster.
Horror as a genre has long been one that more serious-minded critics and analysts have recoiled from, but in parallel to Disney’s slipping from their precipice, horror has begun to be taken more seriously as a film genre in recent years. Films like Get Out, The Substance, Sinners, and Weapons, all netting Academy Award nominations in the past decade, have helped to recontextualize the ever-innovative and boundary-pushing sector within public consensus, as it is recognized as the artistically rich genre that it truly is. This has led to surprise hits like Obsession and Backrooms this year, each of which scored unanimous critical praise and huge box office results.
The Evil Dead franchise is a long-running series that is beloved by many fans and critics alike. The original trilogy from Sam Raimi, The Evil Dead, Evil Dead II: Dead by Dawn, and Army of Darkness, is rightly regarded as seminal horror work. In the decades since the release of those films, the series’ legacy has continued in the form of 2013’s Evil Dead remake, 2015’s Ash vs. The Evil Dead TV series, 2023’s Evil Dead Rise, and now the latest sequel, Evil Dead Burn.
The fact that Evil Dead Burn is netting positive reviews from critics across the board and is poised to have a successful opening weekend, while Moana is scoring the worst reviews of any Disney live-action remake and is set to drastically underperform at the box office, feels like a real sign of the times. Gone are the days when any Disney-branded project was practically a guaranteed success, and in its place is an era in which audiences are being more selective about what films they see in theaters and are regularly finding solace within the bold experimentation of the horror genre. Evil Dead Burn is just the latest in a long line of success stories for the genre in 2026, with many more to come.
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