Jacques Brel has always understood that love is not a gentle thing. Written in 1967 and recorded for his penultimate studio album, ‘La Chanson des Vieux Amants’ is one of his most quietly devastating compositions – a song about a couple who have hurt each other repeatedly across a long marriage and chosen, each time, to stay.
It is, then, an inspired choice for Evil Dead Burn – the latest entry in Sam Raimi’s long-running horror franchise, released this month and directed by French filmmaker Sébastien Vaniček – to use the song as its emotional anchor.
After a brutal opening scene which sets the tone for the rest of the film, we are introduced to the film’s French protagonist and her American husband. Without getting into spoilers, ‘La Chanson des Vieux Amants’ is established as the couple’s wedding song. What happens to that song as the film develops, and what it comes to mean by the end, is best left for audiences to discover. What can be said is that Vaniček uses it with considerable intelligence, and when it returns the emotional register has shifted.
This makes it an apt choice for a motif in the latest addition to the Evil Dead franchise.
Vaniček is a Paris-based director whose previous film Infested (2023) announced him as a significant new voice in European horror, and the score for Evil Dead Burn was composed by Double Danger, a French duo who also worked with him on that film.
For Brel collectors and listeners, it is a reminder that his songs have a habit of surfacing in unexpected places, and usually at moments of greatest emotional intensity.
Watch the trailer:
Collecting Brel 