Sam Raimi has a long history of supporting up-and-coming horror filmmakers, so it's no surprise that he's tapped two relatively inexperienced directors — Sébastien Vančiek and Francis Galluppi — to helm the next two films in his iconic Evil Dead franchise. Curious Evil Dead fans can now check out both filmmakers' debut features, as both just arrived within a couple of weeks of each other.
Vaniček's Infested has the more obvious Evil Dead connection, with a setup that's similar to 2023's Evil Dead Rise. Like Evil Dead Rise, Infested takes place almost entirely within a single rundown apartment building, where the residents must face off against a relentless, deadly enemy. Rather than Evil Dead's Deadites, though, their enemy is a horde of venomous spiders, who have the ability to both reproduce incredibly quickly and grow massive.
Vaniček and co-writer Florent Bernard keep up the brutal intensity from the opening moments until the end, with only a brief lull when exotic animal aficionado Kaleb (Théo Christine) first buys a mysterious imported spider from the back of a bodega in his Paris suburb. It doesn't take long for that spider to escape its makeshift shoebox enclosure and infiltrate the vents in Kaleb's building, where it multiplies exponentially and turns Kaleb's fellow tenants into its prey.
After the first victim dies, the cops show up to haul the body away and institute a quarantine for what they believe may be an infectious disease, trapping the residents inside the building. Vaniček establishes basic but meaningful character relationships and delivers some blunt but relevant social commentary without ever taking the focus off the most important thing in the movie — people being attacked by gruesome giant spiders.
Infested features some of the most skin-crawling, anxiety-inducing scenes in any recent horror movie, executed with impressive skill for a feature debut. The layout of the building is always clear, and the threat keeps escalating, further constraining the characters physically and increasing their sense of panic and fear. Vaniček knows just how much to show his spiders (a mix of real arachnids, practical effects and CGI) to deliver maximum visceral terror for both the characters and the audience.
There isn't much visceral terror in Galluppi's The Last Stop in Yuma County, a suspenseful, twisty crime thriller that's also set primarily in a single location. It's nearly as assured a feature debut as Infested, demonstrating the kind of sardonic humor that Raimi infused into his first three Evil Dead movies. Indie film mainstay Jim Cummings plays the nameless protagonist, a shifty traveling knife salesman who finds himself stuck at an isolated outpost in the middle of the Arizona desert when his car runs low on gas.
While waiting for a late fuel truck to arrive and replenish the supplies at the only gas station for 100 miles, the salesman passes time at the adjacent diner, staffed by lone waitress/cook Charlotte (Jocelin Donahue). Soon the diner fills with other customers in the same situation, including a pair of impatient bank robbers (Richard Brake and Nicholas Logan). Writer-director Galluppi builds tension by keeping some diner patrons in the dark about what's really going on, while periodically cutting to the mundane activities of the oblivious local sheriff (Michael Abbott Jr.), who's also Charlotte's husband.
It takes a little too long before that tension explodes into violence, and The Last Stop in Yuma County owes as much to Quentin Tarantino as it does to Raimi, often resembling an extended version of the restaurant holdup sequence in Pulp Fiction. The final act is often thrilling, but Galluppi isn't as clever as Tarantino, and most of the characters are stock types rather than well-rounded people. Brake makes for a suitably threatening villain, and Donahue brings some humanity to her weary shift worker. The salesman remains enigmatic, which allows for a haunting final shot, but makes it tougher to care about his ultimate fate.
More so than Infested, though, The Last Stop in Yuma County feels like a simple proof of concept rather than a fully realized film. Still, both movies are successful Evil Dead auditions, indicating that the future of one of horror's most beloved franchises is in good hands. ♦
Infested
Directed by Sébastien Vaniček
Starring Théo Christine, Sofia Lesaffre, Jérôme Niel
Streaming on Shudder & AMC+
The Last Stop in Yuma County
Rated R
Directed by Francis Galluppi
Starring Jim Cummings, Jocelin Donahue, Richard Brake
Available on VOD
