When the original The Evil Dead was released in 1981, the film had an Easter egg for horror fans hiding in plain sight. Among the items in the cabin’s cellar, besides all of Professor Knowby’s research, was a ripped poster of Wes Craven’s The Hills Have Eyes, a pointed reference to the filmmaker’s movie that was meant to indicate The Evil Dead was more extreme. Craven responded in A Nightmare on Elm Street by having a character watch The Evil Dead on TV (and yawn while doing so), prompting Sam Raimi to hide Freddy Krueger’s glove in Evil Dead II to keep the train going.
Now, though, the Evil Dead franchise has become bigger than that. The series is now a major horror staple that has six total movies, three seasons of a TV show, and multiple video games. The latest film in the series, Evil Dead Burn, has arrived as something of a nexus point for the franchise as a whole, with references that connect it directly to every other Evil Dead movie. Beyond those narrative threads, though, there are also Easter eggs, including one that fans need to keep an eye out for: the return of Bruce Campbell. Minor spoilers will follow, but we’ll try to keep it spoiler-free.
Evil Dead fans hoping to see Bruce Campbell show up with a boomstick and a chainsaw for a hand will come away disappointed, as he hasn’t appeared as the character since Ash vs Evil Dead‘s series finale back in 2018, or on the big screen since the bizarre post-credit scene of 2013’s remake. Instead, Campbell’s cameo is a real blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment.
About halfway through the film, as the camera watches Grandma Polly ascend the stairs of the family home in her motorized chair, she passes some family photographs. Among them, staring directly at the audience, is none other than Campbell himself. He can be found on the left-hand side of the screen, clear as day for Evil Dead fans to do their best “Leo Pointing” meme at when they spot it.
Campbell’s cameo in the film isn’t the only one that fans should be on the lookout for. As the plot centers around a family with a history tied to Evil Dead lore, there are other franchise Easter Eggs to be found, including a sketch of the Necronomicon from Evil Dead (2013) as well as the Kandarian Dagger from Evil Dead II. Furthermore, a Deadite later in the film utters the franchise’s iconic phrase, “You’ll be dead by dawn.”
Campbell previously had an uncredited audio cameo in 2023’s Evil Dead Rise, briefly heard in one scene of the film. As noted, he did show up in a post-credit gag for Fede Álvarez’s Evil Dead, appearing on screen long enough to say “Groovy” before the cut to black. The actor has since confirmed that he only intends to return as Ash for the series in animated form, though a TV series in that format has been in development for a while, it has yet to materialize.
