Evil Dead Burn Is No. 1 on HBO Max Worldwide

Entertainment · Streaming Charts

Halloween season is the most competitive window of the year for a horror title, and this year the film sitting on top of it is not a decades-old classic. According to MovieWeb, Evil Dead Burn — the newest installment in the franchise created by Sam Raimi — has planted itself at number one on HBO Max worldwide, a couple of weeks into its streaming run. MovieWeb based its report on FlixPatrol's global movie rankings, which track the platform's Top 10 across markets.

That result is harder to achieve on HBO Max than on most services, and MovieWeb explained why. The Warner Bros. vault is deep, and it never really leaves the chart. Decades-old titles — MovieWeb named Se7en, V for Vendetta and Men in Black as examples — routinely occupy Top 10 places alongside whatever is new that week. A newcomer does not just have to beat the other new releases. It has to beat films that audiences have been rewatching for twenty or thirty years, in the middle of the one month when horror viewing spikes across the entire catalog.

A chart run with a second wind

The path to the worldwide top spot was not a straight line. According to Polygon, Evil Dead Burn arrived on HBO Max in early October and quickly climbed to the top of the service's U.S. movie charts, reaching No. 1 just days after its streaming debut, per FlixPatrol. ComingSoon put a date on that first peak, reporting that the film reached No. 1 on the HBO Max Top 10 in the United States on October 6, 2026, according to FlixPatrol data, moving ahead of titles including Backrooms, Corpse Bride, Supergirl and The Shining. Warner Bros. had confirmed the film would begin streaming exclusively on HBO Max on October 2, ComingSoon reported.

MovieWeb's account of the worldwide chart describes a film that grabbed the number one spot in the U.S. within days, briefly ceded the crown, and has now reasserted itself globally. The field it sits above is eclectic: MovieWeb, citing FlixPatrol, listed Contagion, Superbad, Hunter Hunter, V for Vendetta, the heist movie Play Dirty and Zodiac among the titles below it. Collider, in its own streaming report this week, independently noted that the global leaderboard was topped by the horror sequel Evil Dead Burn, with Zodiac and Se7en — two David Fincher films — also in the global Top 10, according to FlixPatrol.

Beating two Fincher classics and a pile of comfort-watch staples in mid-October suggests the film is drawing two audiences at once: franchise loyalists who would have found it wherever it landed, and the casual spooky-season crowd browsing for something new to watch on a Friday night. For a horror sequel, that second audience is the difference between a respectable chart debut and a worldwide No. 1.

Home has always been where Evil Dead lives

MovieWeb framed the result as part of a pattern that goes back to the beginning of the franchise. The Evil Dead films have historically found their biggest audience at home, starting with the 1981 original's video-store legend — the low-budget film that became a rental staple and built a cult following far larger than its theatrical footprint. Each generation of home viewing has repeated the trick: the films travel well, they reward rewatching, and they thrive when viewers can find them on a shelf — or, now, at the top of a streaming chart.

The streaming performance also puts a friendlier frame around the film's theatrical run. Collider reported that Evil Dead Burn, released theatrically earlier this year, grossed around $72 million worldwide. ComingSoon reported a similar figure — roughly $72.3 million worldwide against a reported $20 million production budget — and noted the film opened in July with an estimated $13.7 million domestically. By the math both outlets reported, the film had already earned more than three times its production cost before it ever reached a streaming service. The HBO Max run is not a rescue story. It is a victory lap that turned into a second opening.

The film itself

Evil Dead Burn is directed by French filmmaker Sébastien Vaniček, according to MovieWeb and Polygon, and was produced by Sam Raimi alongside Rob Tapert, per ComingSoon. It follows Evil Dead Rise from 2023 as another standalone story in the franchise rather than a direct continuation. According to Polygon, the film follows Alice, played by Souheila Yacoub, a woman grieving the death of her husband who retreats to a secluded family home with her in-laws — where demonic forces turn family members into Deadites and leave Alice fighting to survive. The cast also includes Tandi Wright, Hunter Doohan and Luciane Buchanan, Polygon reported.

Critical reception has been warmer than the word "divisive" in some headlines might suggest, though it has not been unanimous. Polygon reported the film holds a 70% critics' score on Rotten Tomatoes, while its own review was less enthusiastic, arguing the film struggles to balance grotesque horror and the franchise's slapstick streak, even as it praised the inventive kills, camera work and sound design. For chart purposes, mixed-to-positive may be the ideal zone: respected enough that browsers trust the click, gruesome enough that horror fans feel they are getting the real thing.

What happens next is a calendar question. The film's grip on No. 1 will be tested as Halloween gets closer and every service floods its front page with horror. But the hard part is already done. On a platform where Se7en and V for Vendetta never really go away, a new sequel has spent October proving that the Evil Dead's oldest tradition — finding its audience at home — is still very much alive. For more coverage, browse the latest in our news section or explore what's streaming in browse.