DRAG ME TO HELL
Starring: Alison Lohman, Justin Long, Lorna Raver, Dileep Rao, David Paymer, Adriana Barraza, and Reggie Lee
Written by: Sam Raimi and Ivan Raimi
Directed by: Sam Raimi
Release Date: May 29, 2009
In movies, it's always easy for successful filmmakers to forget their humble roots in the business. After making a name for themselves in Hollywood, they often get swept into bigger and more lucrative projects (sometimes for the better, and sometimes for the worse), and they eventually become detached from the demographic that made them successful and beloved in the first place.
Luckily for Sam Raimi, he hasn't forgotten where he came from. After revolutionizing the horror genre almost three decades ago with the cult classic Evil Dead trilogy, Raimi went on to leave his mark on other genres, including the over-the-top and surreal superhero flick Darkman, the superb morality thriller A Simple Plan, and the underrated psychic drama The Gift. Then along came a little trio of films known as the Spider-Man trilogy, which ended up becoming some of the highest-grossing films of all time. It seemed as though Raimi was on top of the world. However, after the misstep that was Spider-Man 3, Raimi decided to return to his familiar roots, and brought us Drag Me to Hell, easily one of the best horror movies in the last fifteen years.
Christine Brown (Alison Lohman) is a young, up-and-coming loan officer at a Los Angeles bank with aspirations to become the branch's new assistant manager. Unfortunately, her new and opportunistic co-worker, Stu Rubin (Reggie Lee), also vies for the position, and does anything he can to convince their boss (David Paymer) that she doesn't have what it takes to have the job.
But an opportunity to prove herself comes in the form of elderly Sylvia Ganush (Lorna Raver), an Eastern European woman who asks Christine for an extension on her mortgage. Despite Ganush's pleas, Christine chooses to deny the old woman's extension request to prove to her boss that she can make tough decisions. However, Ganush is less than pleased with Christine, and attacks her in the bank's parking garage. The struggle ends when Ganush rips a button from Christine's jacket, delivers a bizarre incantation, and leaves.
Unsettled by the encounter, Christine convinces her skeptical boyfriend Clay (Justin Long) to accompany her to professional medium Rham Jas (Dileep Rao), who explains that a demon called the Lamia is haunting her. Even though Clay doesn't believe it, it only takes a few freakish supernatural attacks upon Christine while she's by herself to convince her that the curse Ganush has placed upon her is real.
Upon learning from Rham that the Lamia torments its targets for three days before ultimately taking them into the depths of Hell, Christine does whatever she can to not only fend off Ganush's supernatural machinations, but also remove the curse before she's dragged into Hell.
Raimi certainly had good timing with this picture. After a slew of mediocre "scary" movies by no-name directors, he came back with a vengeance to show us how it's done. Which is a relief, frankly, because lately, nobody seemed to know how to make a good horror picture, especially with the so-called "torture porn" movies like Saw and Hostel, whose only apparent aim was NOT to genuinely scare us, but show us just how many severed limbs and pools of blood they could fit within a two hour runtime.
And while masters like Romero or Croenenberg used their classic horror films to convey a political or social commentary/subtext, Raimi had (and still has) no ulterior motive. He just wants to freak everybody out, in the way that only Sam Raimi can. Like the Evil Dead flicks, Drag Me To Hell is a purely visceral experience, bringing out every classic trick in the book to scare the bejeezus out of the viewer. For Raimi, plot and characterization in a film like this doesn't matter. The Grand Guignol, carnival experience provides enough goo, jumps, and sick laughs to do what most modern horror films fail to do: be entertaining.
As the young and pretty loan officer who ends up the victim of a demonic curse, a game Alison Lohman does a fine job filling in the besieged-victim role that Bruce Campbell inhabited in the first Evil Dead picture. It's well known that Raimi likes to "torture" his leading actors, and boy does he put Ms. Lohman through the ringer: she's beaten up, thrashed around, and has every conceivable gross substance cover her. Justin "I'm a Mac" Long does well as her loving boyfriend (though it's a stretch to picture him as a psychology professor).
But the real show-stealer is character actor Lorna Raver as the gnarled, terrifying gypsy Sylvia Ganush. Menacing and creepy in every frame she appears, Raver makes for one memorable horror villain, far more than the boring, one-dimensional bad guys we've seen in fright flicks lately.
As in the Evil Dead pics, Raimi doesn't pull any punches, loading the screen with as much crazy shit as he can, from flying eyeballs and geyser-like nosebleeds to talking goats and graveyard mud wrestling matches. Despite obviously being made on a much better budget than his first movie, Drag Me To Hell still retains Raimi's goofy, deranged, visually hyperkinetic funhouse style. The PG-13 rating hasn't proven to be a roadblock for him either. Though nowhere near as savage, gory, or cartoonishly anarchic as the Evil Dead trilogy (and missing the always-welcome presence of one Mr. Campbell), Raimi still manages to toy with his audience, keeping them on the edge of their seats. Wildly imaginative, genuinely frightening, uproariously funny (though cat-lovers and oversensitive gypsies may want to stay away), and a lot of fun (with one hell of a shocker ending), Drag Me To Hell is a grand return for the master of modern-day horror, and a fine example of how great scary movies are made when you have a TRUE professional behind the camera.
LETTER GRADE: "B+"
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