Drag Me To Hell
Sub-Genre- Supernatural
In Attendance- Me
Cast Members of Note- Alison Lohman, Justin Long, Lorna Raver, Dileep Rao, and David Paymer. Directed by Sam Raimi.
What's it about?- A cute little button of a bank loan officer (Lohman) finds out that sleeping her way into a the next hot promotion doesn't work so well for her, so she instead decides that kicking old gypsy women out of their homes will do the trick; unfortunately for her, she failed to realize that old gypsy women love to place curses on people.
For three days an ancient demon called the Lamia will terrorize the object of the curse, on the third day essentially taking them to hell to suffer horribly for eternity. It's sort of like dating Lindsay Lohan; except with Lindsay, she does cocaine for three days straight and gives the men she sleeps with a "curse" of her own... the kinds which actually lasts for eternity too, even with use of cremes and antibiotics. It's an itchy, burning-when-you-pee hell.
So Alison Lohman has three days to figure out how to stop the Lamia from taking her to hell, and she tries everything; Sacrifices, seances, she hides in her closet... she even arms herself with a butcher knife as if that would work... Will her boyfriend ever believe her? Will her adorable little kitten survive? Will she get dragged to hell?
I won't spoil what comes next here (because why ruin a fun movie) but suffice it to say, holy shit, what a hell of an ending...
The Good- What a great slice of classic horror goodness! Raimi hasn't made a horror movie since 1992's Army of Darkness (unless you count 2000's The Gift, which wasn't really "true" horror to me), and it's good to see that his long genre absence hasn't slowed him down one bit. I'm not a big fan of the Spiderman flicks at all, especially the abomination that was Spiderman 3, but despite my feelings on that, Sam Raimi is one hell of a filmmaker. He just knows how to "do it" perfectly.
This movie definitely reminds me of campy 80's horror; It's fairly linear, over the top, a bit tongue in cheek, creepy, gross, tension filled, and we know exactly where it's going and we can't wait to get there with it... or rather for the movie to take us there. Aside from "the fire dance" and one obvious plot twist (you'll see it coming from miles away), this movie made me smile the whole way through.
The comedic parts were classic Raimi camp Ala Evil Dead; I especially love the "I had a cat" bit. I laughed out loud at the look on Alison Lohman's face. Fucking brilliant.
The Bad- Here kitty, kitty...
The Downright Horrendous- I've never been a fan of the old "Weird shit is happening all around me but no one believes me!" types of plot devices; you know the ones, where everyone thinks the person is bat-shit crazy even though weird shit is actually happening all around them? It's always just very frustrating to watch.
The Gory- A killer nosebleed, flies in body cavities, mouth on mouth gumming, mouth to mouth vomiting, eyeballs in cake, kitten murder, and all sorts of demon inspired goodness... most of it is of the PG-13 variety, but it works well. Unrated DVD anyone?
The Naked- No such luck. At least we've gotten to see Alison Lohman in the nude and acting saucy before...
Best Line- "You shamed me." or "I beat you, you bitch!"
What did we learn?- Don't ever cross a gypsy. Also, envelopes kill.
Rating- A (9/10) Drag Me To Hell has a few things about it that were obvious and almost cheesy, but that's the point though; Raimi wanted to make an good old fashioned, familiar formula horror movie, and he succeeded. This is plain old balls-out fun, creepy, messy, funny horror goodness, and it shouldn't be missed.
Final Thoughts- She's so sassy.
