Drag Me To Hell

O.K., so my contest from last week as to which movie I should watch, ended with an enormous amount of votes! I have to tell you, I was thrilled and very touched that so many of you sent in your votes! I’m actually going to do something very few people do in the internet age, and that is actually thank every single one of you personally for sending in your votes! So, here it goes:

Alan Simpson, thank you for your winning vote of Drag Me To Hell!!!

PHEW!!! That was exhausting!

Now that all of that is out of the way, let’s discuss the movie!

As many of you might have picked up on by now, the review this week is for the Sam Raimi return to horror, Drag Me To Hell. I had been interested in this one ever since the talk of it going into production hit the horror circuit. Like any other horror fan, a return to horror by Raimi was like music to my ears. After making the classic Evil Dead films, and the insanely disturbing Simple Plan, Mr. Raimi got all wrapped up in his Spider-Man films. Now, my being a freaky Marvel zombie made this just dandy. I was more than happy to be getting great Marvel films, no matter what might have happened with part three, I still enjoyed the dang thing. But still, a return to horror for Raimi was a lovely idea!!!

So what kind of film did the horror fans get with the triumphant return of Raimi? Was it a full blown horror extravaganza on par with the intensity of the first Evil Dead film, or more of the action flick that was Army Of Darkness? Or was it the middle ground and experimental overload that was Evil Dead 2?

In a nutshell, Drag Me To Hell is more of a conventional horror film than anything else that Raimi had done prior. Granted, it doesn’t pack the all out punch that the first two Evil Dead films had, but then since Raimi was a trailblazer back then, chances of this being that were pretty slim. So instead Raimi decided to use his trademark styles, and incorporate them into a more straight-forward possession style flick.

Drag Me To Hell is the story of basically making poor choices with the wrong people. The story centers on Christine Brown (Alison Lohman), a decent person who is losing on the corporate banking ladder due to not being a rotten snake, as her competition Stu (Reggie Lee) is. She decides to go ahead and take advantage of an elderly lady who she could have helped on her mortgage.  Christine’s big mistake is that the elderly lady turns out to be a gypsy who is in cahoots with some nasty ol’ spirits and decides to curse poor Christine.

A person’s enjoyment of Drag Me To Hell might depend on their familiarity of the brilliant 1957 Jacques Tourneur film Curse/Night of the Demon, which was based on the MR James tale Casting The Runes. Certain plot points are shared by all three, and the two films are very similar in many aspects, right down to the ending taking place at the train station. This does not detract too much from the enjoyment of Drag, as Raimi was wise enough to alter key aspects that enable the film to carry its own persona. Although I do think that some of my enjoyment was sapped by the fact that I was quite often trying to guess what was going to happen due to my knowledge of Curse, and when it is mentioned to meet at the train station I smirked and got ready for an ending I knew was coming. So it should be stressed that this is more of my own problem, not the films.

I recommend Drag Me To Hell to anybody looking for a good little horror flick that surprisingly is rather tame in the gore and over-all violence. There is no doubt that this is a Raimi film, and yet he has learned his own style well enough to know that what made something a “Raimi film” was not the overabundance of the gore, but rather that unique camera style. The film has that style in spades, some nice scares and tense moments, and is a pretty fun time. It will make some wonderful Halloween viewing for those who have not seen it yet, and a nice annual film for all else.