Saturday, August 29, 2009

Drag Me to Hell (2009) 7.25/10


DRAG ME TO HELL
DIRECTED BY: SAM RAIMI
WRITTEN BY: SAM AND IVAN RAIMI


Christine (Alison Lohman) is an up and coming bank loan officer, with a great boyfriend, Clay (Justin Long), and an idealistic life. When the position of assistant bank manager becomes available, Christine decides, amongst pressure from Clay's demanding parents, to assert herself and prove she can do the job. Her first decision? To deny a 3rd loan extension to the elderly Sylvia Ganush (Lorna River). Things seem to be going well until one night Ganush attacks Christine, putting a curse on her. The curse? In 3 days a demon will come and take her straight to hell.

Filled with a solid cast, Raimi's return to horror is marked by an exciting tale, filled with great jumps, and Raimi's usual quirky sense of things. Drag Me To Hell will keep you on the edge of your seat with a dark morality tale, and a character in Christine that'll keep you guessing. Alison Lohman, who has made a note of not wanting to do horror films, delivers the goods as the tormented Christine, often asked to do physically demanding stunts.

The best part of Drag Me to Hell is that it's not dumb blonde screaming centric. Sure the main character is blonde, but she's far from dumb, and sure she screams, but no more than anyone else would in her situation. In fact it's remarkable in this day and age a horror film as intense, gory, and well designed as this can exist without the usual over the top sex scene, gratuitous use of the f word, and random side characters to kill. Instead, we're given a one character central thrill ride, with lots of subtle depth, and great character moments.

Of course, a Raimi movie wouldn't be complete without his signature dark humor. Even throughout the darkest scenes of the film, Raimi maintains a little bit of quirk to central story, especially in his standard over the top villain(s). Now, on the down side there is the obvious twist ending, which I could have lived without, but overall it doens't make the movie any better or worse. It's just a fun, thrill packed, ride from beginning to end, built for horror lovers by horror lovers.


Overall Drag Me to Hell is a Sam Raimi film through and through, no compromising, never taking itself too seriously, you'll get what you pay for, and then some.

2 better thoughts:

Snipes said...

I'm interested in checking this out, I like Justin Long, not really a big horror buff, but the film did look quite interesting.

watch movies for free said...

Not at all a interesting movie. The characters don't make any sense, horror scenes were not seeming horror as everyone is laughing at them. Better to give it a miss.

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