Drag Me to Hell

(2009)

A Movie Review

By

Jonathan Moya

The Plot: (from AllMovie.com)<= /span>

Determined to impress= her boss and get a much-needed promotion at work, Christine Brown (Alison Lohman) lays down the law wh= en mysterious Mrs. Ganush literally comes begging for mercy at her feet. In retaliation for being publicly shamed, Mrs. Ganush places the dreaded curse= of Lamia on her unfortunate target, transforming Christine's life into a waking nightmare. Her skeptical boyfriend Clay (Justin Long) casually brushing off her disturbing encounters as mere coincidence, Christine attempts to escape ete= rnal damnation by seeking out the aid of seer Rham Jas (Dileep Rao ). But Christine's time is = fast running out, and unless she's able to break the curse, she'll be tormented = by a demon for three days before literally being dragged to hell.=

The Review:

Drag Me to Hell is Sam Raimi’s diabolical return party to the horr= or genre after a decade stuck in the Spiderman web. It is Raimi-lite, content with sca= ry shadows, gypsy curses, putrefying hags vomiting all manners of emerald nastiness and a good old scary séance. Its PG-13 rating makes it alm= ost quaint family fare by horror standards, a Tales from the Crypt to keep the comic crowd happy until 2011 and Spiderman 5.    Sniff this butt and kn= ow that The Evil Dead remake scheduled for next year is going to bring Raimi b= ack to his dismembering and blood projecting roots.

There is a lot of orifice horror in Hell.   The evil slime not only fall= s on the fresh scrub face of the blonde Christine (Allison Lohman) but also is tongue kissed into her mouth, breathed in and plopped right into her eyes—hardhearted punishment for the softhearted loan officer misfortu= nate enough to administer tough love to the one mortgage defaulting, disease-eye= d, talon, curse wielding gypsy woman (Lorna Raver) in the city.   Lohman is the open-eye benef= iciary of one of the great projectile face transplants of the last twenty years or so.    It is the nas= ty stuff that gets inside that is really the best squirm inducing fright.

Raimi and his co-caballer brother Ivan conjured up the screenplay, a cou= ple of catfights that sticks to the basic spooks. It is a Looney Tunes nightmare on = Speed and Acid. There is a dandy bi= tch slap turned demolition derby that takes place in a parking garage that gives new meaning to click it or ticket. Lorna Raver as the gypsy crone provides some early character develop= ing scares simply by jujuing with a set of moldy dentures. Adriana Barazza as the good counterbalance gets the most of her fifteen minutes of screen time in Hell’s séance scene. Allison Lohman (cast a= t the witching hour when Juno’s Ellen Page got spooked) musters enough Buffy the Vampire Slayer toughness while just barely passing her good girl acting test.

Still it is the scares before the scares that I remember: the diabolic shadows, the clanging= pots and pans, an ectoplasmic handkerchief floating and attaching itself like a = wind octopus.   Raimi gets the little scares right so that the big horror matters. He messes with the head before tak= ing the knife out.    It= is so old school old and well done that it looks brand new.

For its scary good fun, it gets a B+.

The Credits:   (From AllMovie.com)

Sam Raimi = ; - Director / Screenwriter / Producer Grant Curtis - Producer Robert Tapert<= /a> - Producer Ivan Raimi&nb= sp; - Screenwriter / Co-producer Peter Deming= - Cinematographer Christopher= Young - Composer (Music Sco= re) Bob Murawski - Editor<= span style=3D'font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"'> Steve Saklad - Production Designer= Cristen= Carr Strubbe - Co-producer Joshua Donen - Executive Producer<= /span> Joe Drake = ; - Executive Producer Nathan Kahane<= /a> - Executive Producer<= /span> Isis Mussende= n - Costume Designer John Papsider= a - Casting= Howard Berger - Makeup Special Effe= cts Bruce Jones&= nbsp; - Visual Effects Supervisor Gregory Nico= tero - Makeup Special Effe= cts

With: Alison Lohman<= /a> - Christine Brown <= span style=3D'font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"'>Justin Long<= /span> - Clay Dalton Lorna Raver<= /span> - Mrs. Ganush David Paymer= - Mr. Jacks Dileep Rao - Rham Jas Reggie Lee - Stu Rubin Adriana Barr= aza - Shaun San Dena Molly Cheek<= /span> - Trudy Dalton

Copyright 2009 by Jonathan Moya

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