Drag me to Hell (2009) Review

Cast:
Alison Lohman as Christine Brown
Justin Long as Clay Dalton
Lorna Raver as Mrs. Ganush
Dileep Rao as Rham Jas
David Paymer as Mr. Jacks
Adriana Barraza as Shaun San Dena

Directed by Sam Raimi

Review:

The title pretty much speaks for itself. Drag Me to Hell is horror-movie heaven. Director Sam Raimi, breaking the shackles of mainstream success with his impressive Spider-Man trilogy, returns to the down-and-dirty that spawned him with The Evil Dead in 1983. The result, again co-written with his brother Ivan Raimi, plays like a gross-out competition put on by very talented fan boys. The laughs are as explosive as the screams. The loudest shriek comes from the PG-13 rating being squeezed of its last link to good taste. There's less blood and less violence, but the movie never stops spewing scares at you.

Since Army of Darkness came and went, the fans eagerly awaited the next adventure of Ashley J. Williams in another Evil Dead film. Although over a decade has passed since, and we still haven't gotten the movie we wanted, Raimi choose to make his come back to the genre that he shaped to put out Drag me to Hell. Much like the Evil Dead films, this film had character atmosphere and slapstick humor oozing from it.

It's like a comic book come to life that is full of color characters, crazy imagery and cheap gags that work every time. Raimi plays around with the audience by using the gross-out factor to the max. For example, in one scene Alison Lohman starts bleeding from her mouth, and when she goes to cover it, blood shoots from her nose all over the place. Another great gag is the gypsy is constantly is losing her dentures and pushing her disgusting old mouth on things (like Alison's face). Raimi fills the movie with these gross-out moments that keep the momentum burning from start to finish.

And for every bloody, gooey and disgusting scene, Raimi gives us an equally good scare. I'm not much of a person to jump in a theater, but I'll admit some scenes do take you by suprise. Typically a director will have a cat jump on screen or have a character slam a door shut - something cheap to get you to jolt. Raimi hits us with a barrage of punches as I jumped ten feet out of my seat on two separate occasions. He proves that he is a master of horror and suspense. All those horror director wannabes should watch this, they could learn something from it.

Quite simply put, DRAG ME TO HELL was a blast and moved quickly from start to finish. From what I saw, it's like a spookshow of a movie. Don't expect anything but a thrill ride out of it. The only question I was left with was, "Why isn't this Evil Dead 4?"

Rating: B+


B-