Raimi's Drag Me to Hell is Heavenly Bliss

Welcome back to the dark side Sammy!

BY EMIL TIEDEMANN

It's been 16 years since Sam Raimi touched base with the dark side of cinema, bestowing upon us the third--and so far, final--installment of The Evil Dead trilogy, with 1993's Army of Darkness. Since then Mr. Raimi has redirected his attention on an overlooked western (The Quick and the Dead), an Oscar calibre drama (A Simple Plan), a regrettable baseball feature (For Love of the Game), and an awkward supernatural thriller (The Gift). Oh yeah, and those Spider-Man movies, too! And now, after what seemed an eternity, the evil genius has relapsed, returning to what he does best...over-the-top loathing crossbred with insidious hilarity.

That latter sentence could easily pass as the tagline for Drag Me to Hell, which substantially lacks only in its own marketing campaign, one that ceased to capture my attention if not for Raimi's name being attached. Other than that this hellrasier delivered on all other levels, from the characters' beguiling psyches to the ideally-cast actors that depict them.

Set to a script penned by Raimi and his older brother Ivan, the 99-minute film starts us off in 1969 with a young Spanish boy riddled with a demonic curse that culminates in his inevitable path to the infernal underworld. We then skip ahead to present day and are introduced to Christine Brown (White Oleander's Alison Lohman), a conventional nobody who works as a loan officer at a bank. Gung-ho on landing a potential promotion, Brown makes an uncharacteristic decision that triggers an old, grisly woman (pictured left) to summon a curse upon her, one that layed dorment for the last 40 years.

Drag Me to Hell hinges on the unravelling of the unrelenting spell that delves Brown into a state of madness, subdued fleetingly by her psychologist boyfriend Clay (Pineapple Express' Justin Long). In the midst of her seemingly unavoidable fate, Brown sheds her vulnerable facade and exposes a buried defiance as she does all she feels necessary to rid herself of her hellish affliction. But is any of it enough?

Now don't go into this film expecting a mere extention of its unflattering trailer, but if you do, then you'll undoubtedly come out appeased, yearning for more. I just hope Mr. Raimi will have the sense to build on Drag Me to Hell and absorb us into another cult franchise of stylistic horror and gore, like he did all those years ago with Ash Williams and his trials & tribulations of The Evil Dead.

4/5 stars

Sam Raimi Drag's Me To Hell

And I don't want to leave!

Sam Raimi (Evil Dead series, Spider-Man series) goes back to the genre that got his career started back in 1981 and boy oh boy; this is a very fun film. Alison Lohman (Matchstick Men) is playing Christine Brown, a loan officer who has a rough day at the office, ending up being cursed. The curse is placed upon her by Lorna Raver’s (recurring role on TVs The Young and the Restless) character Mrs. Ganush. Justin Long (Accepted) plays Lohman’s supportive boyfriend. Raimi’s brother, Ivan Raimi helped him co-write the film. Ivan has contributed to Sam’s films on quite a few occasions, the most recent would be Spider-Man 3 but also has co-wrote Army of Darkness and Darkman with Sam.

Simplicity rules throughout the film, no extravagant sets, no big name stars, very little CGI is relied upon and the simple plot offers just enough to keep you entertained. Lohman produces a nice performance that starts a little slow and I was really questioning her ability to create some sympathy for her character but by the end of the film she really pulled it off. Raver is absolutely sizzling once she shifts into scary gypsy-mode and is utterly creepy.

The tricks that may seem cheesy in the new age “torture” horror films are used mainly in this film. Raimi uses them wonderfully making it humorous but still scary. Tense moments are panged with shifty music (a wonderful score too!), creaking floorboards and rustles outside the window. All this creates such an unnerving atmosphere during the moments it should, never leaving you under whelmed.

Raimi’s trademarks are littered throughout the film, beginning with “The Classic”, his yellow 1973 Oldsmobile Delta 88 which has been featured in every one of his films except for The Quick and the Dead. His eye for snappy imaginative visuals is apparent as well, not using his famous first person view shot of a projectile object (tree in Evil Dead/Doc Ocks tentacles in Spider-Man 2) was about the only thing left out from his repertoire.

You can argue that the film isn’t original as we have seen many of curse plots throughout Hollywood in the past but this is about as original as you get in tinsel town now a days. The film could be considered a throwback the way Raimi has used all the old tricks but it is a masterfully well done film. Raimi’s back to the basics approach will hopefully break the bank at the box office. Making the fans clamour enough to get the studios to get Raimi back with Bruce Campbell for an Evil Dead 4! This film was a fun romp that will disgust you, scare you and make you laugh.

4 out of 5

Colin Enquist