"Drag Me To Hell" Review

"Drag Me To Hell"

Directed by Sam Raimi
Starring Alison Lohman, Justin Long, Dileep Rao, Lorna Raver, David Paymer

RATING
9/10

In 1981, an indie director named Sam Raimi accidentally created a new offspring of the horror genre, in which it incorporated slapstick humor. The result was oddly very appealing, and thus the "Evil Dead" series was born. Despite his newfound ambitious drive, Raimi opted for more broader genres, and put away his horror directing card for how to head into drama and comedy, and a little superhero franchise some people are familiar with... However, he still remained a keen observer of the scare, producing several horror films in his later years. Then came the time when he decided to revisit the glory days, when slapstick horror/gore was hugely influential to directors such as Peter Jackson. He figured, maybe a dosage of Evil Dead for the modern era would be... pretty damn interesting. 2009 rolled around, and thus "Drag Me To Hell" was born.

 

"Drag Me To Hell" is the story of Christine Brown, a farm-girl who moves into the city, loses a few pounds, and inexplicably becomes attractive. Between having a relationship with her boyfriend, Clay, and working for the assistant manager position at her bank, Christine is confronted by Mrs. Ganush, who visits the bank hoping to get an extension on her home payments. When she is refused, the elderly gipsy puts a curse on Christine in which an ancient and powerful demon taunts and patronizes her for three days before finally collecting her to be literally dragged into hell. She then seeks the help of a spiritual psychic.

 

This was an incredible rollercoaster of a horror film. The best way I can honestly describe Raimi's style is "Dawn Of The Dead" meets "Looney Tunes". There's so much slapstick going on, that is often branches into more comedic territory, but at the same never forgets to scare the audience in the most bizarre ways imaginable. For example, a demon possesses a goat which causes it to speak English in a demonic voice, before telekinetically slamming a character into a wall. Bare with me, there's much stranger and horrifying things at work here. No other director could've pulled it off like Raimi, and where his strengths succeed in having a masterful grip on suspense and knockout delivery on scares, he also excels in writing believable characters and absorbing dialogue. Everyone in the film is likable (to an extent for some), but Alison Lohman as a troubled and desperate young woman is great. She carries the film when everything begins to get crazy, and even though the cast of colourful characters emerge in the spotlight, attention is still fixed on this innocent blonde-haired girl who fends off a mythical demon of the underworld like a mosquito.

The soundtrack is phenomenal, and one of the stars of the film. It pays homage to equally sinister demonic films of the past such as "The Exorcist" and "Demons". It blends in well with the outrageous amounts of gratuitous gore and scares conjured up, and strikes the perfect chords to send shivers down your spine, but also surprisingly make you laugh. The merging of these two emotions is something Raimi toys with like a little kid playing chess. It may seem like he has no idea what direction to take the film in, but that was the magic of the "Evil Dead" trilogy, and it's sprinkled well all over "Drag Me To Hell". It's a formula that most mainstream audiences who aren't familiar with Raimi's prolific past as a horror director won't entirely grasp, but for fans of the genre who are, this is Christmas: bubble-wrapped, signed, sealed, and delivered with a kiss of 'awesome'.

 

"Drag Me To Hell" was Raimi's triumphant return to horror, roaring into the dying coliseum of the genre on a blazing chariot of fire. With its whacky, over-the-top style and macabre plot elements, there's enough explicit scares and imagery to give horror junkies like myself wet nightmares for years to come. While the mainstream audiences will be largely divided over the slapstick sub-elements, for the rest of us down here starving for another bite of greatness that rarely happens in this day and age, we've finally got something delicious to sink our teeth into. "Drag Me To Hell" is one of the best horror films of the last decade.