I awaited Sam Raimi's new movie
Drag Me To Hell with a combination of excitement and trepidation. I wanted to be good and up to Raimi's high standards, but most of all I think I just didn't want to be disappointed. I was afraid that perhaps Raimi had been rubbing elbows in Hollywood for so long, that perhaps he had lost touch with the genre that put him on the map. When the
trailer was released a few months back, it did nothing to assail my fears. It looked like a combination of homogenized big budget fare of late, like The Unborn and Asian horror remakes (The Grudge was coincidentally imported by Raimi's own production company
Ghosthouse Pictures), but I wasn't going to pass judgment just based on a trailer. On Thursday night, I headed into town to catch the midnight screening of Drag Me To Hell and now as I'm typing this review I feel ashamed. I'm ashamed because I never should have doubted that crazy fucker.
After a young loan officer (Alison Lohman) is cursed by an elderly gypsy, she has only three days to reverse the hex before the evil demon Lamia comes to collect her soul and carry her off to the burning fires of hell!
Drag Me To Hell is soooo much fun and a total blast to watch. What will knock you flat almost immediately is the amazing sound design. Drag Me To Hell is cranked to eleven. The film is packed with jump scares, but they come from so many different angles that they never get monotonous. There were times where I was sitting there giggling like a schoolgirl in anticipation of the next spike. It was a little stressful, I don't mind telling you. A good stress, however; the kind only the best can bring out of you. The trailer does the movie a disservice. It gives you no indication as to the craziness that ensues within. You clearly get the feeling that Raimi and Greg Nicotero (of
KNB EFX) were just going balls-out and having fun with this. I can almost picture the two of them spit balling ideas for ways to torture the protagonist, all the while with huge grins on their faces. Speaking of Alison Lohman, I have to give her credit. She was a real trooper. Raimi subjects her to as many bumps, bruises and ooey-gooey indignities that he could pack into ninety-nine minutes. I wonder if
Bruce Campbell gave her any pointers.
Ellen Page is a wuss.
Sadly, Bruce does not make an appearance in Drag Me To Hell, but Raimi's old Classic
1973 Oldsmobile Delta 88 gets a lot of screen time, probably the most its had since the Evil Dead films. It's still looking good. I'd say the only negative for me was Drag Me To Hell's reliance on CGI. It wasn't that they were necessarily bad quality, I was just always aware of them. I don't know why they went this route – I would imagine it was more to do with the PG-13 rating than lack of funds – but it made me long for the days of KNB's practical effects. However, supernatural subject matter is a lot easier to pass by the censors, than the stuff we see in slashers and zombie flicks, so I don't think it really hurts it that much. Probably most important, is that Raimi never forgets that we are here to be entertained. There are so few directors out there that can do what he does successfully. I mean the majority of movies I see, I'm just observing them, but with Drag Me To Hell I was IN IT. Last week, I linked to an interview with Sam talking about what he set out to do with this picture;
“I felt that in some really good horror films, like when I saw John Carpenter’s HALLOWEEN for the first time, the whole audience was electrified with fear. They were all as one, all terrified and amplifying their fears one on to the next.”I felt that. By the vibrations on the rail I had my foot on and the kicks to the back of my seat, I could tell that we were all one, and just enjoying the ride. If you're not into this movie after the parking garage scene, then I don't know want to tell you. It was then that I realized that this movie was going to be more
Evil Dead 2, than
Evil Dead, and I was fine with that. By the time the climax rolls around, it seems like you are almost watching the precursor to a fourth installment. I know Sam Raimi didn't intend it that way, but all the hallmarks were there. I won't spoil them here, but your jaw will open, you will laugh and you will join us. I implore anyone whose even a little bit interested in checking this out to please do so, as Drag Me To Hell is best viewed in a theatre with an audience.
Lastly, all I would like to say is welcome back to horror, Mr. Raimi. We missed you.
I just found out the sad news about David Carradine. He was just found dead in his hotel room in Thailand. He was 72. There are conflicting reports at this time about whether his death was a suicide or from natural causes, but the end result is the same. We've lost another genre icon. Carradine appeared in hundreds of movies and television shows, and in the last few years enjoyed a bit of a mainstream comeback, stemmed by his role as the title character in Quentin Tarantino's martial arts homage Kill Bill. Carradine was most known before that for his role as Frankenstein in the 1975 cult classic Death Race 2000 and as Kwai Chang Caine on the TV show Kung-Fu.
