Synopsis:
A
loan officer forced to evict an old woman from
her home finds herself the recipient of a
supernatural curse, which turns her life into a
living hell. Desperate, she turns to a seer to
try and save her soul, while evil forces work to
push her to a breaking point.
The Freak's
Rating: B- : I grew up watching Sam
Raimi's horror flicks. The Evil Dead
franchise is one of my favorites (reviews coming
soon to this site). I thoroughly enjoyed
2000's underrated The Gift (also coming soon)
and was eager to see him revisit his roots in
Drag Me To Hell.
Raimi's style is apparent from the first frame,
with scares coming left and right in the form of
jumpy moments and amped up music for each one of
them, furthering the scares of course.
Raimi at one point even frightens the hell out
of the audience with nothing but a
handkerchief...genius. Violence is
present, but kept to a minimum (per the PG-13
rating), focusing mainly on bodily fluids
flowing than the violence that can cause them to
spew. There are some especially nice
touches with direction. A distinctly
important fly landing on the camera lens and
throwing the shot out of focus was artistically
sound. Elements of a fine director are
everywhere.
The
writing in Drag Me To Hell need not be anything
phenomenal, right? Ultimately you just
want a semi-believable storyline about a
protagonist attempting to run from a demon.
That was established, but poorly.
Reasoning behind Christine (Lohman) being cursed
was ridiculously over the top and the type of
curse (via button) was lame as well.
Another Raimi-ish element the film is sorely
lacking is the humor. Raimi always
succeeded with the genre because he blended
comedy and horror, ala Army Of Darkness.
Drag Me To Hell is far more to the horror side
of the scale than comedy and for my tastes it
needed a tad more laughs.
Alison Lohman, who previously got my attention
with her turn in Matchstick Men, displays fine
acting chops as Christine Brown. She is
easy to empathize with and somehow adorable when
covered in mud (see above). Justin Long is
reliable as Christine's boyfriend Clay and does
steal center stage in every scene in which he is
involved. The chemistry between the two is
believable and the remainder of the cast does a
decent job with their parts.
Had
this been rated R and been allowed to push a few
more violent boundaries, not to mention a little
more concentration be put on the writing, this
is a solid A film. Without giving a
spoiler, I'll say that the ending of this film
is what rescues it from a low C to the B range
(recommendation). As it stands, Raimi fans
will blindly praise it as a homage to the way
horror films used to be (they will say "should
be"). From the Saw generation who are told
that gross out horror is the only way to go, I'd
be shocked to see a recommendation.
click here to review
it yourself!
