Drag Me to Hell

We just got home from seeing Drag Me to Hell at the movies. This is Sam Raimi’s return to the horror genre, and I thought it was a lot of fun.

Marcella and I don’t see too many horror movies, but since this was Raimi we thought we’d give it a go. It might surprise you to hear that it is rated PG-13 and not something harder. There isn’t any nudity in it, the violence is exaggerated and at some points even ridiculous, and the gore is gross-out gore, not bloody grim realistic gore. That’s not to say there aren’t a few splashes of blood thrown around for good measure. Still, it is almost a good-old-fashioned horror movie.

The premise is that a young loan officer named Christine, played by Alison Lohman, makes the unfortunate decision to turn down a loan request for an old gypsy woman, who then curses her with a curse that will result in her being dragged to hell in three days if she can’t find a way to reverse it. In the meantime the terror and frights increase in severity with each day as Christine struggles and despairs of finding a way free of the curse before being taken to hell.

The action—terror—attack sequences are shot with the usual frenzied-ness that is expected from a Sam Raimi film. There are plenty of places in the film where you know something is about to happen and you tense in anticipation, and there are the usual feints and surprises where he lets you off the hook for a moment and then turns the tables on you and makes you jump in your seat a few beats later.

He uses sound, in particular, to build and enhance the sense of dread and fright. I will say that I felt that the theater we watched it in may have cranked the sound a notch too loud. There were a couple of moments where I wasn’t just startled, but maybe annoyed by the sudden horrendous clamoring in the auditorium. Still, it gave the movie a fun thrill-ride kind of feel.

Without spoiling anything I will say that the “heroine” of the movie isn’t always above reproach. Her ambition gets her into the fix she finds herself in, and her fear and desperation lead her to take some less than noble actions that make you wonder at points whether she doesn’t deserve the curse she’s found herself stuck with. But then the film surprises you and addresses that too.

I recommend it. The film has no pretensions of being anything other than what it is, which is a straight-forward make you jump in your seat horror movie. You will laugh a little, and cheer a little, and gag a little, and you will definitely twitch a muscle or two no matter how hard you try not to. Give it a go if you are into this sort of thing.