Jusqu'en enfer

Drag me to Hell is, really, a throwback in so many ways to the fun of The Evil Dead 2. The camera angles, the excellent score - it all recalls how Raimi played with us in his earlier trilogy. What has changed however, is the sense of pace. We know its coming and Raimi employs all his skills to draw out the tension. The thrills are all there in place, I jumped like there was an electric buzzer under my seat. Perhaps a little too much CGI is indulged in but its easy to forgive in a film as wicked and blackly comic as this. I genuinely found the film disturbing for a 15 as well, again I think this is a mark of tension that Raimi creates with the score and camera work throughout the film. So incredibly refreshing to see a horror film with out the hallmarks of the recent saw franchise. Special mention for the ending, which has conviction and guts and was the proverbial cherry on top of the cake. throughly entertaining.

Sam Raimi hasn't made a bad movie yet, and while Drag Me To Hell has emerged as a case of you hate it or you love it (like Apocalypse Now, Forrest Gump, and Avatar). It turns out to be a fun ride.

Christine Brown is a loan officer in L.A. and is trying to get the position of assistant manager. She decides that in order to impress her boss, she has to be tougher. So when an old gypsy woman comes and asks her for a third extension on mortgage payment, Christine denies her that. Feeling shamed, the old woman puts a curse on Christine, and sends a demon after her. Her life is suddenly in ruins, but with the help of a fortune teller, and his Latin American friends, Christine attempts to rid herself of the demon, before it takes her down to hell.

the ending of the film is more than somewhat controversial, and in fact you could even spend the rest of the day going over it in your mind, trying to figure out what the Raimi bros were thinking. In fact considering what they choose, the entire story is kind of pointlessly staged, but at least it is fun. Raimi takes us on a crazy ride, we the viewers are treated to a handful of shocking and humorous moments, many of which directly resemble, the Evil Dead flicks. You can tell from this that after fifteen years, Raimi is still a master at horror. He has tackled every genre but it is clear now that he is most at home with this genre. I would not say it's lovable, but it doesn't disappoint either.

"Drag Me to Hell" might be the victim of unfair expectations, or just plain incorrect assumptions. This might partially be down to the advertising campaign, which could lead audiences to believing this is purely serious horror, when in fact it is pulp silliness in the vein of the old EC comics, and fully aware of it. Sam Raimi, for whom the childhood experience of reading those pulp tales served as an inspiration for his now-legendary "Evil Dead" movies, and hence gave him his career, has made his most fun and entertaining film since "Army of Darkness", and probably his best since then as well (although I do need to see "A Simple Plan" again) in "Drag Me to Hell", which feels like it could be an adaptation of one of those horror tales.

Hopefully audiences will be expecting something along the lines of "Evil Dead" mixed with its sequels when they go in, or they could leave disappointed. Unless you're scared by old women and supernatural mumbo jumbo, unless you're a superstitious person, "Drag Me to Hell" probably won't be giving you any nightmares. Then again, I'm not scared by anything really. Still, one can't help but feel that this sort of thing (if done seriously) doesn't belong in today's age of rationality and would work only in the 50's, or maybe even then would be too late to really pack a punch.

That's why this is, like the "Evil Dead" movies, a cartoon. It is one cartoony horror set-piece after the other, more often than not with an overt comedic edge, and always, always with its tongue firmly in cheek. The characters are well-realized enough for the movie to be endurable, and well-played too (Justin Long is perfect for the role regardless of how limited his range is and I can't imagine anyone but Lohman playing this particular role), but Raimi doesn't really care about them. He cares more about piling on the pulp gross-outs, resorting here to all sorts of unsavory things (including embalming fluid gushing out of a corpse into Lohman's mouth, one of a multitude of things Raimi takes pleasure in introducing to that particular orifice of Lohman's body), but not much blood at all. It isn't needed either, the PG-13 rating may sound like a limitation but it's hard to imagine this movie with much more gore, although there are a few things that happen off-screen that I would have LOVED to see on-screen, but that might be because I'm a horribly sick person.

Utilizing an active, expressive camera akin to the sort of thing we saw in the "Evil Dead" movies, Raimi stages these ridiculous scenes with gusto and passion. This is not going to terrify many people, but it is absolutely terrific at being what it sets out to be- a live action EC comic. As long as you go in expecting that, you'll probably leave satisfied. I'd like to leave you with the wise words of AV Club critic Scott Tobias: "He wants viewers to jump out of their chairs, to laugh and scream and cheer, and to nudge each other over the transcendent ridiculousness of what they're witnessing. This is junk film-making at its finest."

The early trailers for Drag Me to Hell dubbed it as (sic) "the return to classic horror", and for once at least, they are correct.

Sam Raimi manages to incorporate genuine thrills and terror using the old-fashioned format of surprise, misdirection and suggestion. As a frequent viewer of horror films, little surprises me, but in this film I was caught off-guard several times while watching it.

While the majority of the movie is kept on a serious and foreboding level, much like the original "Evil Dead", Raimi can't help but throw in elements of the absurd and slapstick during some of the more horrific scenes, thus reducing the tension and echoing the latter 2/3 of the "Evil Dead" trilogy.

WHile I have nothing against the modern trend of horror movies to provide shocks merely in the form of how much blood and gore they spill, this flick was wonderfully refreshing. It's a must-see, not just for Raimi fans, but for anyone who loves a good scary story and a great movie in general.

People who gave this a very low score don't get Sam Raimi. I found it entertaining and I enjoyed the humour. A homage to classic horror films with a mix of humour and old school special effects.