Topic: Drag Me To Hell ****

[Najemikon]

Drag Me To Hell
4 out of 5



Christine (Alison Lohman) is a good natured loan officer, who gives in to greed for one fateful moment. Unfortunately, she is now cursed, and has three days to free herself or be dragged to Hell!

Bloody brilliant horror, this! Like Evil Dead II, it’s laugh out loud disgusting with a few jumps. Thank goodness for Sam Raimi, because my generation missed the truly decent cinema horrors of the late 70s and early 80s and have had to put up with predictable teen slashers and morally bankrupt Saw crap. Some of them were alright, very good even, but this is what horror films at the pictures should be about. It’s not as good as the old films, but it’s good enough to give I Don’t Bloody Care What You Did Last Summer the shits and that’s all that matters.

The story is typically straightforward with a predictable end, but a couple of not so predictable moments along the way. Girl gets cursed, finds out she’ll be Dragged To Hell by a Lamia demon, gets desperate to break it and risks losing everything in the meantime. Lohman is excellent; looks gorgeous, but isn’t whiny, while Raimi gleefully throws her around like a rag doll. Justin Long is her boyfriend and is quite happy to be Justin Long. Very good, but doesn’t really have to do a lot. Ted Raimi is fun as Christine’s manager and Reggie Lee is particularly funny as Stu.

It’s well written enough, especially as her manager and Stu are the real creeps willing to do anything for quick money. She makes one mistake. One! And gets beaten up by new horror icon, Mrs. Ganush (Lorna Raver). Absolute tour de force, even when she’s definitely dead. At her best attacking Christine in a car park, at one point losing her teeth but still attempts to bite her throat out! All Christine can do is fight back with a stapler.

Some moments are definitely over the top, which is what you want, but unlike a lot of similar films today, Raimi brings the old magic with well executed scary bits and authentic looking material documenting the curse (similar to The Book of the Dead). Some nods to his classic moments, like the unseen force racing around rooms and one character possessed by a demon, looking similar to when Ash was floating around a log cabin.

Ah, Ash. Where was Bruce Campbell? He’s Raimi’s best bud, in every damn film, except this one! Criminal. But it is the girls turn and while Christine is no Ashette, no one will be forgetting the other female star in Mrs. Ganush.

I want trashy sequels, even though they won’t make sense. Films like this need trashy sequels so you can have Evil Dead type marathons, whooping every time an eyeball comes flying across the screen! Don't take it seriously and you'll have a great time.

And the best thing? Raimi might have his balls back, which bodes very well for Spider-Man 4.

[Achim]

Drag Me To Hell
4 out of 5

[...] while Raimi gleefully throws her around like a rag doll [...]

I understand this is Raimi's favorite past-time with actors

Good to see Raimi is not only back in shape but even more so in my favorite genre! Now looking forward to this even more.

Now if only Peter Jackson could decide to go back to his roots in the same way

[Dragonfire]

I thought this one looked interesting..I wasn't sure about seeing it though.  I can be a wimp when it comes to horror at times, so I'll see.  And I still haven't seen the Evil Dead movies...horrible I know.

[Jimmy]

Now if only Peter Jackson could decide to go back to his roots in the same way

Not a chance, he prefer to make interminable movie to bring more and more cash from his fan

I still haven't seen the Evil Dead movies...horrible I know.

At least watch the first one. I know that some will not agree with me but the second is just a bad remake and the last one is just a ridiculous pieces of childish crap...

[Najemikon]

 

Evil Dead II is a masterpiece.  Marie, these are as much comedies as horrors, so you may find it's good fun rather than terrifying. The original Evil Dead is more serious, but in the second Raimi realised the absurdity and made it better with tongue in cheek style.

[Dragonfire]

That's what I thought.  Isn't Army of Darkness considered one of them?  I've seen bits of that one and liked what I saw. 

[Jimmy]

Evil Dead II is a masterpiece.

No it's an insult to an independant horror classic that continue to frightening me more than 25 years later. This isn't an horror comedy (by the way I can appreciate this genre, just an exemple I like Return of the Living Dead), but The Bruce Campbell Slapstick Comedy Hours

It looks cheaper than the original even if the budget was bigger and the acting is really bad...

[Najemikon]

Evil Dead II is a masterpiece.

No it's an insult to an independant horror classic that continue to frightening me more than 25 years later. This isn't an horror comedy (by the way I can appreciate this genre, just an exemple I like Return of the Living Dead), but The Bruce Campbell Slapstick Comedy Hours

It looks cheaper than the original even if the budget was bigger and the acting is really bad...

Jimmy, that's rubbish!  It was the same people! How can you insult your own work? And Evil Dead II is the one people remember...

[Jimmy]

Jimmy, that's rubbish!  It was the same people!

No It's only the same director and one of the actor...

How can you insult your own work?

Because he wanted to be remarked by the Hollywood studio executives and it had worked so well that his next film was the awfull Darkman

And Evil Dead II is the one people remember...

I ain't too sure of that if it's really the case maybe it's because it was an awfull slapstick mess and teenager like this kind of film.

[Achim]

That's what I thought.  Isn't Army of Darkness considered one of them?  I've seen bits of that one and liked what I saw. 

Yes, Army of Darkness is basically Evil dead 3, picking up the story right at the end of Evil Dead 2.

FWIW, I also prefer the zaniness of Evil Dead 2. Although there is a few scenes in the first one that they didn't recreate (e.g. the tree rape, I believe) which were good fun. But again, Evil Dead 2 is rather violent in places but a surprising lot happens off screen and it's more an experience in terror than scary (their words, not mine). So, even if you are a bit of a wimp, I think if you approach the second one with the right mind set then it shouldn't be a big problem.

And yes again, the slapstick does take away from the horror film feel, but it still make for an excellent horror comedy, bettered, IMO, only by Braindead (a.k.a. Dead Alive).

[Dragonfire]

Dead Alive is the one Peter Jackson did isn't it?

[Jimmy]

Yes

[Achim]

Dead Alive is the one Peter Jackson did isn't it?

As Jimmy already said: yes.

Original Title is Braindead and most DVD version, especially Dead Alive, have been cut. Mind you, not for gore, just for length. I believe running time was reduced from 105 to 96 minutes.

It's a hilarious film and when I first saw it I kept thinking several times "Wow this is cool and probably the peak of the movie" only to be topped by something more outrageous in the next scene. It's good for a laugh unless the view of the liquid red stuff or human entrails are immediately putting you off.

My favorite scene: "Party's over!" (must be viewded in context)

[Achim]

Bloody brilliant horror, this! Like Evil Dead II, it’s laugh out loud disgusting with a few jumps. Thank goodness for Sam Raimi, because my generation missed the truly decent cinema horrors of the late 70s and early 80s and have had to put up with predictable teen slashers and morally bankrupt Saw crap. Some of them were alright, very good even, but this is what horror films at the pictures should be about. It’s not as good as the old films, but it’s good enough to give I Don’t Bloody Care What You Did Last Summer the shits and that’s all that matters.

This entirely wraps up what I thought when I saw this today.

While the film follows well-known patterns for the most part, Sam Raimi will mostly step in and put a twist in it. Nothing we never seen before, but certainly presented in a unique way that makes it almost feel fresh.

The story is typically straightforward with a predictable end, but a couple of not so predictable moments along the way. Girl gets cursed, finds out she’ll be Dragged To Hell by a Lamia demon, gets desperate to break it and risks losing everything in the meantime. Lohman is excellent; looks gorgeous, but isn’t whiny, while Raimi gleefully throws her around like a rag doll. Justin Long is her boyfriend and is quite happy to be Justin Long. Very good, but doesn’t really have to do a lot. Ted Raimi is fun as Christine’s manager and Reggie Lee is particularly funny as Stu.

Ted Raimi was in there...? Christine's direct superior was played by David Paymer (who is most famously being know for being Shorty that John Travolta was supposed to Get. Which one was Raimi?

I missed Bruce as well, but at least we got to see the director's yellow I-don't-know-what-brand car; the latter also having been present in (almost...?) all of his movies since Evil Dead.

(click to show/hide)

How the heck did raimi think he can get away with this ending? I saw it coming from a mile away. My personal choice would have been to give it to Stu and have him get messed up... Now, I do like the ending in general, actually, it just doesn't work like that today. We have seen too many twist-ending films that we can spot these things very easily. Maybe there would have been a way to make things less obvious, but the sealing of the coin in the beginning seemed so unnecessary that it had to be important And when you know the ending, then the whole part at the cemetery just can't really provide any excitement.

Despite my mild rant about the ending, I still think it was a fresh take on old themes and well worth your horror-loving time.

[Najemikon]

  for Ted Raimi. I always get him mixed up; he was in it as a doctor, apparently.

You're right about the ending. I remember enjoying the earlier sequence, but wondering how it would hold up to repeat viewings.