Sam Raimi has been one of the top cult directors ever since he shocked the horror world with his impossibly low-budget debut
The Evil Dead. He proved himself the absolute master of black absurdist comedy with the sequel
Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn, and added polish and cheesy goody times to the adventure flick that closed the series,
Army of Darkness. He has also become known for his comic book adaptations
Darkman and the massively successful big-budget Spider-Man series, and has produced some outstanding cult fantasy television series such as
Xena Warrior Princess,
Hercules The Legendary Journeys, and the recent
Legend of the Seeker. Not a bad career for any geek god. But having faltered in recent years with the embarrassingly underwhelming "Spider-Man 3", and by attaching his name to bad horror films such as the American J-horror remake
The Grudge and the abysmal
Boogeyman, I may have lost my faith just for a little while. Sorry I doubted you, Mr. Raimi. To think I almost didn't go see "Drag Me to Hell" in the theater. PG-13 typically spells "kiddie horror", but the man made it work. Spectacularly. I never once felt that this film pulled a single punch. It not only shows you the good/bad stuff, it vomits it on the floor in front of you and forces you to laugh at it. This is overall the best reviewed horror film in recent memory and in this man's opinion Raimi has again served every other horror director out there nearly 30 years after "Evil Dead" dropped. Applause is called for.
Let me get to what those of us who saw it in the theater want to know first. How is the unrated director's cut? Well, it's exactly the same film. However, there are a few shots where extra gore was added that apparently would have pushed an already intense horror film into R-rated territory so they were left out of the theatrical cut. I welcome the additions, but I do wish there was more material to justify the "unrated director's cut" label, which implies something more substantial even beyond an R-rating. And while I'm on about the DVD, the special features consist solely of about 30 minutes of excellent production diaries. I wanted more. A commentary with Raimi and the stars would have been great considering the director's talent for entertaining commentary tracks and the great personalities of the film's two charming stars Justin Long an Alison Lohman
The story and setup of "Drag Me to Hell" couldn't be any more standard or unimaginative. Through a series of unfortunate events, a good person makes a bad decision under stress and winds up cursed by an old Gypsy woman. An evil spirit will torment her for three days and then take her soul into the abyss unless she can find a way to stop or appease it. Standard. Unimaginative. But I've often said that I don't mind the redundancy inherent in genre entertainment so long as the execution is solid; and it is beyond solid in this one. Ms. Lohman is the loveliest thing I've seen on screen in some time. As our protagonist, Christine, she is sweet and vulnerable but also prone to temperamental moments of badaz$ery, which come off as downright cute and funny no matter how mean-spirited her intent. Raimi' sadism when it comes to his leads is legendary and Christine gets no quarter. Coping with stressful situations like meeting her boyfriend's terrifyingly shallow and judgmental mother or vying for a promotion at work against a ruthless amoral up-and-comer are bad enough without an evil spirit only you can see or hear blasting terrifying visions in your face without warning. The film definitely uses the speakers to maximum effect which could be annoying in it's volume, but I feel that the film is trying to put you in Christine's shoes and makes you personally experience what is driving her insane, which is the flash-visions and screaming noise that accompany them. Some may call them cheap "startle scares", but I feel it was for immersive purposes and I can tell you, it keeps you on edge. Mission accomplished, then.
"Drag Me to Hell" is not a comedy, but it is very funny. The film is absolutely grim and you will see some deaths that will horrify you. The scream of sheer terror that punctuates the opening scene is one I can't get out of my head. Unlike most horror directors, Raimi doesn't care about morality. He doesn't go into a film thinking he's going to punish the horny stoned teenagers and let the good-hearted innocents off with a warning. Like I said, he's a sadist. Regardless of how cute and nice and young a character is, they're getting it bad one way or another. Empathy will get you nowhere. It's all part of the fun.....if you're a sick bastard like me, that is.
The story goes from one messed-up situation to the next and Christine winds up seeking supernatural help to try and do away with her invisible demonic tormentor. The film climaxes in what has got to be the wildest and most bizarre seance in cinema history. That scene was where the film went from good fun to borderline classic for me. I laughed hard even as I was completely shell-shocked by what I was seeing onscreen at the time. It's relatively easy to be scary OR funny, but scary AND funny at the same time? That takes a special kind of talent. I have only one major complaint about "Drag Me to Hell" and it consists of a single bad CG shot. Most of the effects are practical, and you will see in the production diaries that Lohman quite literally ate maggots to get a good shot. What a trooper. I told you Raimi's a beast. Any way you slice it, this movie is the real deal and it pushed it's PG-13 rating as far as possible with disturbing death, vile excretions in unsavory place, and a generally sadistic attitude. Even with a few extra-nasty shots, the core film is only slightly more shocking then it already was. It's still the same movie. No better, no worse.
"Drag Me to Hell" has all of the familiar charm and zany unexpected bleak humor we've come to know from the director, and it's really amazing how comfortably he slipped right back into the horror genre. In my opinion it can easily stand alongside the Evil Dead films in terms of sheer entertainment value and really could easily be seen as taking place in the same "universe" as it were. Some may (and do) disagree but I would sentence those people to watch every inane toothless PG-13 horror film of the last two decades and then give this one another shot. It'll look like
The Exorcist in comparison. Good modern horror is hard to find on the big screen these days. When we get it, let's embrace it with both arms, shall we?