Review of Drag Me to Hell (2009) by James S — 07 Jun 2013

I can't claim to be a huge fan of horror comedy. If I want to be scared, I'll watch a horror. If I want to laugh, I'll watch Archer, because it's the funniest thing to be on television in years. I rarely want to be scared, and laugh at the same time. It's for this, admittedly, personal reason that horror comedies often fail for me as they usually don't succeed in making me scared, or laugh, suffer from a bit of an identity crisis and end up not being either of the things they set out to be.

Drag Me to Hell could never be classed as a straight up, horror movie. At one point it has a talking goat. Fortunately it comes down on the right side of terrifying and combined with a fantastic idea makes it the best horror themed film that Sam Raimi has ever made.

The concept is one of those which sounds so simple but brilliant. Alison Lohman's bank clerk is competing with her colleague to win an assistant loan manager's role leading her to refuse a mortgage extension to an old gypsy lady. Anyone who has worked in any kind of customer service role knows just how scary it can be when a patron doesn't get exactly what they want, though few end up cursing you to a final three days on planet Earth before you are dragged, kicking and screaming to a life of hell bound torment. Lohman, increasingly desperate for this not to happen, spends the rest of the film searching for a solution to save herself while fending off dreams of her accuser, usually involving vomit.

There's a lot of vomit in Drag Me to Hell. Vomit isn't all that scary but in the moments which precede said chundering, Raimi usually manages to concoct a really decent build up that in horror circles is best known as "watching from between your fingers." Yes, there's a hefty dose of gross out and jump scares but the film manages to raise the fright factor on a number of occasions.

Lohman is perfectly fine in the victim role. The idea of people being forced into making decisions they may not like related to the pressure of a competitive working environment is quite topical and hasn't been used all that often as a motivating tool in horror. Although what she does isn't very nice, we feel like we probably would have done the same and the vengeance visited upon her seems rather harsh. this makes her perfect horror heroine material and Lohman does this really well. We can believe each of her actions as time ticks away for her.

Justin Long does as the sappy boyfriend actually plays to his rather bland strengths as an actor. Raimi made a shrewd move with Long's character. He is so inoffensive, a real knight in shining armour for Lohman in her hours of need. It gives Lohman's character something to really lose, which makes the tragedy befalling her seem all the more brutal.

Dileep Rao is fun as the psychic Lohamn contacts for help and Lorna Raver as the cursing gypsy is a true vision of horribleness in keeping with Raimi's designs from Evil Dead 2.

As horror fans we've become accustomed to looking for the twist in our movies. There's usually an unmasking or revelation that turns a film on it's head, particularly with plots such as Drag Me to Hells. Here though, Raimi manages to out twist us. The film's finale may be a little bit too easy to work out but then Raimi has the guts to do something that we don't expect. You could say that the twist we're expecting never comes, which actually leaves the finish with a greater impact. It makes Drag Me to Hell a very clever film.

Drag Me to Hell is simple but so very effective. It is free of pretensions, it is a good, old fashioned scare fest that doesn't take itself too seriously. Gore hounds may find it a little on the light side but for those who can suspend disbelief (and isn't that what horror fans love to do, really?) it is a wildly, thrilling ride.