Drag Me to Hell (Unrated Director’s Cut) [Blu-ray]
Christine Brown (Alison Lohman) is on her way to having it all: a devoted boyfriend (Justin Long), a hard-earned job promotion, and a bright future. But when she’s forced to make a tough decision that evicts an elderly woman from her house, Christine becomes the victim of an evil curse. Now she has only three days to dissuade a dark spirit from stealing her soul before she is dragged to hell for an eternity of unthinkable torment. Director Sam Raimi (Spider-Man and The Evil Dead Trilogy) returns to the horror genre with a vengeance in the film that critics rave is “the most crazy, fun and terrifying horror movie in years!” (Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly)Touted as a return to Sam Raimi’s horror-movie roots, Drag Me to Hell is indeed closer in spirit to the director’s Evil Dead pictures than to his Spider-Man films. You got your gypsy gargoyles with rotted dentures, your upchucking corpses, your flexible two-way orifices–yes, Raimi’s definitely back in the saddle. There’s even a story: a sad loan officer (Alison Lohman) turns down the aforementioned denture-wearing gypsy for a loan extension, which leads to an evil curse and a date in hell in three days’ time. A séance, an animal sacrifice, and a session in a storm-tossed graveyard will make the 72 hours pass very nervously, thank you, along with assorted scares. Justin Long plays Lohman’s upper-class boyfriend, and Raimi fills the rest of the cast with some unusual and unfamiliar types. Along with the giddy horror-comedy that bursts out of the movie every 10 minutes or so, there’s also an underlying mood of pity: Lohman’s character is something of a hard-luck sad sack, who does enough wrong things to make her seem like a truly abject individual, well outside the heroic model of most multiplex offerings. (Lohman’s own little-girl-lost quality adds to this feeling.) But don’t let that get in the way of the fun-ride aspects of this goofy enterprise: Drag Me to Hell is a bunch of Z-movie gags wrapped in top-drawer production values. –Robert Horton
Stills from Drag Me to Hell (Click for larger image)
User Ratings and Reviews
3 Stars Not bad, but why all the hype?
I didn’t get to see this movie until it came out on Blu-Ray, so by that point I had heard almost nothing but rave reviews and was really looking forward to it. And it was okay, moderately suspenseful, but overall left me wondering, “That’s it? Did I miss something?”
It’s hard to pinpoint any major flaw with the film, but several small factors contributed to my disappointment. First of all, it wasn’t quite the blood bath I was expecting it to be. Not that a horror movie needs to be gory to be enjoyable, but when it is, it gives the feeling that things are actually happening. In this, most of the scares are caused by loud noises that make you jump, cartoonish-looking CPG shadows, or other “false alarms.” I can totally appreciate the film-making technique of building suspense and not being overly graphic, but usually it’s building towards something bigger, and a lot of this just seemed like “scare for scare’s sake.” Not to mention the brief appearance of a talking goat which just looks like a Muppet on crack. In fact the whole séance scene was laughable. The sad part is I think it was meant that way.
On the plus side, I liked the general storyline. It wasn’t the most original I’ve seen, but I’ve always had an interest in curses and demon possessions and whatnot so I kept an open mind. The acting was decent and I liked the twist ending, which I admit I didn’t see coming, plus despite the lack of blood and guts there were some truly gross-out moments. And of course every scene with the old gypsy woman was amusing. All my gripes listed above are probably just due to my personal taste and maybe shouldn’t be taken out on the film itself, but I do think it would have benefitted from eliminating some of the comedic undertones and played it strictly horror/drama. The Exorcist this ain’t. But, in the end, it did entertain me and I even watched it more than once. I guess that after being hyped up so much I couldn’t help but be a little more critical than I normally would be of a movie like this.
4 Stars Scary Gypsy Woman!
This movie was a good scary gypsy movie, but I didn’t give 5 stars because it didn’t scare my pants off! lol! It kept me interested and the gypsy woman was freaky!!! Gotta love it!
4 Stars Never cross a one-eyed gypsy
Sam and Ivan Raimi have made one fun horror flick with “Drag Me to Hell.” While recent horror films have sunk to dreary gore-fests (inspired by the boffo box office of the “Saw” franchise, no doubt), “DMTH” is a reminder that good horror films make you smile as much as grimace.
Alison Lohman plays our heroine, the blandly-named Christine Brown. She’s a thirty-something aspirant in a small-time California bank, working diligently for the Big Promotion to Assistant Manager. She’s a small-town girl with small-town aspirations - this bank is the Dunder Mifflin of financial institutions. But it does have one small snake in its grass, Ambitious New Guy Stu, who’s also jockeying for the AM position and isn’t afraid to give the boss free Lakers tickets to get them.
So, to prove that she’s sufficiently hard-nosed to be AM (a nice touch from the Raimis that in order to get ahead as a banker, you have to say “no”), Alison unwisely gets tough when a wizened gypsy (Lorna Raver) asks for a third extension on her mortgage. Upon rejection, the gypsy turns into one of the creepiest horror villains since the shark in Jaws, only considerably more gross. While Joe Pesci may own the record for most f-bombs in a movie thanks to “Casino” and “Goodfellas,” Ms. Raver surely holds the title for vomit-volume.
We pull for the sweet Christine, who truly believes that she’s a nice person. One wishes she had C3PO by her side to give her this movie’s equivalent of “Artoo, let the wookie win.”
But Christine is accompanied only by her geeky boyfriend, Dr. Clay Dalton (Justin Long), who is far too well-mannered to be of any help. Why does Christine need help, exactly? Because she has been cursed by the rejected gypsy, and it’s a doozy: a lamia will torture Christine’s soul for three days, and on the next day will drag her to hell (a fate expertly set up with a chilling opening sequence).
All this is a loose plot from which the Raimis string a bunch of most-excellent horror scenes that are long on suspense and humor while also offering some genuinely scary moments. It must be said that Ms. Raver as the gypsy is the most terrifying element of the movie - the lamia is spooky, but does not offer the genuine thrills and chills as does the wizened crone, who packs a big wallop both alive and from beyond the grave.
All in all, this is a very scary movie that is exceedingly well-made, even more so because it is safely PG-13 fare. I only give it four stars because several of the key plot points are telegraphed far in advance and I try to save the five star reviews for horror movies for the true classics, a la the original “Halloween.”
4 Stars The Real Sam Raimi Finally Steps Forward
Los Angeles, The Present: Christine (Alison Lohman) is a timid small town girl trying to cut it as a banker in Big City and failing miserably. Eager to build a secure foundation for herself and her academic boyfriend, Clay (Justin Long), as well earn the respect of Clay’s snobby parents, Alison eagerly pursues a promotion to assistant bank manager, a task which sees her locked in a passive aggressive struggle with weasily, conniving contemporary, Stu (Reggie Lee). During the course of a working day, Alison finds herself reluctantly forced to act as judge, jury and executioner on the estate of Sylvia Ganush (Lorna Raver), a sinister, elderly Gypsy woman who is defaulting on her mortgage. Keen to prove herself to her boss as the kind of capable employee who can make a hard judgment call, Alison goes against her better instincts and forecloses on Ganush’s mortgage. But as anyone who has ever seen a horror movie knows, crossing an old Gypsy woman is never a good idea, and before long Alison finds herself pursued by a relentless demonic force that quite literally wants to drag her straight to hell…
I’ll be honest. I had gone right off of Sam Raimi in recent years. I loved the “Evil Dead” films but absolutely despised the “Spiderman” films and despaired of ever seeing a decent film from the man following his mainstream success. Luckily for me though, “Drag Me To Hell” heralds a return to his earlier gonzo style of film-making.
Taking it’s cue from M.R. James’ short story “Casting The Runes” and any number of seventies satancentric Amercian TV movie schlockers, “DMTH” is a joy-ride through glorious excess and bad taste. Those familiar with the “Evil Dead” films and those gloriously tacky ‘movies of the week’ will know what to expect: its less of a horror film and more of an absurdist dark comedy which takes a subtle jab at our ‘win-at-any-cost’ culture of corporate success. Which is not to say that it isn’t rife with gore and general ickiness. It is. Its just that its rendered in a tone more akin to that of a Tex Avery cartoon than a hardcore splatter movie (indeed, a carefully positioned and precariously suspended anvil is actually responsible for a gloriously grotesque demise at one point). Likewise, a scene in which a goat is possessed by a demonic force, and begins to bleat about how much of a “b-e-a-a-a-i-i-i-t-ch” our protagonist is, is a clear indicator that things should not be taken too seriously.
While its not going to be too everyone’s taste, I had a ball with this film. It made me roar with laughter and grimace in equal measure. It’ll confound those who aren’t in on the jokes, but if you grew up on a diet of Tex Avery and films like Fear No Evil, The Legend of Hell House and Curse of the Demon / Night of the Demon (an excellent Jacques Tourneur directed adaptation of the aforementioned M.R. James story which this film obliquely references several times) then you’ll probably take this one to heart.
5 Stars Fun, Old-School Horror from Raimi!
Christine Brown is an ambitious, attractive, young loan officer struggling to balance her good-nature with doing what it takes to move up life’s various ladders. When she encounters a decrepit gypsy woman at work one day asking for a third extension on her mortgage, Christine makes the hard decision in an attempt to earn a promotion over a ruthless competitor. This leads to Christine falling under a gypsy curse, and the rest of the film is all about Christine’s downward spiral as she attempts to thwart the Lamia, a demon set on tormenting her for three days before dragging her to Hell forever. Christine enlists the aid of a fortune teller, against her boyfriend’s better judgment, who provides a number of ideas to help her, though their results have actually led some fans of the film to theorize on whether or not he is in league with the demon himself.
“Drag Me To Hell” is a great return for Raimi fans to his horror roots, studded with Evil Dead style action, camp, and over the top gross-out scenes, but set within a more thoughtful story with great performances and higher-tech effects. Allison Lohman stars as Christine, and she does a great job of seeming innocent but corruptible, while Justin Long plays her adoring boyfriend and gives his usual fine performance. Lorna Raver is fantastically upsetting as disgusting Mrs. Ganush, the old gypsy woman. The story of the film could be compared to the Stephen King story, “Thinner”, also a great film, but “Drag Me to Hell” is quite a bit more exciting and fun. There are a lot of jump moments and oldschool type scares, including one of those disturbing talking animal scenes reminiscent of the old Evil Dead mounted heads, which folks may find quite laughable under some viewing circumstances, but they can be rather disturbing when you’re watching alone, in the dark, in the middle of the night. In general, “Drag Me to Hell” seems to be a film that was pretty well received, but you still have the occasional complaint that it “isn’t scary”. I always find such complaints amusing, because often when said complainers give you examples of films they think ARE scary, they’re pretty lame. I suppose what a person finds scary is going to be different from person to person. This film employs a demonic figure for the scare factor, and many folks who don’t believe in such things simply don’t find them scary in films. Well, what can you say to that, except try using your imagination a little… All I can say is, “Drag Me to Hell” is a much better film than most of the horror films we’ve gotten in the past 20 years, and along with “Trick ‘r Treat”, it’s one of my top picks for post ’80’s horror. It may not be that scary to you, both those films are more thrilling than scary most of the time, but frankly, there aren’t many films I would actually call truly, consistently scary anyway (films like The Exorcist and The Shining, and even the original Amityville and Night of the Living Dead), and I’d still say these have their moments. After all, have you ever watched Evil Dead 2 alone at night, in the dark?
The Blu-Ray of Drag Me to Hell looks great, but it’s a bit of a disappointment in the extras department. The main extra is that you get two versions of the film, theatrical and director’s cut. Well, frankly, if you give me the director’s cut, I’ll never watch the theatrical, so I really don’t even know how they’re different and having the theatrical cut is kind of wasted space. Besides that, the only bonus is the collection of Production Video Diaries. These work well as a behind the scenes featurette, so they are much appreciated. But, beyond that, not even a theatrical trailer is included. A commentary would have been great. We do get a digital copy, but I almost never use those, so another waste… Still, the movie itself is fantastic and I’m glad to own it! I do highly recommend it, especially if you are familiar with Raimi’s earlier work and will be able to handle the few campier moments.
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