Drag Me To Hell

Coming Soon

to Sky Box Office 07/12/09

Director: Sam Raimi

Stars: Alison Lohman, Justin Long, Lorna Raver, David Paymer

Year: 2009 Running Time: 99 mins Rating:

After spinning box office gold in three Spider-Man movies, Sam Raimi returns to his roots for a breakneck rock and roll horror movie. Alison Lohman is a meek banker who refuses an old lady a mortgage extension, and finds herself on the receiving end of a particularly nasty demonic curse. Raimi has lost none of his Evil Dead sugar-frenzied visual style, and this is fiendishly good fun you’ll want to be dragged back to again and again.

Review

Almost two and a half billion dollars at the box office haven’t tamed him. And rather than the Spidey trilogy, Sam Raimi resurrects the spirit of his Evil Dead triptych for a ghoulish goulash of Grand Guignol.

And in these credit crunch times casting bankers to Hell should put a smile on the faces of us mere mortals, even if said banker comes in the sweet, vulnerable form of Alison Lohman.

As Christine, a role originally intended for Ellen Page, Lohman gamely endures punishment Raimi usually reserves for old pal Bruce Campbell, being terrorised by (deep breath): the old lady, the demon sent to drag her down south, wardrobes, cupboards, false teeth, raging nose bleeds, a homemade cake, and a particular icky housefly, with only Professor boyfriend Clay (a gamely third fiddle Long) to rely on.

Opening with a pre-credit sequence that lives up to its title, Raimi and co-scriptwriter brother Ivan keep matters exuberantly nasty for its 99 minutes, director Raimi using his Spider-Man action skills for a wonderful blend of fisticuffs and frights.

Christine's close-quarter punch-up with the repayment challenged Mrs Ganush (Raver) in the banker’s car is a love-letter to Raimi's favoured comedy violence. Making use of a stapler and (after Ganush loses her scary dentures) a particularly gummy kiss – a moment brought back later for a crowd pleasing encore – it is a corker.

Raimi keeps the gore flowing – Evil Dead fans will cheer a moment of eyeball zaniness and a séance that features a levitating demon– but what separates him from grunge meisters Rob Zombie and Eli Roth are the subtler flourishes.

Shadows form the shape of the demon gunning for Christine, a stubborn hankie foretells doom, and a dinner party scene with Clay’s disapproving parents is possibly the film’s best.

The Raimi brothers keeps the plot moving so quickly plot concerns don’t occur until after the credits have rolled.

But, with a final act that skips around obvious plot twists and a knockout final scene worthy of the best EC Comics, Raimi’s return to horror is (Evil) dead good.