Drag Me to Hell (2009)
Directed by Sam Raimi
After denying a woman the extension she needs to keep her home, loan officer Christine Brown sees her once-promising life take a startling turn for the worse. Christine is convinced she's been cursed by a Gypsy, but her boyfriend is skeptical. Her only hope seems to lie in a psychic who claims he can help her lift the curse and keep her soul from being dragged straight to hell.
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Some music left on the cutting room floor when they were finishing The Exorcist , a mad old gypsy from the Universal monster movies, flesh-rotting ghosts straight out of J-horror, and maybe best of all, violent and assaultive sound design that recalls 1963's magnificent The Haunting.
Sometimes he takes the indirect approach (akin to Robert Wise's "The Haunting"), creating anxiety from the mundane: A handkerchief delicately wafting toward Christine's windshield is filled with foreboding.
Some music left on the cutting room floor when they were finishing The Exorcist , a mad old gypsy from the Universal monster movies, flesh-rotting ghosts straight out of J-horror, and maybe best of all, violent and assaultive sound design that recalls 1963's magnificent The Haunting.
How do I accurately describe Drag Me to Hell? Let's put it this way: if The Exorcist were re-imagined by Bugs Bunny, this is what you'd get.
It harkens back to the kind of scary movies that seem almost innocent now with their earnest occult mumbo-jumbo (think The Exorcist ) and terrified but plucky heroines (think Jamie Lee Curtis in Halloween ).
Have you seen, for example, “Evil Dead 2” or its follow-up, “Army of Darkness”?
As he did in both Army of Darkness and the Spider-Man films, Murawski makes the absolute most out of every shock in Drag Me to Hell.
The script, co-written by the director and his brother Ivan (they previously collaborated on Darkman , Army of Darkness and Spider-Man 3 ) leaves no cliché unturned, but it isn't really striving for staunch originality.
But Raimi does offer a few nods to fans of that cult classic with sly references to Evil Dead and Army of Darkness inserted unobtrusively into Drag Me to Hell.
As Raimi’s fans know, long before he became a giant Hollywood player with the “Spider-Man” movie franchise, he made a name for himself with the “Evil Dead” pictures and other assorted B-movie entertainments like “Army of Darkness.”
With Evil Dead II and Army of Darkness , Raimi demonstrated that he enjoys spiking his blood and gore with satire, wit, and the Three Stooges.
Having been preoccupied with a little thing called the "Spider-Man" trilogy, Sam Raimi returns to his "Evil Dead" roots with "Drag Me to Hell," a funhouse ride of a supernatural thriller surrounding a demonic gypsy curse.
Spider-Man director Sam Raimi returns to his Evil Dead roots in this yucky, energetic and consistently entertaining fright movie.
This is Raimi cutting loose after spending the better part of a decade crafting the Spider-Man juggernaut, and his energy and enthusiasm are evident in every aspect of this film, from screenplay to final cut.
Director Sam Raimi ("Spider-Man") returns to his "Evil Dead" roots for this tongue-in-cheek gorefest -- one part spooky chiller, one part campy chuckler.
The question you have to ask yourself is, after his extraordinary success as director of the "Spider-Man" franchise -- to say nothing of his dramatic work with the likes of Billy Bob Thornton and Kevin Costner -- what the devil is Sam Raimi doing directing horror films again?
Let us all pause to thank our individual deities that Raimi never learned the rules, and toss in an extra thanks for his temporary withdrawal from the high-budget world of the Spider-Man movies, so he could all show us once again what Shakespeare looks like the way it's meant to be done.
The script, co-written by the director and his brother Ivan (they previously collaborated on Darkman , Army of Darkness and Spider-Man 3 ) leaves no cliché unturned, but it isn't really striving for staunch originality.
So he re-teamed with his brother Ivan (his co-writer on "Army of Darkness" and "Darkman") to make another micro-budgeted, creatively gory and hilariously sadistic horror comedy -- the sort that made Raimi a cult sensation back in his "Evil Dead" heyday.
But when you think of "a Sam Raimi Film," you think about the underrated "Darkman," the offbeat "The Quick and the Dead," the over-the-top "Army of Darkness" -- Looney Tunes action, slapstick violence and a few nyuk-nyuk punchlines.
When Sam Raimi jumped from low-budget action-horror-comedy (" Darkman ," " Army of Darkness ") toward first quiet respectability (with the great, underrated " A Simple Plan " and " For Love of the Game ") and then megabuck profitability (with the " Spider-Man " films), it was great to see a real American talent succeed.
This is how the very quirky, handmade style of films such as The Evil Dead, DARKMAN and even The Quick and the Dead suddenly gave way to the incredibly impersonal style of both A Simple Plan and the maudlin sports opera For Love of the Game.
Movies like "Darkman" and his Spaghetti-O western "The Quick and the Dead" were hard to take seriously.
Sam Raimi's first horror flick since 1992's Army of Darkness, Drag Me to Hell stars Alison Lohman as Christine Brown - an ambitious loan officer who is hit with a supernatural curse after she denies a creepy old lady's request for an extension on her mortgage.
If it's not The Evil Dead from 1981, it's Raimi's masterpiece Evil Dead II that has forever marked him as one of the truly gifted horror directors, and it is or at any rate ought to be a crystal-clear sign of his new film's tremendous effectiveness that it has more in common with Evil Dead II than any of his other films, hitting the same exact perfect balance of absolutely terrifying moments and ridiculously silly moments; and as in the former work, a whole lot of those moments occur at the exact same time, for Raimi has apparently not learned in the last 22 years that you aren't supposed to do that.
With Evil Dead II and Army of Darkness , Raimi demonstrated that he enjoys spiking his blood and gore with satire, wit, and the Three Stooges.
But let's face it, the soaring professionalism of "Spider-Man 2" is a long way from the winking trash of "Evil Dead II."
(I’ve only seen the comically horrific “Evil Dead II,” while moderately soused.)
Long before he directed the Spider-Man trilogy, Sam Raimi won the enduring devotion of cult fans for his slapstick horror trilogy – Evil Dead (1981), Evil Dead II (1987) and Army of Darkness (1992).
But when you think of "a Sam Raimi Film," you think about the underrated "Darkman," the offbeat "The Quick and the Dead," the over-the-top "Army of Darkness" -- Looney Tunes action, slapstick violence and a few nyuk-nyuk punchlines.
This is how the very quirky, handmade style of films such as The Evil Dead, DARKMAN and even The Quick and the Dead suddenly gave way to the incredibly impersonal style of both A Simple Plan and the maudlin sports opera For Love of the Game.
Movies like "Darkman" and his Spaghetti-O western "The Quick and the Dead" were hard to take seriously.
Since then he's directed a western ("The Quick and the Dead"), a crime drama (the brilliant, vastly underrated "A Simple Plan"), a baseball movie ("For the Love of the Game") and ... what else was there?
In the '90s he branched out into films with stars, largely away from horror: The Quick and the Dead, A Simple Plan, For Love of the Game, The Gift.
Yes, after The Evil Dead, he quickly took on studio work, and even before the Spider-Man trilogy made billions worldwide, his name was already attached to a host of incongruous titles—The Quick and the Dead, A Simple Plan, For Love of the Game.
When Sam Raimi jumped from low-budget action-horror-comedy (" Darkman ," " Army of Darkness ") toward first quiet respectability (with the great, underrated " A Simple Plan " and " For Love of the Game ") and then megabuck profitability (with the " Spider-Man " films), it was great to see a real American talent succeed.
This is how the very quirky, handmade style of films such as The Evil Dead, DARKMAN and even The Quick and the Dead suddenly gave way to the incredibly impersonal style of both A Simple Plan and the maudlin sports opera For Love of the Game.
Sure, a few stinkers litter his backyard (“For Love of the Game,” anyone?), but when Raimi directs, it’s mostly good.
In the '90s he branched out into films with stars, largely away from horror: The Quick and the Dead, A Simple Plan, For Love of the Game, The Gift.
Yes, after The Evil Dead, he quickly took on studio work, and even before the Spider-Man trilogy made billions worldwide, his name was already attached to a host of incongruous titles—The Quick and the Dead, A Simple Plan, For Love of the Game.
Raimi knows how to modulate his technique, as with the coolly controlled morality tale “A Simple Plan,” but he’s a firm believer in the power of an active, expressive camera, as well as the value of insinuation.
Since then, Raimi has thrown a few curveballs -- from the "Fargo"-like "A Simple Plan" (Raimi is a longtime Coen Bros. cohort) to the hugely successful "Spider-Man" franchise.
When Sam Raimi jumped from low-budget action-horror-comedy (" Darkman ," " Army of Darkness ") toward first quiet respectability (with the great, underrated " A Simple Plan " and " For Love of the Game ") and then megabuck profitability (with the " Spider-Man " films), it was great to see a real American talent succeed.
This is how the very quirky, handmade style of films such as The Evil Dead, DARKMAN and even The Quick and the Dead suddenly gave way to the incredibly impersonal style of both A Simple Plan and the maudlin sports opera For Love of the Game.
The results were eclectic but effective, yielding the marvelous “A Simple Plan,” a taut thriller called “The Gift,” and the box office triumph of the first three “Spider Man” movies.
Since then he's directed a western ("The Quick and the Dead"), a crime drama (the brilliant, vastly underrated "A Simple Plan"), a baseball movie ("For the Love of the Game") and ... what else was there?
If it's not The Evil Dead from 1981, it's Raimi's masterpiece Evil Dead II that has forever marked him as one of the truly gifted horror directors, and it is or at any rate ought to be a crystal-clear sign of his new film's tremendous effectiveness that it has more in common with Evil Dead II than any of his other films, hitting the same exact perfect balance of absolutely terrifying moments and ridiculously silly moments; and as in the former work, a whole lot of those moments occur at the exact same time, for Raimi has apparently not learned in the last 22 years that you aren't supposed to do that.
His "The Evil Dead" is what first caught fans' eyes in 1981 and had many people pegging him as a straight-forward horror director.
This is how the very quirky, handmade style of films such as The Evil Dead, DARKMAN and even The Quick and the Dead suddenly gave way to the incredibly impersonal style of both A Simple Plan and the maudlin sports opera For Love of the Game.
From the harrowing The Evil Dead, to the cult classic Evil Dead 2: Dead By Dawn and Army Of Darkness (Evil Dead 3), Mr. Raimi impressed a lot of people with his visual muscularity and inventive camera shots and techniques, not to mention the very specific mood that he brings to all his work.
In 1981, Sam Raimi's "The Evil Dead" made a breakthrough for cheap-looking schlock.
Part of the problem with Drag Me to Hell is that it's not 1981 anymore, the year The Evil Dead rebooted the horror genre.
Raimi co-wrote the script with his brother, Ivan, and what they created is a return to form for the director, who in some circles is best known for his “Spider-Man” movies than he is for his early cult films, including such camp horror classics as “The Evil Dead” series, “Army of Darkness” and the lesser-known “Within the Woods.”
Buffs will notice a nod, too, to the classic "Curse of the Demon" (although Raimi doesn't repeat that film's mistake by ever showing his fiend too clearly).
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It harkens back to the kind of scary movies that seem almost innocent now with their earnest occult mumbo-jumbo (think The Exorcist ) and terrified but plucky heroines (think Jamie Lee Curtis in Halloween ).
Just like Catherine Deneuve in Polanski's Repulsion, Lohman is a woman in the centre of a vortex.
Just as David Cronenberg has the exploding head from Scanners (1981) as his signature shock moment, Raimi now has this.
Raimi seems to go a bit "off the rails" during the train station climax with some Tales from the Crypt obligation for a grim twist.
Drag Me to Hell is a Creepshow installment, a high-end episode of Tales from the Crypt, a mid-’80s-style crowd-pleaser that doles out horror with a smirk and gore with a smile.
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A loan officer in a Los Angeles bank, she sees the vacant assistant-manager spot dangling tantalizingly close; trying to toughen up for her boss (and apparently having never read Stephen King�s Thinner), she turns down an extension of a Gypsy crone�s (Lorna Raver) mortgage.
I hope the nation’s 17-year-olds aren’t so benumbed by “Saw,” “Hostel” and humorless remakes of humorless, better-made Japanese horror films that they’ve become indifferent to exuberant, well-paced trash.
With the multiplexes infested with the torture porn style of the Saw films, Raimi’s decision to return to the genre that made him could not be timed better.
Watching the film is almost enough to erase the memory of slogging through all of those rotten “Saw” movies, their bloody knock-offs and the glut of Japanese horror remakes whose entrails we’ve been wading through since “The Grudge” (which Raimi produced) hit the scene in 2004.
Raimi's brand of Looney Tunes terror, embracing the genre and its ability to thrill while gently spoofing it, should be required viewing for anyone believing Saw IV is an awesome flick.
Drag Me owes less to contemporary horror-film grammar ("extreme" Japanese horror, sadistic Saw-style butchery, etc.) than it does to the thrillers of the '70s and '80s.