Drag Me to Hell
Sam Raimi | USA | 2009
99 min
Drag Me to Hell, the latest Sam Raimi offering, is a victorious return to form for a director who has been scaring cinemagoers for nearly three decades. The film opens with an intense prologue, set in the 60′s, then quickly jumps into the present where our protagonist, Christine Brown, (played to perfection by Alison Lohman), drives her car to work while listening to a dialect training tape. Those poor farm girls, the lengths to which they go to break free of their roots. It didn’t start with Clarice Starling in The Silence of the Lambs and it sure won’t end with Christine. No matter how good they are at what they do or how hard working they might be, there will always be someone to pick on their accents or make them feel inferior, whether it’s Hannibal Lecter, or their boyfriend’s snobby mother.
So what would wide-eyed, beautiful Christine do to climb up the ladder in such a hostile world? Well, whatever it takes apparently. In a bid to get that promotion which she deserves anyway, she is willing to make some “tough decisions”; this involves taking away the house of a creepy old woman for non payment of loans, the woman who will eventually put a curse on her, and despite having a good job, great boyfriend, and a bright future ahead of her, Christine will go to hell in three days unless she can find a way to get rid of this curse.
The rest of the film is about Christine being haunted by the Lamia, that unseen creature from the Netherworld out to get her, trying everything she can to get out of her predicament. The poor girl gets more than she bargains for. I’ve read that the part was originally given to Ellen Page, who would probably have been very wrong for this. This is not a role that requires a snarky Juno type, Christine is very well played by Lohman, who gives the character a certain earnestness even though she is lying to everyone around her and perhaps even to herself when she doesn’t admit that it was her own decision that brought the wrath of the evil vindictive witch, not her boss’s. She even goes against her very beliefs, for she thinks that might save her; suddenly she’s not really all that nice a girl. The scene with the kitty is a proof of this – you’ll know what I mean when you see the film.
You’d be surprised what you’ll do, when the Lamia comes for you.
The film deserves to be seen on the big screen. It will probably succeed in scaring you regardless of how tough you are or how big of a horror buff you’ve been, yet it is also campy enough to make you laugh at your jitteriness. Raimi attempts to target the same anxiety that audiences felt when first spooked by his Evil Dead series, though this film is nowhere near as gory as that. By now, viewers are so used to the torture porn of slasher movies that they’ve forgotten about the frightful imagery that directors such as Raimi, Wes Craven, and John Carpenter are capable of delivering, with a fraction of the blood and gore. There was a time where good horror meant setting the mood, keeping you alert, having you clutch the arm rest of your seat. Drag Me to Hell in many ways is therefore a trip down memory lane that is so refreshing that it turns the film into something very memorable. Your desensitized attitude to horror won’t matter for it will be impossible not to be frightened by what you see. Had Sam Raimi managed to sneak in a Bruce Campbell cameo, the film would be been perfect; but even without, its one of the best horror films of recent years.