Thursday, October 1, 2009

Drag Me to Hell ****

You know, I feel bad for Alison Lohman. She gets put through hell (pun intended) in this movie and all because she wanted to better her life with a promotion.

Lohman plays a loan officer who has to deal with a tough call: either give an old lady an extension on her loan and risk losing her promotion or kick the lady to the curb and get the promotion. No prizes on who guessed the latter.

Lohman denies the old lady the extension. The woman gets down on her knees and begs, but Lohman doesn't let up. That night the old lady attacks Lohman in the parking garage and curses her. This is where I would have given up and just given the lady her extension, but then we wouldn't have a movie called Drag Me to Hell, would we?

The rest of the movie is about Lohman being tormented by, well, everything. She has nightmares and visions. Her boyfriend takes her to a Shaman who tells her that if she doesn't pass the curse off to someone else then she will, everyone, be dragged to hell.

This is the movie that sees the return to form for director Sam Raimi. Raimi started his carrer making horror movies, but in the last decade he has been making Spider-Man movies. Fans have been waiting for Raimi to return to horror and they won't be disappointed.

The Spider-Man movies never really felt like Sam Raimi movies. Well, Spider-Man 2 had some scenes that were pure Raimi, but the other ones definately didn't feel like Raimi movies. Now we have Drag Me to Hell and for this movie Raimi has pulled out all the stops. This is what a Sam Raimi movie should look and feel like.

Being a Sam Raimi movie, you would come to expect things to be a little off center. Well, with this movie everything is off center. Nothing is as it seems. Scares that should come at the right moment come a few seconds afterwards, just to keep you off guard. I loved this because I never knew what was coming next, especially the seance scene. That one you will have to discover for yourself.

Drag Me to Hell is one of the best movies of 2009. I know that isn't saying much, as this year has been pretty bad for movies, but if this movie had been released any other year it still would have been in the top ten. This movie is filled with jumps, scares, and anything else you can find in a good horror movie. Oh yeah, there's a talking goat in the movie as well. I rest my case.

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