Drag Me To Hell Film Review
Jennifer Kovachick
"Drag Me to Hell" is a sometimes funny and often startling horror movie. That is what it wants to be, and that is what it is. After scaling the heights with "A Simple Plan" (1998) and slugging a home run with the "Spider-Man" franchise, it's like Sam Raimi is taking some personal time and returning to his hobby.
He is greatly assisted by his star, Alison Lohman. Horror movies with nasty old men can be fun (see "Bride of Frankenstein"), but for the mainline product there's nothing like a sweet and vulnerable girl. Although in real life she's pushing 30, Lohman looks nowhere near old enough to be Christine, the bank loan officer. No wonder she has such a chaste sleep-apart relationship with her boyfriend, Clay Dalton (Justin Long). I suspect they practice abstinence.
If "Clay Dalton" rings a bell, those are surely two of the most common names in movies; there have been 761 Clays and 413 Daltons. That's the kind of elbow nudge Raimi likes to provide, especially since the character really requires no surname. The whole movie is nudges, especially scenes involving a cute kitten and Shock Reveals. Cute kitties of course are useful in the It's Only a Cat! false alarms, and Raimi deserves praise for not using this kitten in that way. Shock Reveals are of course the moments when a terrifying image explodes from the scene, scaring the split pea soup out of the heroine.
Shock Reveals should logically be silent, unless the Revealed is screaming. But in horror films they always come with discordant chords and loud bangs. This is as obligatory as the fact that blades always make a snicker-snack noise even when they are not scraping enough something.
It is essential that the heroine (for horror victims are conventionally women) be a good screamer, and man, can that Alison Lohman scream. Stanley Kubrick would have needed only a day with her on "The Shining," instead of the weeks he spent with Shelley Duvall. Christine has reason to scream. An old gypsy woman with a blind eye and leprous fingernails asks her for a third extension on her home loan, and if there's one thing I've learned in this life, it's that you never say no to an old gypsy woman with a blind eye and leprous fingernails.
In the struggle that follows, Mrs. Ganush (Lorna Raver), rips a button off Christine's coat, and that leads to no end of bad things, including the very real possibility that (spoiler) Christine will find herself Dragged to Hell. (unspoiler) Mrs. Ganush stalks and threatens her, Christine psyches out at work and with dinner with Clay Dalton's parents, and Clay Dalton recruits an Indian-American mystic named Rham Jas (Dileep Rao) to fight on her side.
If you think "Rham Jas" is supposed to be an elbow nudge for the famous Ram Das, you may be on to something. I didn't find any occurrence of "Rham Jas," except those citing this movie, in the first 1,000 Google hits, which I considered to be due diligence.
For a Pasadena soothsayer who accepts American Express, Rham Jas is remarkably knowledgeable about the Rules of Hell, especially as they pertain to buttons and kittens. He struggles with Christine and Clay Dalton to appease Mrs. Ganush, especially after she dies and gains a powerful ally. Shock Reveals nevertheless occur with increasing frequency and ferocity.
Christine is badgered, beaten and hexed. Her body and soul are put through the wringer. Things get so bad Clay Dalton sleeps over one night. The other nights, he simply drops her off in front of her Arts & Crafts house (pre-crash value circa $2 million) and says, "You sure you'll be all right?" She always is, for some reason.
As Boss Gettys says of Citizen Kane, "He's going to need more than one lesson, and he's going to get more than one lesson." Christine learns these lessons: (a) Never say no to an old gypsy woman with a blind eye and leprous fingernails; (2) Never dig a grave during the thunderstorm of the century; (3) If she calls Clay Dalton when she needs him, that will be too late. Little could the poor girl have anticipated that a time would come when the penalty for approving the old gypsy woman's home loan application would be her whole bank being dragged down to hell.
Sam Raimi and I had a falling out around 2002. And in 2004, we continued to drift. By 2007, well, let's just say we didn't even send a newsletter anymore. So when I found out that I was privy to an advanced test screening of Sam Raimi's upcoming camp-horror film Drag Me to Hell, I was apprehensive. Would this further cement our permanent departure from one another? To put Drag Me to Hell in perspective, Raimi hasn't directed a film with his trademark horror fare in over a decade -- Army of Darkness was his last in 1992. Well, Raimi has returned to true form -- resurrected like an Army of Darkness, you could say.
Drag Me to Hell follows the story of an ancient evil that attaches itself to a loan officer, Christine (Alison Lohman), after the most heinous, evil, elderly gypsy of all time casts a hellish curse upon her. Accompanied by her boyfriend Clay (Justin Long), the desperate Christine relies on a seer to try and save her soul whilst the ancient demon torments her every aspect of life with the sole purpose of literally dragging her to hell. What you should be taking away from that plot summary is as follows: evil, old gypsy; hellish curse; ancient demon. With that in mind, know that this is not a film where the story is all that important. I mean, the entire conceit of the film is summed up, quite completely, in its title. But when it's Sam Raimi doing horror -- the story really isn't why you're there at all.
We open in the past, where a woman battles for the soul of a young boy. She loses the battle, and the boy is drug into the very depths of hell. Then we flash-forward and meet Christine, a straight-laced professional, always looking to do the right thing, until Mrs. Ganush enters her world. After Christine denies the evil, elderly gypsy an extension on her loan payment, Mrs. Ganush attacks! In the dark parking garage after closing time, an epic battle is waged. There's a stapler involved, a projectile ruler, multiple car crashes, a set of dentures, and an excessively awesome amount of Mrs. Ganush-on-Christine gumming. Seriously. And after this physical confrontation just doesn't seem to get the job done for Mrs. Ganush, she curses Christine -- who is now, officially fucked.
Drag Me to Hell played like a vintage classic in the vein of Raimi's own Evil Dead series and the inimitable Bruce Campbell vs Army of Darkness. Bucket loads of blood and gore, edge-of-your-seat, clenched-cheek suspense, and laughs, laughs, laughs. Sure, Raimi recycles gags from his previous camp classics and doesn't stray from the tone of those films either, but that's why it succeeds! It's uproarious and over-the-top. And it's absolutely terrifying and really funny -- all within the same second.
Aside from the gore and dark comedy, Raimi is able to craft and hone characters you want to follow and wholly enjoy right along side characters you absolutely love to hate. And that characterization is never lost. As this was a very early screening, the effects are in dire need of improvement, but even in their unfinished form, I would STILL recommend Drag Me to Hell. Needless to say, Mr. Raimi and I have rekindled our passion for one another. A bloody, campy passion that Raimi proves he still has bubbling inside him. Damn great to have you back, Sam. Come May, you're not going to have to drag me to Drag Me to Hell.
I was fortunate to attend a special preview screening of Drag Me To Hell, presented by FrightFest at the ICA, with director Sam Raimi and stars Alison Lohman and Justin Long in attendence for a Q+A session afterwards.
When bank clerk Christine Brown (Lohman) turns down an extension on a home loan for Mrs. Ganush (an incredible Lorna Raver) in hope it will get her a promotion, she is confonted by the elderly lady and a curse is placed upon her: in three days time, she is going to hell. Tormented by demonic forces, she enlists the help of spiritualists and her cynical boyfriend (Long) to try and break the spell before its too late. Not an exactly original premise, and one that seems archaic in contemporary horror cinema, but with Raimi in charge it makes for exceptional entertainment.
Drag Me to Hell is a 2009 American supernatural horror film directed and co-written by Sam Raimi with Ivan Raimi, starring Alison Lohman, Justin Long, Lorna Raver, Dileep Rao, David Paymer, and Adriana Barraza. The story focuses on a loan officer, who, because she has to prove to her boss that she can make the "hard decisions" at work, chooses not to extend an elderly woman's mortgage. The old woman places a retaliatory curse on her that, after three days of escalating torment, will plunge her into the depths of Hell to burn for eternity.
In 1969 Pasadena, a Hispanic couple seek help from young medium Shaun San Dena, saying their son Juan is ill and hears evil voices after stealing a silver necklace from a Gypsy's wagon, despite his attempts to return it. San Dena prepares a sance, but an unseen force attacks them and fatally drags Juan to Hell, and he is never seen again after this. San Dena vows to fight the demon again one day.
In present-day Los Angeles, bank loan officer Christine Brown vies for a promotion to assistant branch manager with her co-worker, Stu Rubin. Her boss, Jim Jacks, advises her to demonstrate tough decision-making. Sylvia Ganush, an elderly and disheveled European Roma woman, asks for a third extension on her mortgage. However, Christine denies her request. After this, Ganush cries and begs not to have her house repossessed. Security guards arrive and she leaves, angrily accusing Christine of shaming her. In the parking lot, Ganush ambushes and violently attacks Christine. After a long struggle, Ganush rips a button from Christine's coat and curses it. Later, Christine and her boyfriend Clay Dalton visit fortune teller Rham Jas, who tells Christine a dark spirit is haunting her. At home, the entity begins to violently attack Christine. At work, she hallucinates about Ganush and bleeds profusely from her nose while spewing blood on Jacks. As Christine leaves, Stu steals a file that is on her desk.
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