ARROW NOTE: A faithful AITH/JoBlo.com reader has seen Sam Raimi’s upcoming flick
DRAG ME TO HELL and here are his/her
thoughts on the film. DRAG ME TO HELL stars Alison Lohman, Justin Long and
Jessica Lucas. It will chill the big screen on May 29, 2009.
REVIEW: Last night I was lucky enough to attend an advanced screening of Sam Raimi’s new horror film DRAG ME TO HELL and I’m here to tell you, the man has still got it in the horror department. The film wasn’t quite done and I’m going to be up nights hoping that they don’t cut anything. Raimi managed to make a PG-13 film that is gory, scary and actually manages to surprise you at the end. He was sitting in the audience with us and I wanted to run up and hug him afterwards.
The film begins in the 60’s with a young boy who has stolen a gypsy necklace.
His parents have brought him to a medium who fails to save his soul from the gypsy curse. He falls off a balcony, landing with a sickening thump and gets dragged through the floor into hell. We then cut to Christine Brown (Alison Lohman), a young woman from, we assume, the
Midwest who is trying to fit in in the big city. She’s one of those blond, soft spoken, kind to puppies and children types who always makes the right decision…until the day an old gypsy woman enters the bank she works at. Mrs. Ganush has defaulted on her home loan twice already and she begs our heroine to give her one more chance.
Christine really wants to help, but her manager implies that if she doesn’t grow a pair and deny the extension, she won’t get the promotion she so desperately wants. She returns to the dirty nailed, phlemy old lady rushing to put her teeth back in and tells her no. Let’s just say that pissing off a gypsy is NOT a good idea…
I watch a lot of horror films and it’s pretty hard to make me jump. DRAG ME TO HELL accomplished that over and over again. The sequence in the parking garage where the old bat attacks Christine in her car had me leaping out of my seat more than once.
The woman’s curse is so evil that her snotty handkerchief will scare the crap out of you. I’m sticking to tissues from now on. And the séance scene with the goat…I don’t want to give you any spoilers, but it’s a tour de force. Raimi got the tone just right here, balancing humor and horror perfectly. Anyone who can make a stapler attack look cool…well, he did EVIL DEAD so it’s hardly a surprise. There are nods to classic horror, characters you actually care about and non-stop laughs. The film refreshingly original in a sea of Japanese horror remakes. It’s absolutely excellent work and I can’t wait to see it again. Damn it, I don’t want to wait until May!
I’d tap it!
