Drag Me to Hell: A Brimstone Blast

Hail to the king baby. Sam Raimi is back to doing what he does best. Here is a director that began his career making Super 8 films with his school friends for less then nothing. Twenty years later he became responsible for the comic book resurgence we've seen over the last decade. On top of all that most of his films in the middle while being diverse as hell were pretty excellent too. This guy made a western staring Sharon Stone into a good movie for god sakes! If that isn't an impressive feat, then I don't know what is. Now Raimi is going back to where it all began with Drag Me to Hell. A gross, frightening, and campy funhouse of excellence.

Alison Lohman stars as Christine Brown, a former farm girl who is just looking to advance her career at her local bank. She is in heavy competition with the resident suck up, and it looks as though her boss may be leaning in his direction. She is told she needs to be more aggressive, and make difficult choices if she wants the new assistant management job. Christine decides to flex her management muscle on the wrong client. Enter Mrs. Ganush (Lorna Raver), a pitiful and delightfully disgusting gypsy who pleads to Christine for a third extension on her house payments. When Ganush is denied, she attacks Christine in a wonderfully over the top fight scene in the deserted basement parking lot. The result of this fight ends in a curse where Christine soon discovers that at the end of three days there is going to be hell to pay.

The rest of the film involves Christine living with the effects of the curse, and let me tell you they are not pretty. This is one of the most nauseating films I have seen in years. It assaults the viewer with this undeniable joy and sense of humor to it, turning the film into a campy riot. I mean that in the best possible way. Our heroine gets covered in or subjected to numerous amounts of the following: blood, pus, mucus, saliva, decay-eating worms, and even (embalming fluid) vomit. Christine is constantly tormented by visions of Mrs. Ganush in flash shock fashion. A number of scenes also involve Christine tossed around her house, and beaten by an unseen (except in shadow) demon that plans do the job of the title. Her boyfriend Clay (Justin Long) is skeptical and too worried about his uppity and judgemental parents to be of any help. Christine visits a fortune teller named Rham Jas (Dileep Rao) who informs her of the situation, and offers to help rid her of this curse...for a price.

Let me just say that this is how a horror movie should be made. This is the kind of gutsy film that has absolutely no qualms about killing off children before the opening credits, or even helpless and adorable animals. The creepy soundtrack of shrieking violins and amped up sound effects are a Raimi staple, and further enhance the mood. The dialogue is incredibly silly at times "I'm gonna go get some!", but this was intentional and just made me love it even more. I spent the entire movie laughing, jumping, gagging, or just sitting there with a big dopey grin on my face just waiting to see what revolting surprises would be thrown my way next. I especially love the way the film begins and ends with the retro Universal Pictures logos, reminding us how good old school throwback horror can be. A