Drag Me To Hell

When a director isn’t having fun, either because he hates the material or his vision is being interfered with, it shows through and the movie suffers. When a director is having fun, the movie is fun, assuming the director also has talent. Take a look at Sam Raimi. It’s no secret that Raimi did not enjoy makingSpiderman 3 and boy did it show. Now, S3 was not as bad as everyone said that it was, and the film has a professional look, but it was the opposite of fun. You could tell that Raimi was just going through the motions because he was not invested in the movie. Drag Me To Hell on the other hand is massive amounts of fun. Raimi is returning to the horror genre with a script he wrote with his brother and you can tell how much fun he had making it and that fun pours onto the viewer.

Drag Me is a breath of fresh air to the horror genre that has become muddled with remakes, sequels, and stories that feel like remakes or sequels but are somehow considered to be original. Raimi knows that horror movies aren’t defined by having a great story. Instead, it’s all about how you tell the story. The plot of Drag Me is extremely simple. Christine Brown is a loan officer who is competing for the assistant manager position. In an attempt to gain favor with her boss, she decides to turn down an old woman’s plea for an extension on her mortgage so that the bank will make more money. Turns out that the woman is a gypsy and she sets a demon on Christine that in three days will come and drag her to hell.

The reasons that this movie works better than other horror movies are the development of the characters and the way that Raimi cranks up the tension in certain scenes. Let’s start with the characters. I’m a sucker for a genre movie that takes the time to develop the characters as if it’s a drama. Any time that I’m invested in the characters more, I always like the movie more and give it a lot of credit. Raimi gives us a chance to connect with the characters, especially Christine, before the curse is placed on her. Allison Lohman is absolutely perfect as Christine. She is so cute that you don’t want anything bad to happen to her and it’s shocking to see how far she’s willing to go to lift the curse. You see her being tortured by the demon and you really feel for her as you watch her slowly driven mad. She feels so real, especially in the character scenes between the couple. Even though she occasionally does things that might be considered horror movie stereotypes, you can’t fault her for them because they seem like something her character would actually do.

Right after leaving the theater, I was unsure whether or not to tell you how great Justin Long was as Christine’s boy friend. I laughed out loud throughout the movie at Long’s delivery, especially in the fortune teller scene, but often no one else was laughing. I asked some others and they agreed with me. Long is a great comedic actor, but he also shows depth as the boyfriend struggling to comprehend what his girlfriend is going through. All of the secondary characters are fantastically done as well, and I want to give specific mention to David Paymer as Christine’s boss, Lorna Raver as the gypsy, and Reggie Lee as Christine’s rival for the assistant manager position.

All other horror directors should take note of how Raimi directs this movie. Horror movies seem to have become how many jump scares, shocking moments, and gore you can squeeze into 90 minutes with nothing else being important. Although Raimi does use some gore and gross outs, they are done in a comical/cartoonish way. They leave the audience squirming but also laughing at the same time. Raimi also takes an old school approach to horror in that the scariest things are what you don’t see. The scariest scenes in the movie are scenes in which nothing bad is actually happening. Raimi ratchets up the tension with creaks and banging and a violin slowly playing in the background. He carries out the buildup much longer than any other director would so that you are on the edge of the seat by the time something jumps at you. I’m an admitted jumper in movies. Not always externally, but inside I’m jumping out of my chair. The reason these jumps work better is because of how much we are anticipating them. Raimi allows the viewers mind to create much of the horror so that the on-screen horror is scarier. There is a continuous shot of a handkerchief blowing in the wind that is one of the best shots I’ve ever seen in a horror film. Raimi also uses very tight camera angles, keeping the viewers from seeing much of what is going around the characters, and giving the film a very claustrophobic feel (that’s a complement in a movie like this).

I wanted to go as far as to say that anyone who doesn’t love Drag Me is a moron, but that’s a bit to harsh. I will say that I think this movie is enough fun that it transcends the genre and is an enjoyable movie going experience for anyone who enjoys movies. Tristin, a self-described non-horror fan who does not deal well with jump scares or gross outs, called it “kind of fun”, but it’s tough to get the full effect of the movie with your hands over your eyes. Whatever people say about the movie after the fact, I guarantee they had fun during the time spent in the theater, especially the car and funeral scenes.

Raimi never takes the movie too seriously and because of this it is insanely fun. He blends horror and humor in a way that I had never seen possible. He takes the humor of the Evil Dead trilogy that made it such a fan favorite and combines it with a budget, better characters, and actual scary moments. I absolutely loved Drag Me To Hell and everyone should go see it. Unless of course, you dislike fun.