Welcome to the month of October. The month of Horror.
To celebrate Live for Film is having a horror movie review each night in the 31 Days of Horror. You can see last years 31 days here. You can be involved by sending me your review of a horror film – new, old, good, bad, depressing, funny, disgusting, psychological. As long as it can be classed as a horror then you can send it over.
Click here to see all the reviews for 2011′s 31 Days of Horror.
Today Live for Films very own Mark Wassmer reviews Sam Raimi’s Drag Me To Hell.
Sam Raimi steps, or should that be jumps, back into the genre that made him famous with “Drag Me To Hell”.
Drag me to Hell opens with a quick “backstory” from 1969 in Pasadena California, where we see a Medium Shaun San Dena (Flor de Maria Chahua) trying to save the soul of a young boy before he is dragged to hell. You just know you’ll be seeing Shaun San Dena again, the young boy, not so much.
Skip forward to 2009 – or present day at year of release – Alison Lohman takes the lead as Christine Brown, a Loan Officer working in a bank and desperate to fill the vacant Assistant Managers position, however, to do so she must first prove herself to her boss, Jim Jacks (David Paymer). Opportunity arises when confronted by Sylvia Ganush (Lorna Raver is very, very creepy in this role), an elderly woman who is looking at foreclosure on her property for none payment, Christine makes a difficult decision in order to impress her boss and doesn’t extend the loan, even after Sylvia’s emotional pleas Christine, against her caring nature, stands firm, resulting in Sylvia being forcibly removed from the bank.
A quick sidenote here, never cross an old woman, especially an old Gypsy woman – always buy that lucky heather – you’ve been warned.
Shortly after Christine leaves work for the day she is confronted again by Sylvia, this time however there will be no pleading, Sylvia is out for a spot of revenge and not before a damn fine “rumble” Raimi style, she places a curse on Christine.
I’ve been a big Horror fan since I was at collage, a good 20 years ago, therefore I’m seasoned enough to spot the “double bluff” coming or the obvious “any second now”, so it’s very rare for me to jump or be scared, what I do find myself doing these days is phrasing out loud, one of my classics is “oh com’on!”. I find these popping out uncontrollable when something is either disturbing, disgusting, distasteful (see Human Centipede) or in the case of Drag me to Hell, down right funnily bizarre. I’m happy to say I had a few “oh com’on!” moments, the first of which was during the initial rumble between Christine & Sylvia, I wonder if you can guess which bit?
This first encounter is pure Raimi Horror Humour, I’m not talking about the humour you find in such bad but funny classics as The Leprechaun or Troll 2. No, I’m talking about that nasty, ouch that’s gonna hurt, but it’s still very funny to watch because it’s just to surreal. If you’ve seen Evil Dead, then you’ll know what I mean by the “Chainsaw scene”, if you haven’t then watch it.
Christine returns home and starts seeing and hearing disturbing things, at first the odd shadow outside, creepy noises the usual “slow burn” you would expect, then things start to escalate. By chance on an evening out with boyfriend Clay Dalton (Justin Long) they stumble across a fortune teller Rham Jas (Dileep Rao), who tells Christine that she is being haunted by a spirit. As things get worse, Christine seeks the aid of Rham who advises her of some potential solutions, one of which involves a sacrifice to the evil spirits, the resulting solution brings a rather, “is she really going to……” moment.
As the haunting continues you know it’s only a matter of time before Shaun San Dena turns up – remember her? – and for a small fee will go all “Ghostbusters” on the evil spirit.
There is nothing new story wise here. Yes, it was written by Sam Raimi and his brother Ivan, however, it’s not particularly original, although let’s be honest you can forgive this as we know Sam Raimi can be very original when he wants to – again see Evil Dead. It’s a very basic haunting plot that simply paths the way for Raimi to have some fun in his old stomping ground.
Even though the budget for this movie is ridiculously beyond that of the Raimi’s earlier films, I’m pleased to see that it hasn’t diminished the low-budget, grunge and grime feel that is characteristic of his work. We still have the awkward camera angles, the quick pans, the camera rolls but this time I guess rather then a handheld camera it’s on a rig with 6 people operating it. The same goes for the audio, the soundtrack and effects are environmental, natural eerie sounds, wind, trees, creaking wood, all setting the tone and pace of the movie, yet when required injecting frivolity into a scene that could so easily have a very different meaning if played for scares. Like many of Raimi’s films we see the transformation of our main character from weak to hero.
This is a solid return to the likes of Evil Dead and Army of Darkness. Dark and disturbing, whilst “tongue in check” funny, Raimi knows what we like, let’s hope he just adds a little more to the next Horror movie he makes.
