To hell on a rollercoaster (Drag Me To Hell (DVD))

Member Name: jthecrab

Product:	Drag Me To Hell (DVD)
Date:	04/07/09 (78 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Best English language horror movie in a good few years.

Disadvantages: Not for those with a weak heart

Film only review.

INTRODUCTION

Drag Me To Hell is a horror movie co-written and directed by legendary horror director Sam Raimi. It was released in cinemas in the UK on 27th May 2009 and stars Alison Lohmann.

PLOT

Christine Brown (Lohmann) is a bank employee who deals in loans. She is desperate to gain promotion to her branch's deputy manager position. Her main rival for promotion, the bank's newest employee Stu, is seemingly ahead of her in the race for the job.

Christine is adamant she will win the job and becomes determined to show her boss that she can truly make the big decisions and take firm actions when necessary.

The first opportunity for Christine to prove herself comes in the form of Mrs Ganush (the brilliant Lorna Raver), a vile old Romany lady with terrible personal hygiene who wants to apply for yet another in a long line of mortgage extensions. Christine goes against her natural insticnts to help and denies Mrs Ganush the extension.

This denial send Mrs Ganush into a venomous rage. The two women have another altercation as Christine is leaving work that same day which ends up with Mrs Ganush placing a curse on Christine.

Thus the tone for the rest of the movie is set. Christine, along with the help of her doting boyfriend and a couple of spiritual mediums, has 3 days to find a way to stop Lamia the goat demon from literally dragging her to hell. But Lamia has no intention of letting her get away......................................

OPINION AND OBSERVATION

Finally, after the longest hiatus, Sam Raimi is back doing what he does best - scaring the living hell out of us. It would be easy for him to lose his edge after the mess that has been the Spiderman movies (ok so Spiderman 2 is good) but it's nice to be reminded that this man is indeed a master of horror.

Drag Me To Hell is on one hand absolutely agonising. I'm a little surprised it only got a 15 certificate. This is as close as a movie has ever got to being like a rollercoaster ride. Once Mrs Ganush has been introduced into the film it just doesn't let up on you for literally more than a minute or 2 at a time. This movie should come with a warning for people with heart conditions. The scary moments have a great balance of jumpy and gross.

On the other hand this film is also very funny. There are moments involving Mrs Ganush that relate to hygiene and bodily fluids that are just hilarious. Raimi is the best director out there at incorporating humour into his scary movies. Also, there is a seance scene that is just absolutely bizarre and a moment with a sacrificial goat that had me in tatters.

Christine is a well rounded main character. At once you can sympathise with her plight but then also feel that she has brought it all on herself and be quite happy to see her suffering. The movie accurately depicts how essentially good people can, given the circumstances, occasionally do horrible things that have a direct negative impact on others for their own personal gain.

This movie is in essence the direct descendant of The Evil Dead, not that that's a bad thing. With so many rubbish horrors being released week after week that rely solely on jumpy moments for scares Drag Me To Hell is like Raimi saying to all these lazy film makers "this is how it's done". This movie is not trying to be something it's not, it has been made to scare us witless and to occasionally make us laugh out loud and because of this I have to say that it is a triumph. Raimi has accomplished exactly what he set out to do.

Summary: Raimi goes back to horror and strikes gold again