Drag Me to Hell (Theatrical)

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Like everyone else on the planet, Alison Lohman is no Bruce Campbell, but she proves to be more than game as she is beaten and tossed around like a rag doll time and again, slamming face first into furniture or getting bonked on the head by a giant crucifix. There are no geysers of blood in "Drag Me to Hell" but the bodily fluids flow freely. Poor Christine, of course, is on the receiving end of most of it, most graphically when she gets a hefty dose of embalming fluid poured down her gullet after she crashes a funeral and crashes into the recently deceased.

Most welcome of all is Raimi´s refusal to turn "Drag Me to Hell" into another CGI-fest, relying instead of some of the more traditional but still innovative effects that made the "Evil Dead" films so great. It´s amazing how much mileage you can get out of an acrobatic camera, canted angles, some good old fashioned make-up effects (by Greg Nicotero, Howard Berger, and team) and a couple of shrieking possessed people suspended on wires. It´s exciting to see a film released in 2009 that benefits from the vitality of practical effects like these along with the judicious use of digital effects when appropriate.

The first two-thirds of the film are simply a blast. The final act is marred by a painfully obvious twist that fails to be as ironic as intended. Still even this final portion of the film is so skillfully directed that you can almost forgive the awkward plotting. Raimi understands something that marks him as one of the true master of the horror genre: grave-digging is inherently funny. Seriously, when isn´t it?

"Drag Me to Hell" isn´t going to give you nightmares, but it´s not meant to. There are shocks along the way, many of which rely on a concatenation of horror clichés, but when these clichés are placed in the hands of someone as gifted as Raimi they work beautifully. If you´re a die-hard who only considers the first two "Evil Dead" films to be true vintage Raimi, then "Drag Me to Hell" doesn´t quite meet that lofty standard. But it´s a welcome return to the genre that made him great and the wit that separated the "ED" films from darn near everything else is on full display. Very funny and very fun.

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