Drag Me To Hell: Raimi Does Textbook Horror.

Posted by ScuzzBuster

June 2, 2009

drag1sheet Here’s my prediction for the future of the Sam Raimi’s new horror film Drag Me To Hell. Next fall, when new textbooks are published for entry level film courses at USC and/or other distinguished film schools, the chapters on writing and directing are going to use Drag Me to Hell as the template for constructing horror films. While Raimi has spent the last several years making studio waves with the ultra successful Spiderman franchise, he continues to prove that the genre he knows as good or better than anyone else in the business is scares and thrills.

dragme1 I would call Drag Me to Hell almost a paint by numbers example of how to make a horror film, but that would cheapen how incredibly fun and skillful it is. As a moviegoer, you will rarely see a film of any genre that succeeds in its goals on almost every level any more wildly than this one.

While I can’t imagine the number of sleepless nights Sam Raimi spent during the production of the original Spiderman knowing that if he bombed to the tune of $100 million he’d pretty much be done, I’m positive that Sam slept like a baby virtually every night throughout the principal photography and post production of Drag Me to Hell. I can imagine that the making of this film was probably almost as much fun as watching it unfold on the screen.

dragme2 There’s probably a misconception that Raimi was some sort of horror junkie that was executing a labor of love when he made the original two Evil Dead films, but the fact is that he used horror as the cheapest and easiest path into the biz. Horror is cheap to make and almost always turns a profit. He did Evil Dead as the cheapest sleaziest way to get a film to turn a profit to give him a chance to move up. Somehow, he managed to make the genre classic Evil Dead, and the cult phenomenon Evil Dead 2: Dead By Dawn. Personally, I can pretty much trace my romantic love of film to being drug into a room and forced to watch Evil Dead 2. For the record, that was a little over 20 years ago and the person forcing my ass in front of that movie has his own review below this one for Pixar’s Up.

Raimi intuitively knows how to make a horror film. Drag Me to Hell is flawlessly executed. His use of sound to build tension and discomfort is genius. He whips the audience into moments of fright and terror by keeping the scariest parts of the evil off the screen knowing just exactly what to show to make the audience’s imagination go nuts with nervous terror. And when he builds the tension so high that it’s unbearable, he just ever so expertly let’s enough air out of the balloon to bring the audience back out of the frenzy through nervous release and chuckles so he can start notching the tension level slowly back up.

drag5 In a theater about half full, this was a classic horror film audience. There are scares that have the audience jumping out of their seats then suddenly releasing with nervous laughter. Twenty-something year old girls are grabbing the arms of their dates and gasping with a mix of fear and laughter in horrific and frightened expectations of what moments of astonishment and disgust that the next moments will bring. This is textbook horror and you will be hard pressed to see it done any better.

In the grand scope of Raimi’s career, I still consider Army of Darkness: Evil Dead 3 as probably the most disappointing. I consider Drag Me to Hell to be the true spiritual successor to the Evil Dead series. Don’t read too much into this because in many respects, Drag Me to Hell is relatively low key compared to the insanity that was Evil Dead 2. However the moments of frenzied camera work and over the top moments of shocking violence and genuine icky disgust are just as satisfying.

drag_me_to_hell I’m not going to go too far in describing what the film is about, but let’s just say that this almost a retelling of Stephen King’s classic novella (under Richard Bachman) called Thinner. A young woman, Allison Lohman, who is bucking for a promotion in her job as a bank loan officer decides to stand her ground on not granting a mortgage extension on an old woman who unfortunately turns out to be a manically insane old gypsy. As revenge, the old woman bestows a curse on the young woman that she soon finds out will culminate in three nights of violent and frightening visits from a demon ending with her soul being stolen and sent directly to hell on the morning of the fourth day. The film is her desperate attempt to remove the curse.

get_a_mac_ad_characters As a side note, I would also like to point out that this film has absolutely the most aggressive product placement you will ever see. Not only is the film filled with Apple Products (laptops, Iphones, etc…) but Apple has also managed to prominently place themselves in a major supporting role by throwing Justin Long (the hip guy from the Mac vs PC commercials) as the male lead. I know, it’s unfair to call an actor “product placement” but it’s obvious that it’s Raimi’s sense of humor that allows him to throw Long in the midst of all the Apple products.

If you’re up for a night of frights, disgust and a rollercoaster ride of awesome fun, you will appreciate how rare a film like Drag Me to Hell is. A note perfect exercise in making a good popcorn horror flick.

Cheers to Sam and Ivan Raimi in giving us a film that I’m sure will take it’s place as a genre classic. They don’t make horror films like this very often. It’s a blast.

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