“Drag Me to Hell” Review

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I remember the first time I saw “Army of Darkness.” I had just become interested in horror films, and the movie looked like the apex of the genre. Because I knew very little about horror at that point, I didn’t have any idea that I was actually about to see the third flick in the “Evil Dead” series. Of course that was partly due to how Universal marketed the film. At any rate, it was in that sparsely populated theater where my horror movie fandom was galvanized, and I also became a lifelong follower of director Sam Raimi.

I was pleased to learn that Raimi was taking a break from the “Spider-Man” franchise to recharge his batteries and knock out a quickie horror film, “Drag Me to Hell.” It was disappointing, though, to later find out it’d be a PG-13 movie. “Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn” is so blood-drenched, it was originally released without a rating. Raimi’s style — something called “splatstick” — is a gooey blend of “The Three Stooges” and viscera. So I was worried that Raimi would be hobbled by a softer rating. Granted, 13-year-olds are the perfect audience for his horror pictures; I was 13 when I first saw “Army of Darkness.” But I was still concerned the film might not live up to his earlier work.

I really enjoyed the first half of “Drag Me to Hell.” Raimi’s camerawork, sound design and editing are masterful. The scene with Alison Lohman’s (no relation) character Christine Brown being attacked by the gypsy Sylvia Ganush (Lorna Raver) in a parking garage is hysterical…in every sense of the word. Raimi can build and maintain a sense of dread that is only matched by his ability to deliver the laughs. Unfortunately, the film doesn’t quite live up to its full potential, at least it didn’t for me. I found it a little redundant after awhile. Christine goes to work, and something scary happens; she bakes a cake, and something scary happens; she meets her boyfriend’s parents, and something scary happens.

Horror movies have second act problems. You have to keep the protagonist in constant danger without killing him/her, and all the while, raise the stakes so the audience doesn’t become bored with the proceedings. Christine’s desperation after learning she’s been cursed causes problems for her both personally and professionally. Even so, there are setups that aren’t paid off — her childhood obesity, her lactose intolerance, her boyfriend’s job as a psychology professor — leaving threads dangling and the viewer uncertain as to why we were even bothered with certain bits of exposition. The gypsy curse, in which the goat-headed demon Lamia will drag her to hell in three days’ time, is a nasty, noisy inconvenience, not something that throws her entire life into a complete tailspin during that 72-hour period.

I guess I wanted to see Christine’s world completely unravel. She’s not a terribly sympathetic character. The whole curse comes about after she denies Mrs. Ganush a third extension on her mortgage in a bid for a promotion. Our empathy for her should come from watching her endure all the punishment that’s doled out to her. I just didn’t feel it, though. She wasn’t rotten enough for me to root against her, and at the same time, she wasn’t sweet enough for me to want her to break the curse. The movie would’ve benefitted from the curse negatively impacting her job as well as her love life. It’s hard to make an audience full of people who haven’t been damned to the fiery inferno to identify with someone who has. There needs to be a common thread, some sense of loss we can relate to.

I think I need to give “Drag Me to Hell” another chance. I went in with too much baggage, expecting “Evil Dead 4.” I don’t know if I gave the movie a fair shake. It’s leaps and bounds better — and scarier — than R-rated fare like “My Bloody Valentine 3D” and so forth. That in and of itself is a triumph. I just wanted to love it more than I did, to feel like I did the first time I saw “Army of Darkness.” Nonetheless, I still had a pretty good time going to “Hell.”

-Brad Lohan

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