Drag Me to Hell Review By Tyberious
Does anyone remeber the good ole days when horror movies were actually scary? I do and more importantly so does director Sam Rami. Most people will know Rami for his work on the Spier-Man trilogy -which in my opinion was excellent until the third installment but that is another review for another day.
However many horror purists, movie buffs and nerds like myself know Sam Rami for another trilogy. The horror film genre has been kind to Rami it was this genre that got his career stared with 1981’s The Evil Dead. Rami shot the Evil Dead with little to no budget and with help from his best friend and legendary B movie star Bruce Campbell. The film became a cult hit and spawned two more sequels with 1982’s Evil Dead 2: Dead Before Dawn- which acted as a remake in addition to a sequel- and 1992’s Army of Darkness.
Over the course of this trilogy Rami was able to prove that he was capable of more than just your standard horror movie, as the films progressed Rami soon added elements of humor and action into the mix and Rami soon proved to audences that he excelled in these genres. Now after Army Of Darkness Rami’s career started to develop and grow, the director went and did such films as Darkman with Liam Neeson, The Quick and the Dead with Russel Crow and Leonardo DiCaprio, The Gift (In which Rami gave veiwers a gift, by getting Katie Holmes to go toppless in one scene), He with Bruce Campbell started the Hercules and Xenia tv shows and last but certanily not least Rami gave auidences the long awaited comic book adaptation of Spider-Man with Tobey McGuier and Kirsten Dunst.
Now after Spider-Man 3’s release and the critc and fan backlash of the film, Rami sought to go back to his roots and do a smaller film. He wrote a script with his brother Ivan and that script became Drag Me to Hell.After going into production Rami cast Justin Long and Elllen Page of Juno fame in the films title roles. Page soon dropped out and was recast by Allison Lohman and soon after Drag Me to Hell was brought to life.
The film follows the story of Christine Brown (Lohman) a loan officer at a local bank who is in the running for a promotion. Christine wanting to impress her boss and show that she can make the “tough decisions” decides not to provide a loan extension for elderly gypsie woman named Sylvia Ganush, who is being evicted from her home. Mrs. Ganush pleads with Christine to help her but, to no avail, so In return Mrs. Ganush places a curse on Christine and chaos ensues.
I want to keep this review as spoiler free as I can, becasue to do other wise would be unfair to everyone who hasnt seen it, because this film is simply amazing. Rami sucessfully blends horror, comedy and camp seemlessy and the end result is horror movie heaven. This has been the only film in years that has actually scared me. I sat in the theater dreading to see what trial and tortues poor Christine would have to go through next. This is the prime example of horror done right and I hope Mr. Rami will soon return to this genre again and scare us some more. Another thing that speperates this film is its relevance. The movie reflects the current economic climate and our own culture of Greed and illustrates how ordinary people can become blinded by the promises of money and be swayed to not do the right things and in essence lose their souls.
Its already been announced that Rami will go on to do Spider-Man 4 -which I believe wil be great seeing as Sony gave him back creative control which he didn’t have on Spidey 3- and after that he promised fans he and Bruce Campbell would do the long awaited Evil Dead 4. I don’t know if I speak for every fan but I wish he would do Evil Dead first and put Spidey on hold.
Drag me to hell is magnificant, and I give this film an A+. In a genre that is often copied and not well done this film is a refreshing reminder of what horror movies used to be and still have the potential to be. This is my second favorite movie of the summer and I encourage everyone to go out and see it and get the daylights scared out of them as well.
