.: Roberts' Reviews - Movie Reviews :.

Heeeeee's Back!

Sam Raimi is back directing horror. Three Cheers. Horray! Horray! Horray!

Now, if you are reading this and you don't know who Sam Raimi is, then promptly go outside, find the nearest brick wall, and begin pounding your head until you feel as if you have given enough penance for your ignorance.

Sam Raimi might be best known for the Spider-Man franchise that made truckloads of money for all those involved in the three projects, but before he was a franchise guy, Raimi was all horror. Good, dirty, bloody horror.

It all started with The Evil Dead back in 1981 (Raimi did have other films on his resume before this, but no one remembers, It's Murder or Clockwork). Raimi and good friend Bruce Campbell got together to make an extremely low budget and extremely bloody horror film about a bunch of friends in a secluded cabin that begin to turn into possessed demons.

The film is barely watchable to this day, but its cult status is undeniable. Six years later, Stephen King, a fan of the original film, convinced his production company DEG to help finance Evil Dead II: Dead by Dawn. The second film which incorporated much humor to go alongside its plate of horror was universally liked by critics and audiences and helped pave the way for the time travelling third installment of the series, Army of Darkness in 1992.

The three films are considered horror gold. I remember when The Evil Dead was on VHS back in the mid-1980's and all my friends raved on how the film was scarier than The Exorcist (it's not by the way). One musical and many late night television screenings later, The Evil Dead series is just as famous as any Nightmare on Elm Street or Friday the 13th reference.

Sam Raimi was able to parlay this success into a bunch of so-so horror/thriller type films later with Darkman and The Gift, but he hasn't been behind the camera for a horror film in almost 10 years.

Well, Heeeeeeeeeeee's back with Drag Me To Hell, a well above average horror film about a loan officer who gets cursed to go to hell.

Drag Me To Hell stars Alison Lohman as Christine Brown, the loan officer that is hexed when she turns down an elderly woman's loan application (Mrs. Ganush played so wonderfully by Lorna Raver) for the purposes of self promotion. Christine along with her boyfriend Clay (Justin Long) the next three days are hell indeed and the screening audience literally jumped at a few of the PG-13 scares while the house fly scene had more than just my girlfriend covering her face to shield her from the events unfolding on screen.

Drag Me To Hell was written right after Army of Darkness by Sam and his brother Ivan and actors such as Ellen Page were once attached to the lead role. It's hard to imagine Page in the role now as it was so accurately and subtly played by Lohman. In fact, the whole ensemble cast does a bang up job especially Dileep Rao as medium Rham Jas and the aforementioned Lorna Raver.

Drag Me To Hell is vintage Raimi. It has demons, body fluids, scares and humor all rolled up into one nice ball of fun. He can make shadowy hands from under a door look spooky and make such a tight and entertaining horror film that I didn't mind some of the usual devices - phone doesn't work, flashlight doesn't work - that were subtly incorporated into the film.