Sunday 26 September 2010

Drag Me To Hell: Review

I am not a great lover of modern horror films. Lacking in imagination, using tired old formulas, and trying to out-gross the previous film. I like more campy, tongue-in-cheek fare. Thank goodness, then for Sam Raimi. After years of toying with the Spider-Man franchise, Raimi returns to the genre that made him famous, and has come up with a real treat.

Mild-mannered banker Alison Lohman desperately wants a promotion to assistant manager, but just isn't tough enough. So to prove herself, she turns down an extension to the mortgage of a house belonging to an old gypsy woman. Big mistake. The woman puts a curse on Ms Lohman and she has three days to get rid of it, otherwise she will be dragged down to hell.

Cue loads of loud noises, mysterious shadows and Ms Lohman screaming to things that others cannot see. Raimi has gone back to basics, and has delivered a jump-fest that doesn't rely on limbs being lobbed off (in fact only one scene of blood, coming from an out-of-control nose bleed). What he has done is given us an old-fashioned, sometimes funny piece of entertainment that never takes itself seriously. There are even elements of Raimi's Evil Dead, and it includes the best fight between a pretty blonde and a pensioner ever put to screen.

Alison Lohman is perfectly cast as the girl next door having a very bad day...or three days, while Justin Long, as the boyfriend, has some good lines. The star of this piece is the film itself. If you go expecting the kind of nonsense you would get from, say, Saw or Hostel, then go elsewhere. If you want a film that you just sit back and let it ride over you, then rush to this delicious piece.

And if this is the return to form for Raimi, Spider-Man 4 should be great, and Evil Dead 4 should be fantastic.

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