Sam Raimi’s return to the “horror” genre is a neither scary, nor humorous, and has zero entertainment value what so ever and is easily one of the worst films I have ever seen.
Christine is a young bank employee looking to move up her station in life. She has a boyfriend who loves her, but his family isn’t all too sure at the same time of her simple background. The assistant manager’s job is open at her bank and she is in hot competition with a conniving kiss ass that is trying to sweep in underneath her for the position. So when an elderly woman comes to have a third extension on her loan, Christine feels the pressure from her boss to, “make the tough decisions,” and denies the woman an extension. When the woman begs Christine, she gets embarrassed and can’t handle the situation as the woman grabs and claws after her before being escorted out by security because she feels she has been shamed. Later that night, when heading home from work, Christine is confronted by the woman in her car and a struggle ensues ending with the old woman cursing Christine which leads to an evil spirit harassing her for the next three days before the prophesized taking of Christine by the haunting demon to hell.
Now to the film, it is being sold as a straight forward horror film in the media right now, and that is wholly and entirely not true. It is attempting to be a gross out comedy as much as it is trying to be frightener and fails miserably at both. I was not scared once the entire film. I never felt tense or weary of the setting at all and that partially had to do with the fact the film was so silly most of the time, and not good silly. The film’s intent to be a gross out horror/comedy is noted, and after the first scene of eye rolling grossness, I was like, “oh this is what it is going for”. Except that what they are trying to do doesn’t work at all, its just plain stupid. How many times can we make a gross out joke involving an old lady’s teeth, eyes, and bodily fluids being mutilated, etc., etc. Now, I might have been more receptive to the gross outs and gore of it all if the film set itself up like it was ok for that to be happening in it’s world, but it doesn’t. The film takes it self seriously in between the cartoonish scenes of vileness and it all feels out of place and just head shakingly awful. It’s not until the last few minutes of the film does the film itself kind of give you a wink to the camera like, we know this is silly and we are going to have fun, for the rest of the picture it couldn’t make up it’s mind; and also was not fun or entertaining to boot.
Add to this that the horror aspect of the film doesn’t work at all either, and is resorted to simple “gotcha” moments with crescendoing blares of the score is a bit pathetic on top of that. Raimi creates some atmosphere on a couple of occasions, but usually ruins it with a cheap pop out scare or stupid gross out. If this sounds entertaining to you, go right ahead and see the film, as there were many enjoying it in the theater, but I found the film utterly pointless, unengaging, nor entertaining and even had me almost running to the door it was so horrible. The only things that I liked in the film were some interesting shots Raimi snuck in there, the standout being one with a fly and it landing on the camera, and the ending was pretty much just right and the only thing in the film that felt fresh or somewhat original.
The actors in the film aren’t as bad as the setup around them. Alison Lohman plays Christine and she does a fine enough job in the part. She has a couple of wooden deliveries and eye rolling moments, but I think that can be more credit to Raimi than her. She definitely deserves props though for taking the endless shit they throw into her face/mouth, which takes skill for sure. Justin Long is solid as the boyfriend, providing decent humor and actual comedy to the picture from time to time. Outside that, no one is really worth mentioning. Dileep Rao is alright as a psychic that helps out Lohman’s character throughout, and Adriana Barazza is decent as a powerful demon killer type in the finale but nothing to really write home about.
In the end, Drag Me To Hell has a solid ending that would have been ten million times better if I cared about anything before it. The main character doesn’t deserve the torture she deserves and the attempts at gross humor fail miserably and the horror isn’t scary either. Props to Raimi for a couple cool shots, creating horror scenes in broad daylight, and mixing a pretty impressive soundtrack for the picture, but beyond that I was not entertained one bit through this picture and hope to never have to see this thing again.
F but the poster is cool