DRAG ME TO HELL (2009)
Reviewed by Jerry Saravia
Alison Lohman is Christine Brown, a bank loan officer who denies an old Gypsy woman an extension on her house (timely topic indeed). Needless to say, the old Gypsy woman doesn't take this very well after she tries to bite her and beat her to a pulp in a parking garage! (Hey, don't shame a Gypsy who begs on her knees.) Unfortunately, Christine has been cursed by this ravaged, cretinous woman with the help of a coat button! How apropos yet Christine is not prepared for the torment and physical pain she will endure. We are talking about demonic shadows that creep around during the day and at night, violent dreams that involve the Gypsy woman vomiting ungodly things into Christine's mouth, flies that try to penetrate her skin, nosebleeds that lead to spraying people with blood, and an assortment of other tortures from Raimi's Evil Dead arsenal.
Unfortunately for us, none of this is any bloody fun. Lohman is so fluffy and blandly inconsequential an actress that she would make white bread moldy by just looking at it. Some early scenes with her boyfriend (Justin Long, unconvincing as a professor) show promise, especially when we learn that her boyfriend's mother disapproves of her. And there is some compassion developed early on about her promised job as an assistant manager that feels genuine. Raimi (who wrote this film) abandon all hope of a strong character study for the sake of aimless bloody thrills and chills. Lohman emotes a singular gaping expression every time she is frightened or thrown around like a rag doll (only her scene at a graveyard seems to elicit more of a Bruce Campbell wickedness than anything else in the movie). Raimi amps up the soundtrack with creaky noises and a chorus of screeching sounds, but to what avail when we could care less about Christine?
"Drag Me to Hell" aims to be an "Evil Dead"-type film but it lacks thrust and purpose and a better lead. Bruce Campbell in the "Evil Dead" pictures was in on the joke but he also made us watch and recoil at everything he encountered - he and Raimi made more inspired, inventive horror films that became Three-Stooges-like cartoons. Lohman also makes one recoil but we quickly lose interest in a largely unsympathetic and witless character (I will not describe what happens to a certain pet). I am all for a Raimi horror pic that abounds with bad taste and wicked humor. This is the first time from Raimi that I was only left with a bad taste.
