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Drag Me To Hell
USA 2009
produced by Robert G. Tapert, Grant Curtis, Joseph Drake (executive), Nathan Kahane (executive) for Ghost House Pictures, Universal
directed by Sam Raimi
starring Alison Lohman, Justin Long, Lorna Raver, Dileep Rao, David Paymer, Adriana Barraza, Chelcie Ross, Reggie Lee, Molly Cheek, Bojana Novakovic, Kevin Foster, Alexis Cruz, Ruth Livier, Shiloh Selassie, Flor de Maria Chahua, Christopher Young, Ricardo Molina, Fernanda Romero, Joanne Baron, Ted Raimi, Ali Dean, Octavia Spencer, Meyoung Laman, Bill E. Rogers, Bridget Hoffman, Tom Carey, Lia Johnson, Aimee Miles
written by Sam Raimi, Ivan Raimi, music by Christopher Young, special makeup effects by Greg Nicotero, Howard Berger/K.N.B. EFX Group, visual effects by Bruce Jones
review by Mike Haberfelner
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Available on DVD! To buy, click on link(s) below and help keep this site afloat (commissions earned) |
Always make sure of DVD-compatibility!!!
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Christine (Alison Lohman), loan officer at a bank, refuses old Mrs
Ganush (Lorna Raver) another extension on her loan, knowing she'd never be
able to pay back what she owes ... but also because she's up for
promotion, and impounding the woman's house for the bank would get her a
great deal ahead. Mrs Ganush though doesn't take this lightly, and attacks
her on the parking deck of the bank, pretty much smashes Christine's car,
and curses her before disappearing. From now on, Christine lives through
all sorts of haunting experiences, so much so that she wants to make
amends to Mrs Ganush ... to arrive too late, the woman has died earlier
that day. Of course, that freaks out Christine even more, and the
hauntings grew worse by the hour, but her boyfriend, psychology professor
Clay (Justin Long), is convinced it's just Christine's nerves - but he
realizes it's more than just that when Christine totally loses it during a
dinner with his stuck-up parents (Chelcie Ross, Molly Cheek) ... but he
sticks with her, even though he hasn't got the foggiest what to do. In
her desparation, Christine turns to a psychic (Dileep Rao) who tells her
on the third day after the curse the "lamia" will drag her to
hell, but he hooks her up with a medium (Adriana Barraza) for an extremely
haunting séance that is supposed to drive away the lamia but only costs
the medium's life but solves nothing ... but Christine learns that the
curse isn't exactly stuck on her but a button Mrs Ganush has torn from her
coat and turned into a sort of beacon, then returned - so if she passes
the button on, whoever receives it will be attacked by the lamia in her
place ... but Christine does not know a living being she wishes to be
dragged to hell, so ultimately she buries the button with Mrs Ganush -
which is good enough, since her soul's still around - and figures
everything's fixed now. Well, she better thing again ... Now
one thing up front, Drag Me To Hell is most certainly not on a
level with Sam Raimi's groundbreaking Evil
Dead-series, it's much more traditional in plot, much more
mainstream in approach, and maybe even a little too big for its own good
... but in several of the effects scenes, Raimi's indie spirit still
shines through, be it a talking goat or an arm stuck way too far into
another characters throats or a wonderfully gross-out nosebleeding scene -
and brilliantly enough, these scenes of practical surrealism don't stand
in the way of the rather serious plot but complement it. The result is a
movie that's far from a masterpiece or a genre milestone or anything of
that sort - but it's way more entertaining than many a mainstream genre
movie of its time nevertheless!
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