Drag Me to Hell

The general consensus is that Hell is probably a pretty rotten place to live, but filmmaker Sam Raimi (turning his attention from the big-budget Spider-Man movies back to his horror roots) certainly knows how to make the journey to Hell a wildly entertaining trip. In Drag Me to Hell, Raimi conjures up the same magic he did in 1981 with The Evil Dead, his cult classic love letter to things that go bump in the night.

Since Raimi has been busy with Spidey for the better part of this decade, it would be fair to question whether or not he can still control the horror genre like he did nearly thirty years ago. As if sensing the doubt around him, Raimi dispels any such fear or worry in the opening moments of Drag Me to Hell with a loud and raucous sequence that sets the stage for the mayhem to come.

On the surface, the story in Drag Me to Hell is pretty basic stuff. A sweet, innocent-looking loans officer named Christine (a boldly courageous Alison Lohman) rejects a decrepit old woman's request for an extension on her mortgage. After begging at Christine's feet (and being rejected again, this time with security in tow), the old crone leaves the bank kicking and screaming. But the extent of her anger becomes really clear when she meets Christine in a parking garage and promptly puts a curse on her.

On paper, this synopsis may sound like a million other horror films, but Raimi (and his brother Ivan, who co-wrote the script with him) has an endless supply of tricks hidden up his sleeve. To dismiss Drag Me to Hell as just another fright flick is to simply feed its ability to shock and surprise. Once the curse has been placed upon our protagonist, Christine's life is tossed into total turmoil, as she is routinely visited by violent spirits who are simply taunting and haunting her in anticipation of her impending one-way trip to Hell.

In each of these rough and rowdy sequences, Raimi puts all of his towering talents to perfect use. His command of the camera is exquisite, continually forcing us into a sense of inescapable claustrophobia. Christine fills the tight frame, leaving us viewers with precious little room to breathe. When the scares leap out at us, there is nowhere to hide because the camera rubs our faces in our own fears. You can almost hear Raimi laughing in the background each time something forces its way into the frame.

But the camera and Raimi's sadistic desire to make his viewers squirm are not the only two things that make Drag Me to Hell such a terrifically terrifying masterpiece. The sound work and musical score are eerily intense at times and will send many viewers scrambling for a cozy blanket to hide behind. Raimi's penchant for creepy, creaky noises is on full display here, evoking a sense of the power he unleashed in The Evil Dead and its expertly demented sequels Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn and Army of Darkness.

Drag Me to Hell is so much fun filled with so many scares and so many gross-out laughs (the movie should come with a barf bag for the squeamish) that it could work wonders as a one-man show even if everyone else just phoned it in. But since this is the kind of horror film that comes along perhaps once in a decade, Sam Raimi is not alone in his attempt to make something spookily special (and especially spooky).

The gloriously gonzo performance by Alison Lohman as Christine is everything the movie needs to push it right to the peak of horror movie perfection. Lohman inherited the role from Juno star Ellen Page when she dropped out of the project, citing scheduling conflicts (my official guess is that she got cold feet when she read the script and saw how many bodily fluids had to be poured into her mouth).

Lohman is not as seasoned a performer as the very young Page has already proven to be, but her lack of experienced acting chops is more than made up for by Lohman's fearless approach to the role. She goes for broke in every single scene, which is quite a challenge considering how punishing the role is. Drag Me to Hell is all about putting Christine right through the wringer and putting her entire life on a never-ending rollercoaster ride. This isn't just bad stuff happening to a nice woman; this is pure, hellish cruelty.

From its lovingly nostalgic beginning (the movie opens with the Universal Studios logo that was featured in the 1980s) to its brilliant, couldn't-be-better ending, Drag Me to Hell is the work of an undisputed master. Raimi hits every note with all of the accuracy and imagination that only a veteran can muster. He makes every scare count and he keeps the tension running like a taut thread through the entire movie. Now more than ever, I'm convinced Hell is a nasty place to be, but with Raimi as the tour guide, this particular journey to Hell is the perfect summer vacation.