'Drag Me to Hell' Movie Review

Christine Brown (Alison Lohman) is a young loan officer trying to escape her farm girl upbringing by moving to the city, polishing up her diction and moving up the banking corporate ladder. She's in line to get a promotion to assistant manager of her branch, but her boss isn't sure she can make the "tough decisions" when it comes to denying loans.

So when disheveled senior citizen Mrs. Ganush (Lorna Raver) comes begging for an extension on her loan so that she won't be evicted from her house, Christine puts aside her sympathy and declines her request. Outraged at not only the decision, but also the public shame of being turned down, Mrs. Ganush places a curse on Christine, one that conjures an evil spirit called a lamia to torment her for three days and then finally pull her into Hell.

Christine seeks help from her disbelieving boyfriend Clay (Justin Long), fortune teller Rham Jas (Dileep Rao) and medium Shaun San Dena (Adriana Barraza) and is open to everything from begging to bartering to animal sacrifice in order to escape her fate. But no matter what she does, she hears sinister noises and sees demonic shadows coming to get her -- things no one else can see or hear, which puts her in some awkward social situations. Who knew being damned could be such a pain?

Drag Me to Hell is proof that what's old is new again. In this era of cinematic remakes, sequels and recycled content, Raimi's unique brand of "splatstick" (splatter + slapstick) shines through as a welcome return to the gooey fun that made Evil Dead 2 in particular such a cult hit. In what other movie would the heroine have an anvil hanging in her garage?

The epic hand-to-hand (or fist-to-mouth or mouth-to-dashboard) battle between Christine and Mrs. Ganush, for instance, is a wonder to behold, equal parts horror, action and 3 Stooges romp, featuring the director's trademark cartoonish violence and attention to slimy, gross-out detail.

Whereas Raimi's previous horror efforts were rated R, however, Drag Me to Hell is PG-13 (likely to build on the Spider-Man fan base), meaning he replaces gore with gross. Instead of projectile blood, we get projectile spit, phlegm, worms, flies and embalming fluid. The end result feels a bit like a slapstick version of The Exorcist. Gore hounds shouldn't miss the explicit violence, though, because they'll too busy enjoying the delicious horror camp with which Raimi made his name.

That said, after a great setup, it feels like Raimi takes his foot off the accelerator. While the movie remains engaging, the story could go much farther to fully take advantage of the director's over-the-top style and imagination. Instead, it plays like a 30-minute anthology tale stretched out to 90 minutes, with an abrupt, anticlimactic ending that leaves viewers feeling a bit hollow. There's simply not enough plot stuffed into this surprisingly simple story, despite ample opportunity to push the envelope into increasingly wild and wacky territory. It focuses too much on repeated scenes of Christine's embarrassing, curse-related situations, like some sort of supernatural sitcom. In the end, Drag Me to Hell is a satisfying return to horror for Sam Raimi, but it could've been so much more.

• Acting: B (Lohman is likeable, even if her comedic attempts sometimes fall flat; Long is underutilized.)
• Direction: B (A colorful and entertaining blend of horror and comedy.)
• Script: C (Despite some enjoyable elements, it rarely goes far enough to take advantage of the story's camp potential.)
• Gore/Effects: B- (Light on gore; effects are solid but nothing spectacular.)
• Overall: B- (A fun, original change of pace in a genre full of remakes and overly somber films.)

Drag Me to Hell is directed by Sam Raimi and is rated R for sequences of horror violence, terror, disturbing images and language. Release date: May 29, 2009.