With slapstick horror flickDrag Me To Hell , Sam “ Spider - Man ” Raimi returns to the musical style that first animate our love for him . Full of goofy gore , genuine chill , and a plot that plays nicely on our recessionary veneration , this is the best summer movie yet .
Before emo Spidey , Raimi created the Evil Dead trilogy , as well as Darkman . Whatever you may think of Spider - Man 3 , you ca n’t abnegate that Raimi has cred as a B - moving picture maker of the eminent orderliness . And with Drag Me To Hell , Raimi try out he can still present the down - and - dirty with the good of ’em .
The story is pretty simple . Christine ( a great , deadpan Alison Lohman ) is a loanword officer at a bank who wants urgently to get an adjunct manager perspective and escape her hick past tense as a farm girl . She ’s date Clay , a yuppie psychology prof from a fat family in Los Angeles , and this only rise her anxiety . She wants to be classy enough to ingrain him and his kinfolk , who reckon he should see lawyers rather of farm fille . Meanwhile , Christine ’s boss is threatening to boost a mankind over her – a piece they hired only weeks before – because he ’s capable to “ crunch the numbers ” and “ make the elusive decisions . ” So when Christine has to decide whether to give an old woman a third extension on her mortgage payment , she ’s set to make the “ bad decision ” to show her boss she ’s coach cloth .
When she denies the woman the loanword extension ( impressing her boss ) , it turns out she ’s mess with the wrong poverty - stricken old gentlewoman . She ’s stir the wrath of a powerful gypsy who places a nasty curse on her , invoking the goat god Lamia , who want to snack on our prissy white girl ’s soul instead of leave her to a future of marrying up and screwing over impoverished immigrants . Thus begin the fun .
As a helpful luck cashier excuse to Christine , the Lamia will torment her for three day and then drag her to hell . We watch with increasing anxiousness and glee as Christine is beaten up by scarey caprine animal - form darkness ( great vicious Dead - esque effects ) , barf up flies , and becomes so distraught that her advancement is threatened . Of course she press back , becoming tougher and more beggarly - spirited as Lamia amps up the vilification . There ’s a great seance setting , involving a hilarious effect with a stooge , and a lot of the plot developments may be silly but will still leave you feeling uncomfortable and crawly .
What makes this a brilliant B - movie , alternatively of simply a SyFy monster - of - the - week , is that it ably touches on tangible social anxieties . Christine ’s fears about her line , and being judged for her meretricious class backcloth , feel very real despite the cartoony context . Like all good horror , Drag Me To Hell takes genuine - life care , dresses them up in blood line - inebriate costumes , and sets them running .
It also expresses some anxieties that I ’m evenhandedly sure the filmmakers were completely unlettered about . The old immigrant lady who fetch down the curse , Mrs. Ganush , is basically a broad racist stereotype . She ’s called a gypsy , which is a slur for an actual heathenish group foretell the Roma , who suffer a corking softwood of discrimination in Europe – in particular , discrimination from landlords among other thing . Mrs. Ganush is represented as essentially malefic , and as somebody who really does n’t deserve that loanword extension ( when we see her mansion , we ascertain that it ’s in a country of frightful disrepair and is invade with filthy congenator ) .
I think this sort of representation is potential only because many Americans do n’t realize that the Roma are a substantial people – they mean of “ Romany ” as fairy people , enchanted beings who do n’t really be . Given that the movie is set in Los Angeles , a metropolis compact with immigrant , Mrs. Ganush therefore becomes a kind of stand - in for all immigrant whose spiritual traditions and nomenclature are uncomprehensible to the white farm miss . In Drag Me To Hell , immigrants consort with monsters and that is that . for sure , there are a few immigrant characters who essay to struggle Lamia too , but only after Christine sells all her jewelry to pay them to help her .
in the end my stage here is that Drag Me To Hell is smart enough to invoke literal societal anxiousness in a coherent ( if not always reformist ) way . At the same time , it ’s shivery and fun enough that you could prefer to watch the integral film without ever having the urge to call bell hooking to come in and give Raimi a slapdown . And in the close , you ’ll have to decide for yourself whether the movie really call back that Christine is an innocent dupe or merit what she ’s gotten .
In fact , Drag Me To Hell perfectly fits the definition of a good summertime movie . It ’s fast and gaudy , dragging you all over the billet in a elbow room that will make you laugh and scream . And when it ’s over , you ’ll still be leave remember about economical horror . The film opens tomorrow . Get your rump out to see it !
Horrorreview
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