Drag Me to Hell

Oh, how I wanted to love this movie. The premise seemed strong, the talent was there, and it marked the return of Sam Raimi to the genre that shot him to cult fame. Long before Raimi became a blockbuster director with the Spider-Man franchise, he cut his cinematic teeth with the cult hit Evil Dead films. Drag Me to Hell promised to be a return to the director's roots, but it was a big disappointment to me. I came in expecting a scary good time, and instead received a lot of noise and cruelty that didn't excite or even scare me.

This movie is not fun. It's also not that scary. It's essentially 100 minutes of its lead heroine being screamed at by shadow demons, scary gypsy women, and getting vomited on by ghoulish decaying corpses. It also takes time out to have a cute little kitten get murdered in an attempted animal sacrifice ritual, if you're into that kind of thing. Mostly, though, it's a lot of generic jump scares where things fly at the camera, screaming, or there's a loud noise on the soundtrack. I'm just about at my wit's end with horror movies that try to scare us with loud noises. Drag Me to Hell seems to rely on this technique every five or seven minutes, almost to the point that you can set your watch to it. I can picture this premise working as a character-driven horror film, but I didn't care about anyone in the story. The movie's too preoccupied with trying to make us jump to make us care, never realizing that you can telegraph most of its scares far in advance.

So, just what is the premise? Christine Brown (Alison Lohman) is a loan officer at a bank. She's been eyeing that vacant Assistant Manager desk that's across from her's, hoping that her boss (David Paymer) will recognize her talent and give her a promotion. The promotion would also probably help her impress the stuffy parents of her boyfriend, Clay (Justin Long). Up until now, Christine's main problem has been the smarmy kiss-ass co-worker who is also vying for the same position. That changes when a withered old gypsy crone named Mrs. Ganush (Lorna Raver) comes to her, seeking an extension on a mortgage payment she can't afford. Hoping to impress her boss, Christine denies the old hag. Ganush does not take this very well, and attacks Christine that night in the parking garage. During the struggle, the old woman manages to place a curse upon her. Shortly thereafter, Christine is plagued by nightmarish visions, and routine unwanted visits by shadowy demonic forms that delight in tormenting her, as well as picking her up and throwing her around. With the aid of a seedy fortune teller (Dileep Rao), Christine must try to figure out a way to lift the curse in only three days, or else the tormenting demon will claim her soul forever.

There is some wit on display in Drag Me to Hell, and the movie is certainly well made in a technical sense. But I never got over the hollow feeling the movie left with me. It all boils down to the fact that I was indifferent to everything that was going on. I could never figure out why I was supposed to care about Christine and her plight to rid the curse. A lot of this has to do with the fact that Christine is merely a manipulation of the screenplay, running from one scene to the next with the sole purpose of moving the story along. She never comes across as someone we can truly get behind. All of the characters are sketchy and clumsily written. I was actually surprised by how simplistic it seemed. Every scene is a set up for more graphic special effects and demons spewing blood and maggots. The whole thing feels so mechanical and artificial, and there wasn't a single moment where I felt truly involved. I was admiring the craft and the camera work, but found I could care less about anything else.

The movie falls into a disappointing and repetitive cycle of jump scares, until it actually seems to be leading somewhere in the last 20 minutes or so. I got my hopes up, only to be let down by the ending. Some have praised it, but I found it hopelessly predictable. Raimi does a poor job of hiding the final reveal, but I kept on telling myself he wouldn't really be trying to pull this off. Surely he must have something up his sleeve to catch us off guard. He does not, unfortunately. My main problem is how the ending makes so much that has come before it completely pointless. It's like a bad punchline that doesn't get a laugh after a long and dragged out joke that wasn't that funny in the first place. I'm trying my hardest not to go into spoiler territory, but anyone who watches the scene with Christine and Clay in the car, and does not immediately suspect that she's holding the wrong envelope is a hopeless optimistic.

Please don't read this review as me saying I hated Drag Me to Hell, because I didn't. As I mentioned before, the movie was obviously made with care, and I laughed a couple times at the film's off the wall/morbid sense of humor. But a couple laughs aren't enough to make me forget the fact that this is an extremely underwhelming horror film. It's also a nasty little movie that seems to take pleasure in torturing its characters. If those characters had a shred of personality, maybe I would have felt sorry for them, instead of feeling like I was being manipulated.

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