Drag Me to Hell
I felt as if I was watching a sequel to Scary Movie, as I was laughing at times and being grossed out when I wasn’t laughing. Drag Me to Hell starts out pretty serious and gears you up for what you think will be spine tingling horror. Most of us who have seen the trailers prior, recall the old woman placing a curse on the blonde and the many cut scenes of terror that follow. Well for the first 30 minutes we are given an introduction to Christine Brown (Alison Lohman) and her struggles with becoming a winner in life. The rest of the movie shows her struggle with a curse that has damned her soul and threatens to take her life within the span of three days.
Plot (Spoilers Abound): Formerly a chubby farm girl from the country, Christine’s life used to be simple. It was all about the farm, family and delicious pies. Now as a loan officer for a local bank she is on a mission to become assistant manager, keep her doctor boyfriend Clay Dalton (Justin Long) and maintain her newly slim figure. With this much going on it is no wonder that she let ambition get in the way of kindness when an old woman named Mrs. Ganush (Lorna River) comes into the bank to ask for an extension on her mortgage. The loan is turned down by Christine as a gesture to show her boss that she could “make a hard decision” in order to edge out her competitor Stu Rubin (Reggie Lee) for a promotion. Mrs Ganush gets desperate and after kneeling to kiss Alison’s feet to beg her for the extension she is “shamed” before the entire bank and therefore curses her to hell. Soon after that episode Christine goes to see a fortune teller who exposes the fact that she is being pursued by a demon known as a Lamia who will drag her to hell after 3 days.
Apparently Christine’s demon has a sense of humor as he makes flies dart in and out of orifices on her body, ruins important dinner parties and even causes Mediums to do happy dances. Lorna Raver does well in this movie as the disgusting old gypsy woman who provoked a sort of sentiment from me at first which turned into disgust as she vomited bile, spit and all sorts of fluids the entire movie. This is only one dimension of the exchange in bodily fluids that occurs quite a lot throughout the movie. Poor Christine is made to drink muddy grave water, old woman’s spittle and even embalming fluid which will make you turn and gag with laughter at the absurdity of it.
The film is pretty much a parody of movies of it’s genre, whether that is intentional or not is pretty irrelevant, being that it becomes obviously so at about the time when Christine shames the Gypsy woman. Rham Jas (Dileep Rao) and Shaun San Dena (Adriana Barraza) play the stereotypically “exotic” Mediums who are there to help fight the demon. Justin Long was probably the only normal person in the movie and is pretty believable as the “good guy” boyfriend throughout all of Christine;s issues. Alison Lohman, though being the protagonist is not very likeable and goes through the entire movie looking lost or just dead in the face. Even in the moments where she should be happy she has the lost look going and for a woman damned to hell, I was not sold on her at all. I wish she was a bit more believable because it may have made me care a bit more when she was being haunted versus my feeling of nonchalance throughout her entire plight.
This movie was loud, funny, not scary at all but obviously sarcastic. It was rife with plot holes and convenient occurrences and a whole bucket full of bodily fluids being leaked into people’s mouths. Before you see this I will warn you to leave your serious side at the entrance because this will not be the type of horror to scare you and make you have goose bumps. This is a comical, parody type of movie which I would say is reminiscent of Beetle Juice and Scream (wait I think Scream was trying to be serious) nevermind. In any event, it was surprising in the sense that I really did not know what to think after the credits started rolling.I still must say though, it got better the more I thought about it afterwards than when I was experiencing it. I am betting a second viewing would make me like it even more.
STAR RATING: (6/10) ★★★★★★★★★★
Filed under Horror, Thriller · Tagged with alison lohman, farm girl, final destiny, fortune teller, gypsy woman, lamia, reggie lee, sam raimi
