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Kevin Phillipson (9955 KP) rated Drag Me to Hell (2009) in Movies
Jun 5, 2022
LeftSideCut (3778 KP) rated Drag Me to Hell (2009) in Movies
Mar 12, 2021
I'll say one thing for certain, Drag Me to Hell is so unnecessarily and gratuitously gross at times (the old woman has the poor girls entire chin in her disgusting mouth on more than one occasion) and in that regard, it's a warm welcome back to over the top horror for Sam Raimi. His signature style is plastered all over the place, and it's great.
The cheesiness isn't a complete positive however. In terms of dialogue, it can take you out of the story a bit. Lead Alison Lohman and co star Justin Long (both actors who I like) suffer from this a bit, and are occasionally comical in a movie that plays it straight for the most part.
Some of the effects are a little iffy as well. There's some good practical stuff going on but a few digital effects are dodgy. It's not enough to severely impact anything, and there a few decent jump scares scattered throughout.
It's a perfectly fine slice of horror, that is elevated by a ballsy as fuck ending, that makes Drag Me to Hell a film worth revisiting now and again. Would love to see a sequel someday!
The cheesiness isn't a complete positive however. In terms of dialogue, it can take you out of the story a bit. Lead Alison Lohman and co star Justin Long (both actors who I like) suffer from this a bit, and are occasionally comical in a movie that plays it straight for the most part.
Some of the effects are a little iffy as well. There's some good practical stuff going on but a few digital effects are dodgy. It's not enough to severely impact anything, and there a few decent jump scares scattered throughout.
It's a perfectly fine slice of horror, that is elevated by a ballsy as fuck ending, that makes Drag Me to Hell a film worth revisiting now and again. Would love to see a sequel someday!
Matthew Krueger (10051 KP) rated Drag Me to Hell (2009) in Movies
Oct 28, 2020
Sam Raimi (1 more)
Alison Lohman
PG-13 (1 more)
Justin Long
Old Lady Curse
Drag me to Hell- is a anethor movie that ive wanted to see for couple years now and it was not disappointed. Its gory, horrorfying, terrorfying, scary, gory and overall a excellent movie.
The plot: Christine Brown (Alison Lohman) has a loving boyfriend (Justin Long) and a great job at a Los Angeles bank. But her heavenly life becomes hellish when, in an effort to impress her boss, she denies an old woman's request for an extension on her home loan. In retaliation, the crone places a curse on Christine, threatening her soul with eternal damnation. Christine seeks a psychic's help to break the curse, but the price to save her soul may be more than she can pay.
Raimi wrote Drag Me to Hell with his brother, Ivan, before working on the Spider-Man trilogy.
The original story for Drag Me to Hell was written ten years before the film went into production and was written by Sam Raimi and his brother Ivan Raimi. The film went into production under the name The Curse. The Raimis wrote the script as a morality tale, desiring to write a story about a character who wants to be a good person, but makes a sinful choice out of greed for her own betterment and pays the price for it. The Raimis tried to make the character of Christine the main focal point in the film, and tried to have Christine in almost all the scenes in the film.
The most significant parallel is that both stories involve the passing of a cursed object, which has to be passed to someone else, or its possessor will be devoured by one or more demons. Unlike his past horror films, Raimi wanted the film to be rated PG-13 and not strictly driven by gore, stating, "I didn't want to do exactly the same thing I had done before."
After finishing the script, Raimi desired to make the picture after the first draft of the script was completed, but other projects such as the Spider-Man film series became a nearly decade-long endeavor, pushing opportunities to continue work on Drag Me to Hell to late 2007. Raimi offered director Edgar Wright to direct Drag Me to Hell which Wright turned down as he was filming Hot Fuzz and felt that "If I did it, it would just feel like karaoke." After the previous three Spider-Man films, Raimi came back to the script of Drag Me to Hell, wanting to make a simpler and lower-budget film.
Raimi said he set out to create “a horror film with lots of wild moments and lots of suspense and big shocks that’ll hopefully make audiences jump. But I also wanted to have a lot of dark humor sprinkled throughout. I spent the last decade doing Spider-Man and you come to rely on a lot of people doing things for you and a lot of help, but it’s refreshing and wonderful to be reminded that, as with most filmmakers, the best way to do it is yourself, with a tight team doing the main jobs."
Its a excellent movie.
The plot: Christine Brown (Alison Lohman) has a loving boyfriend (Justin Long) and a great job at a Los Angeles bank. But her heavenly life becomes hellish when, in an effort to impress her boss, she denies an old woman's request for an extension on her home loan. In retaliation, the crone places a curse on Christine, threatening her soul with eternal damnation. Christine seeks a psychic's help to break the curse, but the price to save her soul may be more than she can pay.
Raimi wrote Drag Me to Hell with his brother, Ivan, before working on the Spider-Man trilogy.
The original story for Drag Me to Hell was written ten years before the film went into production and was written by Sam Raimi and his brother Ivan Raimi. The film went into production under the name The Curse. The Raimis wrote the script as a morality tale, desiring to write a story about a character who wants to be a good person, but makes a sinful choice out of greed for her own betterment and pays the price for it. The Raimis tried to make the character of Christine the main focal point in the film, and tried to have Christine in almost all the scenes in the film.
The most significant parallel is that both stories involve the passing of a cursed object, which has to be passed to someone else, or its possessor will be devoured by one or more demons. Unlike his past horror films, Raimi wanted the film to be rated PG-13 and not strictly driven by gore, stating, "I didn't want to do exactly the same thing I had done before."
After finishing the script, Raimi desired to make the picture after the first draft of the script was completed, but other projects such as the Spider-Man film series became a nearly decade-long endeavor, pushing opportunities to continue work on Drag Me to Hell to late 2007. Raimi offered director Edgar Wright to direct Drag Me to Hell which Wright turned down as he was filming Hot Fuzz and felt that "If I did it, it would just feel like karaoke." After the previous three Spider-Man films, Raimi came back to the script of Drag Me to Hell, wanting to make a simpler and lower-budget film.
Raimi said he set out to create “a horror film with lots of wild moments and lots of suspense and big shocks that’ll hopefully make audiences jump. But I also wanted to have a lot of dark humor sprinkled throughout. I spent the last decade doing Spider-Man and you come to rely on a lot of people doing things for you and a lot of help, but it’s refreshing and wonderful to be reminded that, as with most filmmakers, the best way to do it is yourself, with a tight team doing the main jobs."
Its a excellent movie.
Gareth von Kallenbach (968 KP) rated Drag Me to Hell (2009) in Movies
Aug 14, 2019
I’m just going to be honest. Drag Me To Hell is the movie we would have seen 22 years ago had Sam Raimi been given several million dollars, had Bruce Campbell been a woman and had there been no chainsaws handy. Not that this is a bad thing. I believe that Raimi fans will be quite pleased to see the cult and blockbuster director’s return to his roots.
Christine Brown (Alison Lohman) is a soft-spoken loan officer competing for the open position of assistant manager at the bank branch she works for. She has a predominantly sunny life with her boyfriend, Clay Dalton, (Justin Long) and a new kitten.
When an old woman in an Oldsmobile (Lorna Raver) comes to beg for an extension on her mortgage, Christine is unaware of how much her ideal life is about to change.
Desperate to impress her boss and prove her prowess over the only other candidate, Christine refuses the woman help. Angered and shamed, the woman curses Christine, calling upon the demon Lamia (voiced by Art Kimbro) to torment her for three days and then damn her soul.
Acting upon the advice of a Seer (Dileep Rao), Christine struggles to free herself from this terrible fate. She alienates herself from Clay’s parents, sacrifices her cat, participates in a séance, crashes a funeral, defiles the dead and is eventually forced to choose whether or not she can in turn damn her business rival.
But I wouldn’t want you to start thinking that you’re dealing with some far-too-serious classic horror revival (not that that would be a bad thing). Let’s not forget the projectile blood and vomit, the mud and maggots, the stapler to the face and ruler to the back of the throat; all done in that comical slapstick that only Raimi can produce. The utterly gory, disgusting images that make you laugh hysterically while simultaneously cringeing in disbelief. This is the stuff that made him a cult hero.
There are certainly some creepy moments, quite a few in fact. Things that pleased the horror fan in me very much. And there are plenty of scares to be had as creatures and characters launch themselves from the shadows. I only jumped a couple of times (and I scare easily) but that might have been due more to the people sitting around us than the movie itself.
Drag Me To Hell opens with a classic Universal logo, one that hasn’t been seen since the 70s. It was so appropriate that as soon as I saw it I was sure I was going to walk away happy. Then the opening credits began and I was blown away. They are so absolutely gorgeous that they almost deserve to be a short of their own rather than find themselves pinned to a feature. The special effects continue to be a remarkable strong point throughout the rest of the movie. Several scenes blew me away with their execution and look.
When it comes down to what was missing, characterization was the one thing this film lacked. I didn’t feel very connected to any of the characters and certainly didn’t care about their plight. It seemed rather two dimensional. The characters are barely introduced and we aren’t ushered into their lives and minds before the action begins. We are just expected to care.
On top of this, Lohman’s acting wasn’t the greatest and Long, while doing a decent job, didn’t seem to fit the role terribly well. The cat-sacrificing didn’t go far for making me feel any sympathy toward Christine or her dilemma. This was all very disappointing since I feel as though everything else was so strong that had this been reinforced rather than left flat it would have been exceedingly excellent.
But it is worth a watch. If you love anything by Sam Raimi you will not be disappointed and if you’ve never seen any of his work then you might find yourself pleasantly surprised. This is one of the few things I have ever watched that was exactly what it promised to be.
Thank you, Mr. Raimi, for this excellent return to horror. We are all grateful.
Christine Brown (Alison Lohman) is a soft-spoken loan officer competing for the open position of assistant manager at the bank branch she works for. She has a predominantly sunny life with her boyfriend, Clay Dalton, (Justin Long) and a new kitten.
When an old woman in an Oldsmobile (Lorna Raver) comes to beg for an extension on her mortgage, Christine is unaware of how much her ideal life is about to change.
Desperate to impress her boss and prove her prowess over the only other candidate, Christine refuses the woman help. Angered and shamed, the woman curses Christine, calling upon the demon Lamia (voiced by Art Kimbro) to torment her for three days and then damn her soul.
Acting upon the advice of a Seer (Dileep Rao), Christine struggles to free herself from this terrible fate. She alienates herself from Clay’s parents, sacrifices her cat, participates in a séance, crashes a funeral, defiles the dead and is eventually forced to choose whether or not she can in turn damn her business rival.
But I wouldn’t want you to start thinking that you’re dealing with some far-too-serious classic horror revival (not that that would be a bad thing). Let’s not forget the projectile blood and vomit, the mud and maggots, the stapler to the face and ruler to the back of the throat; all done in that comical slapstick that only Raimi can produce. The utterly gory, disgusting images that make you laugh hysterically while simultaneously cringeing in disbelief. This is the stuff that made him a cult hero.
There are certainly some creepy moments, quite a few in fact. Things that pleased the horror fan in me very much. And there are plenty of scares to be had as creatures and characters launch themselves from the shadows. I only jumped a couple of times (and I scare easily) but that might have been due more to the people sitting around us than the movie itself.
Drag Me To Hell opens with a classic Universal logo, one that hasn’t been seen since the 70s. It was so appropriate that as soon as I saw it I was sure I was going to walk away happy. Then the opening credits began and I was blown away. They are so absolutely gorgeous that they almost deserve to be a short of their own rather than find themselves pinned to a feature. The special effects continue to be a remarkable strong point throughout the rest of the movie. Several scenes blew me away with their execution and look.
When it comes down to what was missing, characterization was the one thing this film lacked. I didn’t feel very connected to any of the characters and certainly didn’t care about their plight. It seemed rather two dimensional. The characters are barely introduced and we aren’t ushered into their lives and minds before the action begins. We are just expected to care.
On top of this, Lohman’s acting wasn’t the greatest and Long, while doing a decent job, didn’t seem to fit the role terribly well. The cat-sacrificing didn’t go far for making me feel any sympathy toward Christine or her dilemma. This was all very disappointing since I feel as though everything else was so strong that had this been reinforced rather than left flat it would have been exceedingly excellent.
But it is worth a watch. If you love anything by Sam Raimi you will not be disappointed and if you’ve never seen any of his work then you might find yourself pleasantly surprised. This is one of the few things I have ever watched that was exactly what it promised to be.
Thank you, Mr. Raimi, for this excellent return to horror. We are all grateful.