Where you stand on the merits of Drag me To Hell (DMTH) will really depend on where you stand about the thought of someone tripping and face-planting Grannies corpse before she ejects all of her embalming fluids all over them and her false teeth gripping onto the chin. If the description alone makes you laugh then DMTH will suit you down to the ground.
A sort of stripped down Bugs Bunny meets The Exorcist, DMTH is certainly the demented sibling to The Evil Dead, unsurprising given that it’s directed by Sam Raimi. Now I didn’t have a lot of time for his last film (Spiderman 3) but this is a lot better, mainly because it’s far simpler and doesn’t seem designed by committee. It follows the fairly simple formula of build tension, fake jump, big jump, gross out moment and then a big laugh – and repeat. It works because it doesn’t try to be too high concept (something many recent horror films have failed at) and delivers genuine scares rather than a catalogue of atrocities.
It’s unlikely to win over new Raimi fans but that’s not really the point, halfway through the film you already know how its going to end even down to the massive jump cut to the title after the final image – but that’s part of the fun. Recommended as a perfect Friday night film where you’re just after a laugh followed by a few drinks.
Midland Film Monkey 