Review: Drag Me to Hell
Director: Sam Raimi
Year: 2009
Country: USA
My approach toward horror is different from most in that I hate most everything. This goes double for almost every theatrical release that can remotely be considered horror; yet to assume that Sam Raimi’s latest foray behind the lens would be anything but a bloody delight is to discount the man’s glowing reputation among the horror community. Sadly, I was conflicted, tending to lean more toward the negative in my assessment of the film’s trailer and plot summary, as it seemed to me that too much emphasis was being placed on bombastic imagery and the dreaded jump-scare. Comparisons with The Unborn flowed freely from my mouth, and this is never a good thing. Given the weak output of major horror releases thus far, holding high expectations for this film would ultimately lead to disappointment. By elevating your expectations you run the risk of experiencing a diminished sense of satisfaction; you go in expecting the next big thing and end up disappointed. This time, however, increased expectations were almost deserved, due in no small part to the overwhelmingly positive reviews and sycophantic fawning being spewed forth by horror news sites and the small number of bloggers who managed to snag an early screening. So I packed away all the expectations one might have for a film of this magnitude and merely hoped for mindless entertainment in the same vein as a Bruckheimer film: not necessarily a good film but damned fun to watch and filled with explosions. While I was indeed entertained – the film possessed some incredibly impressive imagery and epic gross-outs – it was due mostly to abject disbelief that Sam Raimi’s supposed return to horror is mired in his post-horror sensibilities, and not in a good way. This is a problem.
Drag Me to Hell suffers from a severe case of genre confusion. It straddles the line between horror and comedy, yet doesn’t manage to amalgamate the two into anything cohesive. It was clearly marketed as horror, with heavy emphasis on suspense and shock value; instead we’re given a horror film suffused by a type of humor that is distinctly Raimian yet wholly inappropriate for the type of film in which it is found. Eyeballs fly out of heads, epic amounts of blood spew forth from noses, and possessed mediums float in the air and shriek, the latter an obvious throwback to the Evil Dead. Unfortunately, this occurs often enough to overshadow any chance of the film being effective as a horror movie, as the film has been marketed and hyped, and not often enough to push the film into full-blown horror-comedy territory. To add insult to injury it often slides into self-parody, with scenes designed for fear devolving into schlock humor.
I do suppose I could just cast aside all my preconceived notions of what this film should have been and enjoyed it for what I presume it was intending to be. After all, this is a common method of convincing oneself that the film you just watched really isn’t that bad. This, however, is incredibly difficult when the film in question is bogged down with a weak script, uninspired acting, and a whole host of other problems. Character development is lacking, as is a sufficient explanation of the Lamia. Raimi used a figure rooted in Greek mythology that bears no resemblance to a goat and eats children instead of dragging people to Hell, and in turn gives no explanation as to why. Mrs. Ganush, played by Lorna Raver, is dismissed as a crazy old sorceress with no emphasis on her back story, something that could have explained the significance of the Lamia and its role in her life. Admittedly this is not that important in the grand scheme of things but necessary to help explain the ‘why’ of everything and give to the film a modicum of credibility. Beyond this everything just fell together all too nicely in an utterly predictable manner. How lucky were they to have a Lamia expert right in their own town!
Alison Lohman, who played protagonist Christine Brown, was decidedly unbelievable in her performance, preferring to remain only slightly bewildered and just slightly inconvenienced when confronted with a supernatural demonic entity that wants to literally drag her to Hell. She piles on the cheese so thick and delivers each line with such placid emotion that she just seemed bored throughout. Her character’s shining moment, however, comes with the sudden transformation from frightened young woman to uber bad ass, a role she clearly had no idea how to convey in a believable manner. This merely heightened the hilarity found in the utterly predictable climax of the film, the outcome of which was spoon fed to the audience fifteen minutes before it actually happened. The rest of the cast was no better, though I found Dileep Rao, who played psychic medium Rham Jas, to be unintentionally hysterical thanks to his attempts at injecting emotion into laughable dialogue.
I may be the odd man out here, but Raimi is not the god people make him out to be. To say this is his “return to horror” is to ignore the fact that Raimi is not nor has ever been a horror director. Like many before (and after) him he has his humble beginnings in horror, and while he has done a lot for the genre, his only real horror film has been the Evil Dead. The rest of the trilogy is delightfully comedic, owing more to the Three Stooges than anything else, and his subsequent films run the gamut from drama to action to thriller. In between directing the Spider-Man movies he and Evil Dead alumnus Rob Tapert formed Ghost House, a production company that focuses solely on shoving crap down our throats. So Raimi never actually went anywhere, and by elevating him to near god-like status deludes the mind into thinking that his “return to horror” will be nothing short of perfect. People see the slapstick humor combined with the suspense and vulgarity and are immediately reminded of one of the few films that helped to usher in the Generation Y of horror and thus come to the conclusion, “Raimi did it again!.”
Much more can be said, but for the sake of brevity I will end it here. Drag Me to Hell is a throwback to what made Raimi a household name; sadly, it lacks any evidence of the sort of maturation that comes with a quarter-century of experience. Horror-comedy is all well and good when that’s your intent. But what was his intent? Did he make a horror film like the Evil Dead? Or did he make a comedy like Army of Darkness? Whichever it was he failed.
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At last a review that doesn’t gush all over Raimi and gives an actual critique of the film. The concept of the film that you refer to ie; the Laima and the potential role of the old woman sounds like an opportunity wasted. It was my hope that this supernatural element of the film was going to be done well and form the back bone of the film, what a shame.
Ms Harker
http://www.musingcontinuum.wordpress.com
Aw shucks. Heart breaks a little bit. However I commend you whole-heartedly for being one of the first BIG blogs to say “I don’t like it” Kudos to you man.
Many thanks, not only for the kind words, but for grouping me with the “BIG” blogs. That just makes me smile.
I certainly hope you’re wrong, but thanks to your review my expectations have definitely been tempered.
I’m disappointed brad, I thought you would like this movie. Maybe not hold it up in extremely high regard, but have a little more than extreme distaste for it. I enjoyed it, but as with most horror I go into the theater with 0 expectations. Maybe thats why I liked it but having low expectations beyond that of scraping the shit off of a toilet in a gas station rest room I think achieved what it was going for. It was at least entertaining, and brought back Raimi to horror. Its a good first try for being away from it for so long. Its much better than spiderman 3
I had high hopes for this film.However it was a travesty and a waste of money.Sam is a talented man…please Mr. Raimi…come back,we miss you…but this was as bad as Prom Night 2…