I had the pleasure of catching a viewing on Sam Raimi’s new film “Drag Me To Hell” yesterday, and I must say it was the best five dollars I’ve ever spent in my life.  Let me preface this by saying that I am a huge Raimi fan.  Not “Spider-man” Raimi (I think we all gave up on that franchise after “Spider-man 3″…emo Peter Parker does NOT equal evil), but an “Evil Dead”, “Darkman”, Raimi.  This film is a right along those lines, I would even come close to saying if we never get to see “Evil Dead 4″, then this is a perfect substitute.

The film opens in 1969, when a traumatized Spanish boy feels death is coming closer to him.  His frantic parents take him to a medium’s house to try and rid him of this.  However, what’s following him is caused by a Gypsy’s curse, and the boy does not survive it.   This leaves the medium vowing she will one day defeat this evil.

Now, in present day, Christing Brown is a loan officer at a bank, and is in competition with a fellow employee for the assistant manager position.  When she confronts her boss about who will get the promotion he tells her that he needs someone who is not afriad to make the hard decisions.  Upon return to her desk an old woman is waiting for her, wanting an extension on her loan.  Christine knows that she can grant this, but sees this opportunity to show her boss how she can be held responsible for those hard decisions and denies her.

The old woman reacts badly to this, and after a brief scuffle with security, and a fight with Christine in the parking garage, she curses Christine.  This is where things start to get interseting.  Shadowy creatures start to terrorize her, and make her life a living hell.

This film is riddled with classic references to the “Evil Dead” franchise, and also just that great Raimi sense of humor.  The gypsy woman drives the old classic car that is in all of his films, and there is even a scene in a workshed with a chainsaw on the wall.  The only thing I wished he would have added into it was Bruce Campbell, even if he was just a Shemp.  Another thing that Raimi loves to put into his films is Stooge humor.  In the workshed scene, Christine has an anvil hanging from the ceiling from a rope.  That just screams setup for some silliness.

Another thing that you can tell Raimi loves to do is torture his actors.  I’ve listnened to the commentary of “Evil Dead 2″ quite possibly thirty times, and Sam loves to relish on how he beat the crap out of Bruce Campbell with tree limbs.  In “Drag Me To Hell” he doused Alison Lohman in every nasty liquid possible…most coming from the mouth of the old toothless gypsy woman.

This film is just fun.  Plain and simple, it knows it isn’t trying to be the next “Martyrs”, and it dosen’t want to be.  I think that is what makes this such a good film.  Sam just wanted to make something that his fans would enjoy, and he achieved that tenfold.  I highly reccomend this film to everyone.

Things to watch for in the film:

• The “Evil Dead” car
• Eyeballs popping out of someone’s head and into someones mouth (“Evil Dead 2″ reference)
• Hysterically laughing inanimate objects (“Evil Dead 2″ reference)
• The chainsaw
• Ridiculous amounts of nasty liquid
• The books reminiscent of The Necronomicon
• The dialect tape narrator is the same from the reel-to-reel voice in “Evil Dead”
• Retro Universal Studios logo…and if you are a person, like me, who stays for the credits you will also see a retro Universal Studios advertisement.

Trailer:

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