Time was you could tell, fifteen minutes in, that you were watching a Sam Raimi film. That had all but disappeared over the last ten years as the Spider-Man films one-by-one suppressed the visceral for the scriptural, muting virtually all of Raimi’s hallmarks, save for the perpetual cameos by his brother. The director who had practically elevated low-budget horror cinematography into its own language by charging zombies at floor-level on a skateboard cam in The Evil Dead films, and who had defined what a comic book would look like if it were a film with Darkman, and who had breathed new life into a genre with The Quick And The Dead, a modernized spaghetti western, began to play second fiddle to a Hollywood three-act-structure where what Spider-Man was doing became salient rather than how he was filmed doing it, and any visual highlights were attributed to technical proficiency, not ingenuity. In short, the twentieth century saw Raimi quickly becoming Michael Bay, all while beholden to a few leftover trademarks that perhaps he thought would pass as signature, but rather failed as gimmickry.
All of that has changed with Drag Me To Hell, a long overdue return to form for Raimi, who has crafted a modern day creature feature that manages to conjure and harmonize elements of 70’s Italian horror, 50’s Universal monster, and drive-in oogie-boogie shock horror, into something that you can even take the kids to go see. The story concerns loan officer Christine Brown (Allison Lohman) who tries to curry favor with the bank manager (David Paymer) for an assistant manager position by refusing an extension on the mortgage of Sylvia Ganush, an old gypsy woman. Feeling shamed, Ganush places a curse on Christine which summons a demon called the Lamia to torment her for three days before claiming and dragging her soul to hell. Through the film’s opening we see this happen to a boy who has also been cursed, so we know exactly what is in store for Christine if she doesn’t find a way to undo the curse. It’s not an original conceit, but Raimi is all over this thing like a dog with a snapped leash in a room full of postmen. The last few years he has been the driving force, an executive producer, behind Ghost House Pictures, a production company that has unleashed an unending stream of garbage-horror into multiplexes and onto rental shelves, and left me to wonder why he just didn’t direct one himself. Thankfully now he has, and returning for the pleasure is all the kinetic energy, intentional editing, deep focus photography, wildly original score (courtesy of Christopher Young, replacing the wisely jettisoned Danny Elfman – perhaps Nacho Libre was the last straw), and invention you would come to expect from a director who in the past has shown us someone getting shot through the heart by showing their shadow with a little circle of light in their chest.
Drag Me To Hell is admittedly not very impressive on paper. It’s a ragged, dog-eared gypsy tale of curses and retribution, with vast similarities to the film version of Stephen King’s Thinner. It has three acts for sure, but places no demand on character to fuel its story. Christine’s boyfriend (Justin Long) is a perfect example of this. He is used solely for comic relief and Long seems to play him as if he were still in a Macintosh commercial. In fact all of them are fairly thin representations, void of any built-in emotional connection to us, an ultimately wise decision on Raimi’s part that keeps the film’s gallows humor, like animal sacrifice, denture weaponry, exploding eyeballs and coffin tipping, from backfiring. That we even care about them at all rests squarely on Allison Lohman’s shoulders, and it is first-rate acting. Ms Lohman makes Christine Brown a real person, going way beyond the established requirements for this type of heroine, which over the years, and many turgid stabs at PG-13 horror, continue to reach new lows. This is a girl making good on her promise in Matchstick Men. The screenplay requires her to be a scared girl, albeit a scared girl that constantly endures bodily fluids and general nastiness, including embalming fluid, thrown into her face. But she is in on the fun. She cracks one liners while shoving a hole punch down someone’s throat. She dresses to impress in both manner and style while preparing to meet her boyfriend’s parents by baking a harvest cake from a recipe when she was a kid growing up on a farm. She is Beatrice Pullman from Douglas Sirk’s Imitation Of Life trapped inside Hitchcock’s Psycho, where mannerisms, facial expressions, perspective and the simple act of walking become tools in Raimi’s incessant formalism. They have to be good enough to withstand the emphasis placed on them, and the audience is rewarded for it. Take the scene where banging can be heard coming from outside the house. We’ve seen this a million times, right? The heroine approaches the source of the banging which triggers a fake-out scare, followed then by the real deal. Instead of just filming the action by framing this in widescreen as Christine approaches, Raimi intentionally over-edits the scene, remaining fixed on her face from different angles only a few degrees apart. This effect simultaneously causes us to re-orient ourselves each time and strengthen our connection to Christine by isolating her from her environment in a montage of reaction shots before all hell finally breaks loose and Raimi’s camera is bouncing off every wall in the house. Earlier in the film, during perhaps its greatest moment, this same effect is achieved to even greater success when we adopt Ms. Lohman’s perspective as her eyes follow an object so intently that something else is able to fill the entire half of the screen without us even noticing it until it is too late.
But wait, you’re wondering why on Earth I said you could take the kids to this, right? Well, aside from all the above, Raimi must also be recognized for making the best PG-13 horror film ever, and finally removing the stigma surrounding that rating and the horror genre. Yes there are gross-out moments but no gore. Not much is left to the imagination, a standard for modern horror, but the film’s shock value comes from its style and execution, not cheap slice and dice thrills. Horror fans like myself have always complained that the best horror films are all rated “R,” and that to make one “PG-13” is somehow compromising and pandering to a mainstream audience in hopes of making a few extra bucks. For the most part that is a valid assessment, but with Drag Me To Hell Raimi has overcome that obstacle by not making the film for horror film buffs, but instead for film buffs. Pixar does this too. You don’t make a kids film for kids; you make it for adults, and the kids will come along for the ride. Drag Me To Hell is a hailstorm of pure cinema in a current climate abounding with style but bereft of purpose. It stirs creative energy among its audience, and I believe will be tremendous inspiration for aspiring filmmakers. It’s Sam Raimi in his element, and I haven’t seen that in over ten years.
My favorite Raimi film will always be A Simple Plan. Spot-on in every department a film needs to be, Plan was the best screenplay Raimi has ever had in his hands, as tight as can be, every scene directed for maximum drama, Billy Bob Thornton in the best performance of his career, trumping even Sling Blade, a much more passionate treatment than it’s pulpy through-line had any right to. You can tell he loved what he was doing. It’s hard to believe Spider-Man came but four years later, where it’s just as easy to tell that he was in love with the idea of revamping a childhood icon, and had forgotten himself under the epic weight of it all. Peter Jackson made the very same mistake with The Lord Of The Rings, but with significantly more disastrous results. But while Jackson has yet to resurrect himself, Raimi has proven with Drag Me To Hell that he is still in there after all. I can imagine after spending five years inside the mind of an emotional train wreck that shoots spider webs out of his wrists, with bottom lines and opening weekends the primary kinesis, it must feel good to rediscover a man and a movie camera.
All of that has changed with Drag Me To Hell, a long overdue return to form for Raimi, who has crafted a modern day creature feature that manages to conjure and harmonize elements of 70’s Italian horror, 50’s Universal monster, and drive-in oogie-boogie shock horror, into something that you can even take the kids to go see. The story concerns loan officer Christine Brown (Allison Lohman) who tries to curry favor with the bank manager (David Paymer) for an assistant manager position by refusing an extension on the mortgage of Sylvia Ganush, an old gypsy woman. Feeling shamed, Ganush places a curse on Christine which summons a demon called the Lamia to torment her for three days before claiming and dragging her soul to hell. Through the film’s opening we see this happen to a boy who has also been cursed, so we know exactly what is in store for Christine if she doesn’t find a way to undo the curse. It’s not an original conceit, but Raimi is all over this thing like a dog with a snapped leash in a room full of postmen. The last few years he has been the driving force, an executive producer, behind Ghost House Pictures, a production company that has unleashed an unending stream of garbage-horror into multiplexes and onto rental shelves, and left me to wonder why he just didn’t direct one himself. Thankfully now he has, and returning for the pleasure is all the kinetic energy, intentional editing, deep focus photography, wildly original score (courtesy of Christopher Young, replacing the wisely jettisoned Danny Elfman – perhaps Nacho Libre was the last straw), and invention you would come to expect from a director who in the past has shown us someone getting shot through the heart by showing their shadow with a little circle of light in their chest.
Drag Me To Hell is admittedly not very impressive on paper. It’s a ragged, dog-eared gypsy tale of curses and retribution, with vast similarities to the film version of Stephen King’s Thinner. It has three acts for sure, but places no demand on character to fuel its story. Christine’s boyfriend (Justin Long) is a perfect example of this. He is used solely for comic relief and Long seems to play him as if he were still in a Macintosh commercial. In fact all of them are fairly thin representations, void of any built-in emotional connection to us, an ultimately wise decision on Raimi’s part that keeps the film’s gallows humor, like animal sacrifice, denture weaponry, exploding eyeballs and coffin tipping, from backfiring. That we even care about them at all rests squarely on Allison Lohman’s shoulders, and it is first-rate acting. Ms Lohman makes Christine Brown a real person, going way beyond the established requirements for this type of heroine, which over the years, and many turgid stabs at PG-13 horror, continue to reach new lows. This is a girl making good on her promise in Matchstick Men. The screenplay requires her to be a scared girl, albeit a scared girl that constantly endures bodily fluids and general nastiness, including embalming fluid, thrown into her face. But she is in on the fun. She cracks one liners while shoving a hole punch down someone’s throat. She dresses to impress in both manner and style while preparing to meet her boyfriend’s parents by baking a harvest cake from a recipe when she was a kid growing up on a farm. She is Beatrice Pullman from Douglas Sirk’s Imitation Of Life trapped inside Hitchcock’s Psycho, where mannerisms, facial expressions, perspective and the simple act of walking become tools in Raimi’s incessant formalism. They have to be good enough to withstand the emphasis placed on them, and the audience is rewarded for it. Take the scene where banging can be heard coming from outside the house. We’ve seen this a million times, right? The heroine approaches the source of the banging which triggers a fake-out scare, followed then by the real deal. Instead of just filming the action by framing this in widescreen as Christine approaches, Raimi intentionally over-edits the scene, remaining fixed on her face from different angles only a few degrees apart. This effect simultaneously causes us to re-orient ourselves each time and strengthen our connection to Christine by isolating her from her environment in a montage of reaction shots before all hell finally breaks loose and Raimi’s camera is bouncing off every wall in the house. Earlier in the film, during perhaps its greatest moment, this same effect is achieved to even greater success when we adopt Ms. Lohman’s perspective as her eyes follow an object so intently that something else is able to fill the entire half of the screen without us even noticing it until it is too late.
But wait, you’re wondering why on Earth I said you could take the kids to this, right? Well, aside from all the above, Raimi must also be recognized for making the best PG-13 horror film ever, and finally removing the stigma surrounding that rating and the horror genre. Yes there are gross-out moments but no gore. Not much is left to the imagination, a standard for modern horror, but the film’s shock value comes from its style and execution, not cheap slice and dice thrills. Horror fans like myself have always complained that the best horror films are all rated “R,” and that to make one “PG-13” is somehow compromising and pandering to a mainstream audience in hopes of making a few extra bucks. For the most part that is a valid assessment, but with Drag Me To Hell Raimi has overcome that obstacle by not making the film for horror film buffs, but instead for film buffs. Pixar does this too. You don’t make a kids film for kids; you make it for adults, and the kids will come along for the ride. Drag Me To Hell is a hailstorm of pure cinema in a current climate abounding with style but bereft of purpose. It stirs creative energy among its audience, and I believe will be tremendous inspiration for aspiring filmmakers. It’s Sam Raimi in his element, and I haven’t seen that in over ten years.
My favorite Raimi film will always be A Simple Plan. Spot-on in every department a film needs to be, Plan was the best screenplay Raimi has ever had in his hands, as tight as can be, every scene directed for maximum drama, Billy Bob Thornton in the best performance of his career, trumping even Sling Blade, a much more passionate treatment than it’s pulpy through-line had any right to. You can tell he loved what he was doing. It’s hard to believe Spider-Man came but four years later, where it’s just as easy to tell that he was in love with the idea of revamping a childhood icon, and had forgotten himself under the epic weight of it all. Peter Jackson made the very same mistake with The Lord Of The Rings, but with significantly more disastrous results. But while Jackson has yet to resurrect himself, Raimi has proven with Drag Me To Hell that he is still in there after all. I can imagine after spending five years inside the mind of an emotional train wreck that shoots spider webs out of his wrists, with bottom lines and opening weekends the primary kinesis, it must feel good to rediscover a man and a movie camera.
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