Drag Me To Hell (reviewed by Sebastian Ng)

A confession: I do not like horror movies. Unlike so many people, I do not find being frightened at the cinema an enjoyable experience in any sense. And I was truly scared out of my wits in this film. Drawn-out suspense beats leading to a scare are doled out as if from an assembly line, and excuse me if I say that I really wanted to walk out after each one of them.

But to be more objective about it: horror films don’t get more accomplished than this. To start with, this film presents the clearest case for why sound effects are important. Like all other aspects of the film, there is nothing sophisticated about the way sound effects were used. All Raimi and team did was to amplify all the usual design effects, eerie ambience, cymbal crashes and unholy screams and employ them liberally and with calculated timing. The sound track shows no mercy to the audience – I was frequently squinting my eyes, or gripping my knuckles, or trying to find something else in the frame to look at.

Storywise, the Raimi brothers found a simple but elegant setup with an initial morally ambiguous dilemma that got Christine Brown (played by Alison Lohman) into this mess. Did she do something wrong? Yes. No. Maybe? But would you have done the same? Aha – you could have. That right there is the singular reason why the audience identified with her. What happens beyond that point will force your faith in karma to flip-flop multiple times. The dialogue is terribly on-the-nose – but I guess that’s a given in a Sam Raimi film.

One thing worth mentioning about Sam Raimi’s movies – they always provide excellent pacing. Here, the scary moments work because the movie keeps ushering the audience from one scary scene to the next at a sustained and steady pace. Also, Raimi sticks to the three-act structure fairly closely, and when he adheres to the show-don’t-tell rule he does so intelligently – see how he indicates to the audience Christine’s motivations when she makes her fateful decision at the bank.

I do like that Raimi is not at all troubled about pushing the audience too far. Several moments in the film border on bad taste – and then Raimi surprises you by going over-the-top over the top, if that’s possible. Raimi often professed to having mischievous fun bullying Tobey Maguire on the set of Spider-Man; here, he relishes torturing Alison Lohman with all manner of slime and psychological terror that certainly translated to the screen well.

The short of it is, if you enjoy horror films, this is no less than a must-see.

How Good I Think The Film Is: 7.5/10
How Much I Liked It: 3.5/10

Cast Alison Lohman, Justin Long, Adriana Barazza, Dileep Rao Director Sam Raimi Runtime 99 mins Opens 11 June

Sebastian Ng studied filmmaking at the Los Angeles Film School in Hollywood, majoring in Directing and Sound Design but spent most of his time watching movies, and attending film festivals and meet-the-filmmaker sessions. Having returned to Malaysia in 2008, he currently works as a digital production coordinator for Rhythm & Hues Studios (Malaysia). He continues to fuel his passion for film by writing reviews and other ramblings for his blog, Cinematic Concerns.