Jusqu'en enfer

Drag me to Hell is, really, a throwback in so many ways to the fun of The Evil Dead 2. The camera angles, the excellent score - it all recalls how Raimi played with us in his earlier trilogy. What has changed however, is the sense of pace. We know its coming and Raimi employs all his skills to draw out the tension. The thrills are all there in place, I jumped like there was an electric buzzer under my seat. Perhaps a little too much CGI is indulged in but its easy to forgive in a film as wicked and blackly comic as this. I genuinely found the film disturbing for a 15 as well, again I think this is a mark of tension that Raimi creates with the score and camera work throughout the film. So incredibly refreshing to see a horror film with out the hallmarks of the recent saw franchise. Special mention for the ending, which has conviction and guts and was the proverbial cherry on top of the cake. throughly entertaining.

This garbage is considered to be a masterpiece??? Why does this have 90 percent on rotten tomatoes. I don't understand the positive reviews and praise? This movie was terrible disgusting schlock. Also, a complete rip-off of Stephen King's Thinner which also a shitty movie.

This was supposed to be a horror comedy? First of all this movie is neither scary or funny. They might as well called this jump scare the movie. Take a drink every time there a loud jump scare scene. There's an unnecessary scene where the main character stabs and kills her cat. She got what she deserved when she was dragged to hell at the end. Good riddance!

The acting is horrible and dry. Alison Lohman is an awful actress. No wonder her acting career ended after she did this movie. Her line delivery is horrid. You never believe anything coming out of her mouth especially when she tries to act angry or swears. She sounds like she's reading off cue cards. She also lacks reaction to anything crazy going on around her. She pretty much ruined this movie for me with her bland emotionless performance. She had that same stupid blank worried face the entire movie. I just wanted to punch her in the face! I was rooting for the gypsy woman to kill her!

Justin Long and Alison Lohman have zero chemistry and make for boring leads. I felt like they were both miscast. Justin Long felt outta place in this movie. He looked like belonged on set of Two and a Half Men with Charlie Sheen and Jon Cryer. He pretty much phoned in his performance as he slept walked all his scenes. The gypsy came off more hilarious than scary. Every scene with her was a joke!

This movie is way over the top and just plain old disgusting. They're replacing suspense and horror with blood, guts, and potty humor. This movie basically Alison Lohman getting attack absurdly and nastily every 5 minutes. This movie is full of gross. Burping up a fly, dentures flying out of mouths, old lady sucking on people's chins, vomiting bugs and maggots in somebody's mouth, bloody nose squirting blood everywhere, shoving arms don people's throats, possessed talking goat spouting profanities, spooky flying handkerchief's. None of this is scary or funny. Just childish, cheesy and stupid.

If this wasn't made by Sam Raimi it would have gotten negative reviews and trashed by fans and critics. This movie sucked! Forgettable characters you don't care about, not scary, not funny, bad acting, dull plot, repetitive fake out scenes, gross out humor, lack of a musical score. It's is one of the most overrated horror films in the last couple of years.

Sorry fans, this crap has nothing the on Evil Dead films. Those films were classics. This garbage is forgotten tripe.

A huge disappointment in my eyes, especially after the high praise it has received from critics. Sam Raimi attempts to return to his B movie roots. Like the Evil Dead movies, it's delightfully cheesy and relentless. Unfortunately, it's also very formulaic and, much of the time, downright obnoxious. This is one film I would almost implore people not to see in theaters. At least not ones that like to turn the volume up. This movie is LOUD. I saw Terminator Salvation at the same theater, and was not nearly as deafened as I was by Drag Me to Hell. The problem: horror stings on the soundtrack. CONSTANTLY. The formula of the film is this: quiet set-up followed by sharp screech and an even louder BOO! It's the same thing over and over. I was cowering, but only because I was afraid I might not be able to hear in the morning. The story isn't bad, but it's been done before. Alison Lohman (awful) plays a loan officer who gets cursed by a gypsy after she turns her down for a loan extension. A goat demon begins to attack Lohman and, well, the rest of its intentions are included in the title of the film. Though I generally didn't like it, it's far from a bad film. In fact, I think it might play better on television (it's definitely the kind of movie that I would have caught on late night TV as a kid and loved). The séance scene near the end of the film is mostly gold. The demon itself is scary as Hell, but Raimi's way of indicating it, with sharp screeches, is what ruined the movie for me.

Waiting for another Sam Raimi horror film has been like hoping your numbers come up on the national lottery, long, arduous and ultimately unfruitful. So it be that when one finally comes around, there is a tendency to over praise, over hype, and even be blind to actually how worthy Drag Me To Hell is. Not only in the pantheon of the horror genre, but in the cannon of its supremely talented director.

So it comes to pass that myself, a Raimi fan for sure, decided to let the hoo-hah die down before venturing in to Hell with Alison Lohman and her devilish nemesis. I note now at the current time of writing that the film is rated just over 7.5/10, that's just about right where it deserves to be. It's not new or remotely ingenious, and for sure it's actually finding Raimi on auto-pilot for himself and his fans. But hey! It's still far better than the ream of remakes and blood for bloods sake cash cows that insult the genre faithful on a monthly basis.

Drag Me To Hell is a comedy horror, there's nothing really scary here, it's gross at times, almost disgustingly {delightfully} so, but Raimi is reliant on fun to go hand in hand with a creeper of a story instead of a conventional boo jump bonanza. And it works just fine. The story sees Alison Lohman's Christine Brown upset an old gypsy woman and gets a curse of demonic proportions laid onto her. This set up then lets Raimi pummel Lohman with a number of excellently scripted set pieces, whilst managing to keep a mystery element ticking throughout the story. Some problems do exist, tho, certainly enough to ensure this isn't the masterpiece the desperate for a Raimi horror hoards have labelled it.

Lohman does real well in relation to duality of character, but both she and her on screen beau, Justin Long, just look too young for the roles they are playing, and yes, it's pretty distracting and an itch you can't scratch. The CGI is also duff and affecting the story, particularly during what should have been a ripper of an ending. And crucially there is a familiarity about the whole thing, a feeling that Raimi and his brother Ivan have just made a collage of genre staples.

Still, Drag Me To Hell makes for a real entertaining night in by the fire. Enjoy a director making a film for himself as much as his fans, a sort of roots revisit if you like. But don't expect a genre defining, or genre boosting, picture, because you may be a tad disappointed with the return. 7/10

People who gave this a very low score don't get Sam Raimi. I found it entertaining and I enjoyed the humour. A homage to classic horror films with a mix of humour and old school special effects.