tonight after watching the Bombers take game one in the ALCS thanks in no small part to C.C. Sabathia’s excellent pitching plus some errors in the field by the Angels, I watched my latest DVD rental. I have never seen a Sam Raimi directed effort apart from the blockbuster Spider-Man films. Apparently, he was well regarded as a low-budget horror maker and made his return to the genre last year in the aptly titled, Drag Me to Hell. This decidedly B-movie was equal parts fright, gore, and humor (mainly from some of the ridiculous situations, but I think this was the intent… not taking itself too seriously).
The film follows a bank loan employee who is a possible candidate for a promotion to assistant manager. Christine is approached by an elderly gypsy woman (complete with a creepy glass eye) who is in need of an extension on her delinquent mortgage payment. When the request is denied, the old beggar woman takes it quite personally and places an evil spirit upon our heroine and (you guessed it) strange, horrific things begin to happen that only Christine is witness to.
Christine’s boyfriend, Clay, is skeptical to say the least. However, he does accompany her to a psychic who knows how to rid the woman of her problem before she is literally… well… you know dragged to hell. Goofy, yes but is there a b-grade horror film that isn’t? Plus, you get to see the wide acting ability of Justin Long who you may remember from the live-action Alvin and the Chipmunks…. so maybe not so much since he was the voice of Alvin.
We also enjoyed this for exactly the B movie it is.
Ever check out Cinemassacre.com? It’s the home of the Angry Video Game Nerd, but this month the Nerd has been doing horror movie reviews, one per day. He even made his own several years ago- he posted it a couple of months ago. Look for it in the news archives.