A Pleasant Trip to Hell

Spurred on by some surprisingly good press, I decided to give the new movie Drag Me to Hell a try. This marks a return to form for Sam Raimi, who has taken a break from his multi-million dollar Spider-Man movies to co-write and direct this classic-style horror movie. This plot comes right out of the handbook: a young woman has been cursed by an old gypsy and has three days to figure out how to keep from being sent to hell by the vengeful demon set upon her.

The cast is good, led by Alison Lohman and Justin Long (the latter of whom has his own "this horror movie shouldn't be good, but it kind of is" pedigree with the original Jeepers Creepers). The other characters, especially the old crone who curses our heroine, flesh out the piece effectively.

The movie's soundscape is worthy of special praise. The sound design is just phenomenal, full of a variety of unsettling, shrill, ghostly noises that set you on edge. And the musical score, by Christopher Young, is just what this kind of movie should have. If you like horror movies, and don't have a great sound system in your own home, you'll want to get the theater to see this just to have this great sound experience.

But perhaps the most effective aspect of the movie is the writing. It makes very effective use of audience expectations. The script knows you're going to try and figure out where it's going, and twice manages to double-cross you. The ending is particularly good in this regard -- you get more than enough clues to deduce that a twist has occurred of which the characters are unaware, and yet it still left me unsure of just which way things were going to end up.

But the movie does get more than a bit campy in moments. This should probably be expected, given Sam Raimi's history. There's nothing so crazy as being attacked by your own severed hand, but plenty of moments that start very effective and chilling go just that one notch farther over the top to elicit laughter mixed with disgust.

Ordinarily, this kind of camp completely puts me off. But the thing is, for most of the film, including the scenes that contain these big moments, the movie is good. It's tense, effective, and scary. In my experience, most campy horror movies can make no such claims. They ultimately go for the over-the-top because they can't actually scare you -- they can only gross you out or make you laugh. Not so here. So while I ultimately wish the movie had just "played in straight" the entire time, these grand moments weren't enough to make me dislike it.

I rate the movie a B- overall. If you like scary movies, this is one you won't want to miss.