Review Movies: Also onn release | Drag me to hell | Sam Raimi | The Evil dead

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The Review - AT THE MOVIES with DAN CARRIER
Published: 28 May 2009

Also on release this week

• DRAG ME TO HELL
Directed by Sam Raimi; Certificate: 18
IT has been billed as a return to his old stomping ground. Director Sam Raimi may have recently made himself a dead cert’ for box office success with his Spiderman trilogy, but what is easy to forget until you settle down for Drag Me To Hell is that Raimi’s first film became one of the seminal horror flicks of the 1980s.
Raimi was behind The Evil Dead. He made it on a tiny budget, splashing most of his wedge on fake blood. The result was utterly horrible and spawned many imitators.
Drag Me To Hell is also utterly horrid in places and could reinvigorate the idea that a horror can be gross, fun, scary and formulaic whilst avoiding cliched shocks.
We meet bank worker Christine (Alison Lohman) who lands herself in a spot of bother when she turns down a request for a loan.
The person coming cap in hand happens to be an ageing gypsy woman with one evil glinting eye, and after failing her credit check, she summons a devil to come forth and take the unfortunate clerk to the fiery depths below.
While Lohman is obviously put through the grinder by an unrepentant Raimi, you have to also feel for the cackling old hag (Lorna Raver). She is truly a disgusting creation – just what you want in a film of this ilk.
Raimi says he was going for a “ghost ride feel” as he made this superb, cheeky horror. He has achieved his aim, with bells on.

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