It's probably true that most of the old horror masters of the seventies and eighties,American and otherwise,have declined somewhat since their heyday,some more than others,but one of these directors has recently shown that despite his excursions into films based on comic books of late,he hasn't lost a single step in the genre that put him on the map.Of course,we're talking about Sam Raimi,the man behind the legendary Evil Dead series.Last year he made a welcome return to horror movies,in bringing us tonight's entry,"Drag Me to Hell",an original bit of vengeful nastiness blended with his trademark slapstick sense of humour and penchant for torturing actors still intact.I'm guessing Bruce Campbell was probably relieved he wasn't on the receiving end this time around.I went to see this twice in its first theatrical run,mainly because my merry band of miscreants and I got kicked out of the theater the first time around for sneaking in and drinking beers in the back.Yeah,as a forty year old,how embarrassing is that.My theory is that one of the douchebags sitting behind us was a big Tarantino fan who was offended by my vocal,mocking disapproval of the Inglorious Basterds trailer,and went to the lobby and reported us,forcing us to take the flick in a few days later at another cineplex.If the aforementioned canary happens to be out there amongst you reading this,that's right,bitch.I saw the movie despite your loose lips,and Tarantino is still a glorified copycat fanboy with a head the size of a medicine ball.But enough about that guy,we're covering Raimi here this time around,like I've been meaning to ever since I sat halfway through tonight's review the first time.I've seen quite a few reviewers snobbily pan the movie online,but make no bones about it,Drag Me is a highly original and satisfying rollercoaster ride full of jump scares,with ample laughs and gross out moments for everybody,served up in true Sam Raimi fashion.A lotta fun,indeed.
This gypsy/tramp/thief(Lorna Raver) is unlikely to sell you a bottle of Doctor Good.
In 1969,a pair of hispanic peasants desperately rush to the home of powerful medium, Senora San Dina(Chahua),their young son marked for fire and brimstone at the claws of a Lamia,a goat-esque demon called forth to drag the boy to H-E-double hockey sticks when he blags a silver necklace off of some local gypos.She fails miserably in saving his eternal soul,and watches helplessly as he is pulled screaming into the smouldering floor by otherworldly hands.Forty years later,Christine Brown(Alison Lohman),a former farm-dwelling fattie-turned-sultry blonde dish,is enjoying the spoils of her transformation;a model boyfriend(Justin "Jeepers Creepers" Long)with a silver spoon in his mouth,and a cushy bank loan officer gig where she's up for an assistant manager promotion against newcomer Stu Rubin(Reggie Lee),an unscrupulous ass-kissing rival,but the frontrunner for said spot,according to her boss,Mr. Jacks(David Paymer).As fate would have it,she is visited by an elderly one-eyed Hungarian gypsy woman named Ganush(Raver),who is pleading for a third extension on her home.In an attempt to impress Jacks,she denies the extension,and has the security guard drag the shamed granny out the doorski.That night in the parking garage,Christine is outrageously attacked by Ganush in her car,culminating in the gypsy tearing off one of the girl's coat buttons and calling down a curse upon it,before handing it back to her and disappearing into the blackness,thus damning the young woman to burn in Hell in three days,courtesy of the powerful Lamia.
From somewhere up there,you know Lucio was smiling down upon this sequence.
Tormented by chunk-blowing,gross out nightmares,and harrassed by the belligerent demon,she and her beau enlist the aid of a Hindu fortune teller named Rham(Dileep Rao)who instantly recognizes that she is cursed.She visits Ganush's granddaughter,in hopes that the woman can be persuaded to remove the hex,instead walking in on her funeral,knocking over the casket,further shaming the dead gypsy and embarrassing herself.When Rham's suggestion of sacrificing the couples' baby kitten to the spirit proves ineffective,and after showering her boss with a sprinkler level nosebleed and turning off his parents by coughing up a live fly during dinner and having a mental meltdown afterwards,Clay fronts Rham ten thousand beans to arrange for a seance held by San Dina,who is eager to combat the demon once again after all these years.Her assistant walks in a sacrificial goat that strangely resembles pot-rocker,Tom Petty,that the hellspawn is to be trapped inside and dispatched thereafter during the seance,which doesn't go so well,either,judging by the multiple temporary possessions and vulgar displays of supernatural power,which leave San Dinas D.O.A. with a heart attack on an ambulance gurney.At this point with time running out,Rham suggests that she give the cursed button to someone else,which will free her from the Lamia's pursuit,but ultimately damn whoever she gives it to,to an undeserved eternity in Hell.She takes an envelope with the button inside to the cemetery where the gypsy has been interred,digs up her corpse,and formally jams the cursed item into the dead woman's yap.After meeting up with Clay on the train platform the next morning,he pulls out an envelope he believes to house the new addition to his coin collection,revealing the cursed button instead.Shocked,Christine falls backward into the path of the oncoming train,as Clay disbelievedly looks on while his mate is pulled into the ground screaming by the familiar otherworldly hands as the train rushes overhead.
¡Qué chinga! Suddenly,without warning,Mrs. San Dina's(Flor de Maria Chahua)Joanie's Butterfly clit buzzer kicked on.
Tonight's entry began ten years prior as a cautionary morality tale entitled "The Curse"(glad they ditched that title,aren't you?) written by Sam and his brother Ivan and left on the backburner in the midst of the director's success with the Spiderman series.The spectacular effects in the movie are handled by KNB Studios and various others,and supervised by Bruce Jones.Raimi's still pretty busy as of this writing,with no less than twenty-three projects lined up according to the imdb,including 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Evil Dead IV,no less!Of course,Raver,who supplied the excellently horrible vengeance-driven gypo,is from Pennsylvania.Rao was seen most recently in Avatar and Inception.If you haven't seen it yet,ignore the naysayers online(and even your humble N if you must) and go score yourself a copy immediately,dvds are plentiful.On the scale it scores three wops,before dragging you kicking and screaming by the leg into the fiery pit of eternal damnation,and I ain't speaking upon no Rob Zombie movie,kiddies.Highly recommended.
Neu pranse Lamiae vivum puerum extrabat alvo.
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