Drag Me To Hell (2009)

Dumber of Sam

Regular readers will, I hope, forgive me for yet another stroll down horror memory lane – as it’s the genre that captivated me from the outset of my life-long love affair with cinema (and is, probably, why I fell for film as quickly as I did), a real disappointment from the form hits me harder than most.

Not, I hasten to add, that lovers of intelligent dark fantasy (of which [Rec] (2007) and Calvaire (2004) are probably the best recent examples) normally expect to be inundated on an annual basis with numerous examples of the good stuff, as it’s a genre, like comedy, which is among the most difficult to do right but, when the director in question is a previously acknowledged master of the art, a contrived mess like Drag Me To Hell is particularly tough to take.

Brief ‘memory lane’ part coming up now – the director is Sam Raimi. Recent converts will probably know him only from his Spider-Man trilogy, but this is the man who gave the world The Evil Dead (1981) and its two sequels, in addition to tight, believeable descents into hell such as A Simple Plan (1998). He’s a long way from where he came from here, that’s for sure.

The set-up is paper thin – Christine Brown (Alison Lohman), a bank loan officer with a loving boyfriend (Justin Long) and a seemingly bright future is nevertheless pushing for promotion. She has her eye on the assistant manager’s position, but her boss tells her she’ll have to start getting tough. Choosing to evict an old woman, Mrs Ganush (Lorna Raver), from her home as part of her drive for success was a mistake, however – she quickly realizes that she’s on the receiving end of a curse, with her very soul at stake.

It’s all about credibility, you see, and this has so very little.

Thanks to the truly awful, expository script (from Sam and his brother Ivan), you never buy Lohman as a believable heroine, nor the relationship she shares with her bloke Clay.

In addition, the supernatural element is introduced way too quickly and, with the exception of a few ‘I think you need to talk to someone’ interludes, is accepted with equal speed by the characters.

As a result, all you’re left with are a series of really none-too convincing ‘set pieces’, which make their dreary way towards the inevitable ‘happy ending – but is it?’

In all fairness, Raimi has been away from the horror genre for some time, too busy reinventing himself as a blockbuster director. All well and good, as far as the Spidey films are concerned but Sam, do us a favour, yes, and stick to what you’re good at? Because fear films just don’t do it for you anymore, obviously.

99 mins.