Halloween Scene: Drag Me To Hell (2009)

Man, I was really disappointed with Drag Me To Hell. I don't know what I was expecting. I haven't liked a Sam Raimi movie since the first Spider-Man (I HATE Spider-Man 2) and, to be honest, I'm not a huge fan of his overall. Don't get me wrong, I like the Evil Dead movies enough, but I'm not super obsessed with them (example: I have Evil Dead 1 and 2 on VHS, but haven't gotten them for DVD yet). I guess I got excited when everyone was giving Drag Me To Hell so much high praise. But, overall, I just found this movie kind of boring, not super original and not very scary. I was more grossed out from certain scenes (pretty much anytime something of the old lady's went into Alison Lohman's mouth or vice versa), but I was definitely expecting more in the scares department.

I also felt like there were too many logic gaps to just accept. Why does she use a key to get into her car? No one does that anymore. It might sound like a nitpick, but it's not. To me, it's the filmmakers jumping over logic to use an old horror trope (I can't get my key in the door!). It's 2009 and her car is newer than my hunk of junk so she definitely should have keyless entry. Another thing that bothered me was how quickly she murdered her own cat. I know it's to show how far she's being pushed, displaying her mounting insanity, BUT it's not like the ghosts were still attacking her. She could have run outside and found an animal that wasn't the pet she loved to murder. It was a story decision that made me continue to dislike Lohman's character. I'm not sure what it was about her, but I was bored with her and didn't really care when she was getting thrown around Nightmare On Elm Street-style. It didn't help that after an intense scene, Lohman is sitting in her kitchen eating ice cream and crying. That just seemed like such a stereotypical and boring scene that I couldn't get into it and kind of stopped caring. Oh, she also says things like "I'll shove it down her god damned throat, I'm gonna get some." That's terrible, awful stuff. And don't get me started on how absolutely careful I would be if I had a talisman that would or wouldn't keep me from being haunted.

Hey, also, trains make a LOT of noise. Like a lot. You can hear them coming from way off. I can understand not hearing a bus (even though they also make a lot of noise), but this is a train. Everything about them is loud.

This review ended up being a lot more harsh than I thought it would be when I was thinking about it last night, but, having slept on it, I don't remember a lot of positives from it. I liked Justin Long in a serious role. I liked her boss at the bank, especially when he tells Lohman to stop spewing blood all over the bank and then keeps asking if he got any in his mouth. Let's see...the effects were good at times. I didn't like the CGI stuff, but the practical bodily fluids being spewed and spilled all looked good. The fight in the car between Lohman and the old lady was pretty great. I liked how the old woman got several staples to the face. It reminded me of that Simpsons scene where Bart's going back-to-school shopping and he shoots the staples at the cardboard cutout's face. I can't find the damn quote, but some of you know what I mean.

I talked to Megan about DMTH last night and she said that seeing it in a crowded theater really helped and I can see that. If I had seen this pre-hype with a bunch of people, things might be different, but I'm not so sure. I think Raimi's gotten incredibly lazy (this kind of felt like Evil Dead with a girl and fewer zombies and action) and don't necessarily care about his movies anymore. Do you really have to say anything after Spider-Man 3? You shouldn't have to, but they're working on the fourth right now, so what do I know? I wish I could have loved this movie, I really do, but the one thing I kept thinking through its entire run time was, how did this get a wide release and Trick r Treat didn't?

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