Drag Me to Hell (2009)
Country: US
Technical: Technicolor/2.35:1 99m
Director: Sam Raimi
Cast: Alison Lohman, Justin Long, Lorna Raver, Dileep Rao
Synopsis:
A gypsy crone puts a curse on a bank loans officer because she refuses to give her an extension on her mortgage repayments. Experiencing strange visitings she is told that a demon will come and get her in three days to drag her down to Hell!
Review:
A film which follows its preposterous premise with inexorable logic and lets the incongruity of banking and witchcraft go hang. In this it resembles somewhat a remake of Jacques Tourneur's Night of the Demon (qv), right down to the passing of an object to another in order to divert the course of damnation. The effects are chilling enough when it comes to fleeting shadows and frissons on the soundtrack, but the gross-out moments are straight out of the director's Evil Dead films and there is an ageism and racism underlying it all, what with the crone's flying false teeth and a duplicitous and craven Chinese bank colleague. Compared with the competition, however, all remakes and torture porn, this was classy stuff on its release: it goes for the tried and tested with verve and does what it says on the tin.
Country: US
Technical: Technicolor/2.35:1 99m
Director: Sam Raimi
Cast: Alison Lohman, Justin Long, Lorna Raver, Dileep Rao
Synopsis:
A gypsy crone puts a curse on a bank loans officer because she refuses to give her an extension on her mortgage repayments. Experiencing strange visitings she is told that a demon will come and get her in three days to drag her down to Hell!
Review:
A film which follows its preposterous premise with inexorable logic and lets the incongruity of banking and witchcraft go hang. In this it resembles somewhat a remake of Jacques Tourneur's Night of the Demon (qv), right down to the passing of an object to another in order to divert the course of damnation. The effects are chilling enough when it comes to fleeting shadows and frissons on the soundtrack, but the gross-out moments are straight out of the director's Evil Dead films and there is an ageism and racism underlying it all, what with the crone's flying false teeth and a duplicitous and craven Chinese bank colleague. Compared with the competition, however, all remakes and torture porn, this was classy stuff on its release: it goes for the tried and tested with verve and does what it says on the tin.
Country: US
Technical: Technicolor/2.35:1 99m
Director: Sam Raimi
Cast: Alison Lohman, Justin Long, Lorna Raver, Dileep Rao
Synopsis:
A gypsy crone puts a curse on a bank loans officer because she refuses to give her an extension on her mortgage repayments. Experiencing strange visitings she is told that a demon will come and get her in three days to drag her down to Hell!
Review:
A film which follows its preposterous premise with inexorable logic and lets the incongruity of banking and witchcraft go hang. In this it resembles somewhat a remake of Jacques Tourneur's Night of the Demon (qv), right down to the passing of an object to another in order to divert the course of damnation. The effects are chilling enough when it comes to fleeting shadows and frissons on the soundtrack, but the gross-out moments are straight out of the director's Evil Dead films and there is an ageism and racism underlying it all, what with the crone's flying false teeth and a duplicitous and craven Chinese bank colleague. Compared with the competition, however, all remakes and torture porn, this was classy stuff on its release: it goes for the tried and tested with verve and does what it says on the tin.