Movie Review: Drag Me to Hell (2009, Directed by Sam Raimi)

Drag Me to Hell represents a return to form for director Sam Raimi, after the blockbuster success of the Spider-Man series. He proves that he is still able to mix comedy and horror together in just the right proportion, á la Evil Dead and Evil Dead 2. While Drag Me to Hell succeeds more as a comedy than as a horror picture, it still has enough thrills to make me jump in my seat a time or two. What more could you really ask for?

The film’s plot is not terribly important. Let’s just say it’s about a young woman who makes an old lady mad and there’s hell to pay (literally). Along the way, we get the typical horror tropes of stolen Gypsy jewelry, unseen (but deeply felt) spirits, a cursed jacket button, a haunted goat’s head, a capitalistic fortune teller, an unfortunate little kitty cat, and a grave-digging during a torrential downpour.

I am not by any means a connoisseur of horror cinema, but I admired the way this movie implies rather than shows much of the horror. During much of the film, Raimi winks his eye at us and reminds us that it’s only a movie we’re watching. The director’s goal is more to have fun with the audience than to deliver legitimately creepy moments of graphic gore and horrific images.

If Drag Me to Hell made me think about anything, it is how deeply moralistic and totalizing most horror films are. Raimi’s film could be described as a parable about the consequences of dishonesty and unchecked personal ambition. The protagonist makes one arguably immoral decision with the aim of advancing her career as a loan officer. The weight of this questionable choice is felt throughout the entire movie and leads to its fatalistic, yet tragic ending. Horror movies seem to operate on the assumption that there are deep consequences for every one of our sins, no matter how great or slight.

I would love to see a talented director play with these conventions and explore what a horror picture might look like in a world not as obsessively consumed by guilt. Until then, I’m perfectly content with Raimi’s moralistic, yet good-old-fashioned-fun, creepshow.