Back To His Roots
Last weekend (and much of the week that followed, come to think of it) having gone into the crapper, I waited until today to catch a matinee of Sam Raimi's return to his corner of the horror genre with Drag Me To Hell.
Plans with friends, and maybe a little concern that the PG-13 rating was going to mean Hell's ass would be candied, resulted in Nick staying behind, so I saw this one solo at a late-morning matinee.
This is Raimi reaching back to his early work on Evil Dead, before it became more of a Bruce Campbell franchise than anything else, though the fluid-splashed slapstick while battling the supernatural remained a constant throughout. In Raimi's films, battles with the supernatural inevitably get into and splashed all over one's face.
The small cast generally keeps the narrative tight and moving. After an opening set years in the past establishes some dark forces - both straight-on hellish and vindictively draconian - and a challenger in the guise of a psychic/spiritualist, Shaun San Dena (Adriana Barraza), who vows to prevail.
Flashing ahead to the present, we're introduced to loan officer Christine Brown (Allison Lohman), her boss, Mr. Jacks (ably played by David Paymer, who I always first remember as the boss from 2001's Bartleby), her conniving rival for a promotion, Stu Rubin (Reggie Lee) and her fiance, Clay Dalton (Justin Long) who, as a newly-minted professor of psychology brings that essential, if futile, slant of rational skepticism to a story that we all know will do no one any good.
A good job is done of allying the audience's sympathies with Christine, though there is a point in the film where she lost much of mine, never to regain it, but I don't want to spill details. Unless you're a sub-human or some form of sociopath you'll know when it's reached that point, though it could easily be waved off as part of the fun Raimi's decided to have with the audience by doing something most won't want him to do. (No clues in any of the images I'm presenting here.)The lesson we learn from that first scene, though, is that Mrs. Ganush (Lorna Raver), the old gypsy woman is not someone to cross. Later scenes, when we actually meet her, make it clear that almost anyone who deals with her (and, presumably, isn't also a gypsy) will eventually come to regret it.
Plainly, Raimi - who is both director and co-writer (with older brother Ivan) - is having fun with this one, and consequently provides a fun ride for the appropriate audience. Will you see some key plot elements coming from a good distance? Sure. Will it bother you? How do I know how much of a prick you are? They didn't bother me, and that's all that matters.
I haven't decided whether Raimi's message is that we're wholly on our own when facing the forces of darkness, or that we're lost if we try to fight evil on its own terms. More likely, there's no message intended. (I still can't figure out if his being credited with contributing to G.W. Bush's 2004 campaign tells us he's well acquainted with the ways of evil or ultimately unable to distinguish the same.) With Drag Me To Hell he's delivered a fun package of unpleasantness and that's all he needed to do.
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