Hell is Horror Heaven
I love a good horror film but it’s been a while since I saw one that I really enjoyed. And by “horror” I am not referring to what can best be described as torture porn; films that think that the only way to frighten their audience is to assault it with scene after scene of people being pointlessly mutilated, etc… In my books body dismembering does not equate story development.
Saw opened the floodgates of torture porn back in 2004 and given that after five installments of that series the average domestic box office is around the $70 million mark while the biggest production budget for a Saw film has so far been in the neighborhood of $11 million, moviegoers will continue to be able to see some version of Saw until it’s no longer profitable for the studio; not surprisingly, Saw VI is slated for an October 23, 2009 release date.
But aside from torture porn flicks, finding a movie that isn’t content with merely going for cheap, bloody thrills has been pretty damn hard to find lately. The Haunting in Connecticut, released in late March of this year, showed some potential but ended up being fairly formulaic, predictable and therefore not all that memorable or effective.
So it was with mixed feelings that I attended an advance screening of horror master Sam Raimi’s latest offering, Drag Me to Hell last Wednesday night. (For those living under a rock, Raimi is responsible for the wonderful Evil Dead flicks–a remake of 1981’s Evil Dead is apparently in the works with Raimi directing–and most recently for directing the trio of Spiderman films; Spiderman 4 is also in the works with Raimi behind the camera again.)
I say with “mixed feelings” only because I had unexpectedly raised my expectations (how’s that for awkward phrasing?) for Drag Me to Hell. Early buzz surrounding the film was encouraging (it had an earlier screening at Austin’s SXSW festival) and I desperately didn’t want to be disappointed yet again by a film falsely alleging itself to be a horror film.
I’m happy to say that I wasn’t. In fact the only disappointment I experienced with Drag Me to Hell was that the movie ended. Not only does Raimi know how to scare an audience, but he knows how to entertain it while doing so. There’s much fun mixed in with the gore and his timing for both is impeccable.
I won’t bore you with an entire synopsis of the film but in a nutshell the movie is about a bank employee who turns down the wrong applicant for a home loan extension—a creepy old bird, I might add—and as a result ends up having a curse placed on her; one in which after experiencing three days of all sorts of above-the-ground hell, demons are to come to drag her soul to hell. But is there a way for her to cheat the curse? Maybe…
The audience I screened the film with—including the friend who accompanied me, a scream queen horror film aficionado—thought that what they just saw was neither a drag nor hell. It should be interesting to see if word of mouth translates into impressive box office; its opening weekend was around $16 million on 2,900 screens. And while still early into blockbuster season, I suspect that Drag Me to Hell will be the most fun I find at the theater this summer. Aside from anything that may happen in a bathroom stall, that is.
Cheerio!
S.R.
