Drag Me to Hell is a sometimes funny and often startling horror movie. That is what it wants to be, and that is what it is.
Drag Me To Hell (2009)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:31
Fresh:27
Rotten:4
Average Rating:7.4/10
Consensus: Sam Raimi returns to top form with Drag Me to Hell, a frightening, hilarious, delightfully campy thrill ride.
Rated: PG-13 [See Full Rating] for sequences of horror violence, terror, disturbing images and language.
Runtime: 1 hr 39 mins
Genre: Horror/Suspense
Theatrical Release:May 29, 2009 Wide
Box Office: $42,057,340
Synopsis: After nearly two decades of successful detours into mature thrillers (THE GIFT, A SIMPLE PLAN) and superhero blockbusters (the Spider-Man series), director Sam Raimi returns--full tilt--to his... After nearly two decades of successful detours into mature thrillers (THE GIFT, A SIMPLE PLAN) and superhero blockbusters (the Spider-Man series), director Sam Raimi returns--full tilt--to his scrappy horror roots with DRAG ME TO HELL. Alison Lohman stars as Christine Brown, a soft-spoken Southern girl with a good heart, a PhD-toting boyfriend (Justin Long), and a job as a loan officer at a bank just outside of Los Angeles. When evicting a vile and negligent old woman named Mrs. Ganush (Lorna Raver) seems to be the only way to secure an important promotion, Christine pushes her moral flexibility about as far as it can go (not very far at all) only to dearly pay the price as the recipient of a rather nasty curse. The next three days of Christine’s life amount to an unimaginable endurance test in which she is subject to physical and psychological torture while a terrifying demon draws ever closer to take her to hell, where she would burn for eternity. Raimi manages to keep the feverish awfulness of DRAG ME's central concept palpable while layering on his distinctly disturbing and exhilaratingly kinetic macabre-meets-slapstick portraiture, and the result is an efficient celebration of the art of horror movies that’s campy, scary, and fun. Similar to HBO’s classic TALES FROM THE CRYPT series, HELL feels like a living, breathing EC comic. While it may come as a minor shock that Bruce Campbell, the beloved mouthpiece of the EVIL DEAD franchise, is nowhere to be found in this unabashed horror-comedy, Christine is an excellent twist on Raimi's genre-hero archetype. Fans will get a kick out of seeing her inexplicably leave her gob agape as putrid projectiles pour in, and hearing her, after a bit of pushing, spout a Campbell-ism or two ("I’m gonna get me some!"). [More]
Starring: Alison Lohman, Justin Long, Lorna Raver, Dileep Rao
Starring: Alison Lohman, Justin Long, Lorna Raver, Dileep Rao, David Paymer, Jessica Lucas, Adriana Barraza
Director: Sam Raimi
Director: Sam Raimi
Screenwriter: Sam Raimi, Ivan Raimi
Producer: Rob Tapert, Grant Curtis
Composer: Christopher Young
Studio: Universal Pictures
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Reviews for Drag Me To Hell
It would be tempting to call Sam Raimi’s Drag Me to Hell a budding cult classic, except its profitability and popularity may eclipse cult status.
The biggest howls involve the delicate heroine helplessly ingesting or inhaling bugs, worms, and bile--physical equivalents of her destructive emotions--and Raimi ends the story with the sort of black punch line that's become his signature.
Raimi's Drag Me to Hell does everything we want a horror film to do: It is fearsomely scary, wickedly funny and diabolically gross, three stomach-churning states that argue for taking a pass on the $10 box of popcorn.
The looseness Raimi allows himself here results in an especially joyous kind of filmmaking, the sort where the filmmaker's delight in scaring us (and making us laugh) becomes part of the movie's fabric.
It's the work of a filmmaker once again drunk on the daffy possibilities of horror filmmaking -- and determined to share that joy with his fans.
Inspired by the tone of B-movie scare epics of the '50s, they've made a slick, mostly predictable homage-pastiche that itself rates about a B-.
Apart from the evocative title, which is a great nod to '50s drive-in fare, the film is as predictable as a meal beneath the golden arches.
At a time when horror is defined by limp Japanese retreads or punishing exercises in pure sadism, Drag Me to Hell has a tonic playfulness that's unabashedly retro, an indulgent return to Mr. Raimi's goofy, gooey roots.
This hellaciously effective B-movie comes with a handy moral tucked inside its scares, laughs and Raimi’s specialty, the scare/laugh hybrid. Moral: Be nice to people.
There's no truth in the title. Drag Me to Hell is horror-movie heaven.
As in the best horror movies, Drag Me to Hell keeps the audience on the edge of hysteria throughout, so that every thump sets the heart racing and every joke earns a slightly out-of-control laugh.
If all you want are shocks and bumps and screams and laughs and a couple of they-did-NOT-just-show-that jawdroppers -- then Drag Me To Hell is definitely the funhouse ride for you.
Drag Me to Hell is an eyeball-gouging lesson in how to make a genre flick and live to tell about it.
The characters are solid, the shocks are grab-your-heart-medicine scary, the story glides from twist to twist with diabolical grace. And it's damned funny.
Raimi succeeds at giving literal moviemaking a good name, while providing diabolic catharsis for many a disgruntled homeowner.
Latest News for Drag Me To Hell
October 12, 2009:
RT on DVD: Drag Me to Hell and All of Futurama
This week on home video, we've got a couple of big winners (at least, in our book), a couple of overlooked films, some so-so new releases, and a couple of classic favorites... More...
May 31, 2009:
A spine-tingling adventure guaranteed to elicit blood-curdling screams and to make you jump out of your seat when you least expect it. ![]()
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May 28, 2009:
Critics Consensus: Up And Drag Me to Hell Are Certified Fresh
This week at the movies, we've got a high-flying house (Up, with voice work by Ed Asner and Christopher Plummer) and a demonic curse (Drag Me to Hell, starring Alison Lohman and... More...
May 28, 2009:
Favorite Films with Drag Me to Hell's Sam Raimi
This Friday, Raimi steps out of the Marvel trenches and returns to horror with Drag Me to Hell, which stars Alison Lohman as a meek loan officer whose comfortable life gets... More...
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