Movies: Drag Me To Hell
I was pretty jazzed going into this flick. Sam Raimi had finally returned to horror! Yay! I tried to read as little about it as possible. All I knew was that some chick was trying not to, um, get dragged to Hell.
I'll cut right to the chase. Fairly Epic Fail.
I can't understand why this movie got such great reviews on Rotten Tomatoes. All I can think is that the reviews were by non-horror fans, who don't know a good horror movie if it bites them in the ass. Nevertheless, they should still understand things like, y'know, plot and character and stuff.
My dear friend
ladyeuthanasia hated this movie. She felt it was anti-feminist; that the girl in the movie was targeted for damnation for being too ambitious in a man's world. I can see her point, but I respectfully disagree. I don't think Raimi intended it to be sexist. He did, after all, make a ham-handed attempt at showing that the hell curse could strike anyone for the smallest reason. (A young Mexican boy is dragged to Hell at the start of the movie for stealing a silver necklace from a Gypsy. Ack. More on the subject of Gypsies momentarily.) I didn't feel like the girl got walloped with the curse for stepping "out of her place." The structure of the film was a lot like an old EC comic. In old EC comics, victims come in two varieties. There are the utter bastards who get everything they deserve. Then there are the basically decent people who get into deep shit for a small mistake, generally one involving poor judgment or going against their better natures.
This is the case in DMTH. Our heroine is trying for an assistant-manager position at the bank where she works. She's up against an obnoxious guy who's only been there a short time. (There's no doubt that her boss IS a raging sexist.) In an attempt to prove that she is up to the challenge of being a ruthless loan officer, she turns down an old woman who's already had her home loan payment deadline extended twice. This is Syliva Ganush, Gypsy, and generally gross old broad.
Here's where things started going awry for me. EC comic structure or not, who the hell makes an ethnic group the villains in a movie anymore? Sylvia is evil, vindictive, and totally gross. (She barfs on people a lot. Don't ask.) Later on, at her house, we meet some members of her extended family. They are all slutty, creepy, greasy, or otherwise unwholesome. UM, RACIST MUCH??? Dude, I've met Roma people. They take baths, okay?
So anyway. Our heroine refuses Sylvia's extension, effectively throwing her out of her house. When Sylvia falls to her knees and begs for mercy, our girl calls the security guard. This evidently pushes Sylvia over the edge. She attacks our heroine in the parking garage, in an over-the-top assault that was so silly I thought it had to be a nightmare sequence. Not so much. (Don't get me wrong, I love Raimi's Wile E Coyote style of direction. But it just came out of nowhere in this movie.) Syliva grabs one of our girl's buttons, curses it, and gives it back to her. BUSTED! She has three days until she's dragged to Hell!
There's not a lot of plot after this point. The movie just sort of noodles around as various people try to help our heroine slip out of her curse. There are a few funny moments. There are a few startles. Nothing very scary. The last quarter of the movie is the best part, even though you will almost certainly see the end coming from about 40 miles away. I sure did. There's some fun stuff when our heroine reaches her breaking point and becomes genuinely desperate. But that doesn't change the fact that you know exactly what's going to happen, ultimately.
The performances weren't bad, overall, but the actors just didn't have much to work with. Between the embarrassing racist element, the flabby plot, and the predictable "twist" at the end, I left the movie with a giant MEH.
I really wanted to watch Evil Dead 2, but I was in Virginia City with no TV. So I just had to think of it fondly.
WHO'S LAUGHING NOW?
Not me. I want 1980's Sam Raimi back.
I'll cut right to the chase. Fairly Epic Fail.
I can't understand why this movie got such great reviews on Rotten Tomatoes. All I can think is that the reviews were by non-horror fans, who don't know a good horror movie if it bites them in the ass. Nevertheless, they should still understand things like, y'know, plot and character and stuff.
My dear friend
ladyeuthanasia hated this movie. She felt it was anti-feminist; that the girl in the movie was targeted for damnation for being too ambitious in a man's world. I can see her point, but I respectfully disagree. I don't think Raimi intended it to be sexist. He did, after all, make a ham-handed attempt at showing that the hell curse could strike anyone for the smallest reason. (A young Mexican boy is dragged to Hell at the start of the movie for stealing a silver necklace from a Gypsy. Ack. More on the subject of Gypsies momentarily.) I didn't feel like the girl got walloped with the curse for stepping "out of her place." The structure of the film was a lot like an old EC comic. In old EC comics, victims come in two varieties. There are the utter bastards who get everything they deserve. Then there are the basically decent people who get into deep shit for a small mistake, generally one involving poor judgment or going against their better natures.
This is the case in DMTH. Our heroine is trying for an assistant-manager position at the bank where she works. She's up against an obnoxious guy who's only been there a short time. (There's no doubt that her boss IS a raging sexist.) In an attempt to prove that she is up to the challenge of being a ruthless loan officer, she turns down an old woman who's already had her home loan payment deadline extended twice. This is Syliva Ganush, Gypsy, and generally gross old broad.
Here's where things started going awry for me. EC comic structure or not, who the hell makes an ethnic group the villains in a movie anymore? Sylvia is evil, vindictive, and totally gross. (She barfs on people a lot. Don't ask.) Later on, at her house, we meet some members of her extended family. They are all slutty, creepy, greasy, or otherwise unwholesome. UM, RACIST MUCH??? Dude, I've met Roma people. They take baths, okay?
So anyway. Our heroine refuses Sylvia's extension, effectively throwing her out of her house. When Sylvia falls to her knees and begs for mercy, our girl calls the security guard. This evidently pushes Sylvia over the edge. She attacks our heroine in the parking garage, in an over-the-top assault that was so silly I thought it had to be a nightmare sequence. Not so much. (Don't get me wrong, I love Raimi's Wile E Coyote style of direction. But it just came out of nowhere in this movie.) Syliva grabs one of our girl's buttons, curses it, and gives it back to her. BUSTED! She has three days until she's dragged to Hell!
There's not a lot of plot after this point. The movie just sort of noodles around as various people try to help our heroine slip out of her curse. There are a few funny moments. There are a few startles. Nothing very scary. The last quarter of the movie is the best part, even though you will almost certainly see the end coming from about 40 miles away. I sure did. There's some fun stuff when our heroine reaches her breaking point and becomes genuinely desperate. But that doesn't change the fact that you know exactly what's going to happen, ultimately.
The performances weren't bad, overall, but the actors just didn't have much to work with. Between the embarrassing racist element, the flabby plot, and the predictable "twist" at the end, I left the movie with a giant MEH.
I really wanted to watch Evil Dead 2, but I was in Virginia City with no TV. So I just had to think of it fondly.
WHO'S LAUGHING NOW?
Not me. I want 1980's Sam Raimi back.