REVIEW: 'Drag Me to Hell' provokes screams, laughs

When director Sam Raimi slums it in Hollywood, he makes tiny movies like the "Spider-Man" trilogy.

So it was with great and perverse pleasure that many greeted his return to the form that made him famous - slapstick horror.

Savage, yet darkly humorous, Raimi's low-budget horror films (the "Evil Dead" series) relish in hilarious camp yet deliver genuine chills. It's been a decade since Raimi's made a scary movie and almost double that since he made anything resembling his new film, "Drag Me to Hell."

But as this new entry proves, Raimi has lost absolutely none of the confidence, flair or visceral audaciousness that put him on the map in the first place.

Christine Brown (Alison Lohman) is an ambitious loan officer being considered for a big promotion at her bank. But her boss (David Paymer) is worried that she is too soft and doesn't have what it takes to make the really tough decisions. When the weird and revolting Mrs. Ganush (Lorna Raver) appears at her desk, begging for an extension on her home loan, Christine's instincts are to help her out.

But with her big promotion hanging in the balance, Christine decides to impress her boss and foreclose on the old woman's house.

In retaliation, the shamed woman spits a curse upon Christine. Tormented by an evil spirit and misunderstood by her devoted yet skeptical boyfriend (Justin Long), Christine turns to a seer (Dileep Rao) to save her soul from eternal damnation. (Where's Max Von Sydow when you need him?)

The clairvoyant tells her he may be able to help. But is she willing to do what it takes to break the curse?

Raimi's direction (like that of Peter Jackson), has always had a gleeful, in-your-face, amateurish style. But he employs it with something approaching genius, using whip pans and kinetic, wild camera movements, the cinematic equivalent of being on a roller coaster ride. And like a roller coaster, "Drag Me to Hell" is both genuinely frightening and indisputably fun.

What makes it so is the fact that Raimi always keeps some part of his tongue firmly planted in his cheek. In many horror films, humor is either an unintentional byproduct or a defense mechanism to stave off discomfort. Here, Raimi wants you to laugh as often as he wants you to scream, and he succeeds in equal measure with both.

Raimi, who wrote the script for "Drag Me to Hell" with his brother shortly after completing 1992's gothic camp masterpiece "Army of Darkness," delights in spooky telegraphed setups and fulfilling every horror cliché in the book.

Some of the situations are so ludicrous, so barbarically inappropriate and so disgusting that laughter is not only a magnificent pressure release, it is the only suitable response.

Add to that the pleasure of watching a loan officer tormented for foreclosing the house on a little old lady (no evil deed in this film goes unpunished) and you have an instant cult classic that just happens to also perfectly tap the zeitgeist.

DRAG ME TO HELL

Cast: Alison Lohman, Lorna Raver
Director: Sam Raimi
Theaters: Hollywood, Tinseltown, Carmike, Chapel Hills, Cinemark
Rated: PG-13 (strong language, violence)
Running time: 1 hour, 39 minutes

GRADE: A-