You'd Be Surprised What You'll Do When the Lamia Comes for You

During the Halloween season, there is one movie I go back to for a good scare, and a few laughs thrown in for good measure, and that is the Evil Dead Trilogy (okay that is three, but who’s counting). Unfortunate the creative mind behind those movies Sam Raimi has been too busy playing with boys in tights the last decade to do anything in the horror genre this decade until he squeaked one in at the end with Drag Me to Hell.

First off, Bruce Campbell who was the lead in the Evil Dead movies and cameos in all three Spider-Man movies as three different characters, is absent from the film. But other than that, Drag Me to Hell is pure Sam Raimi. The unexpected laughs throughout the movie jump up as much as the unsuspecting scary parts that horror movies are known for, although Raimi may have gone with one too many false endings.

The movie centers around Alison Lohman (Big Fish), a sweet loan officer who decides to get a backbone at the wrong time. Promotion time is right around the corner and after her boss says to get it, she will start to have to make the tough decisions which leads to Lohman to decline a frail old lady (perfectly portrayed by Lorna Raver with an assist to the great makeup artist who turned her that way) a third extension on her mortgage tossing her on the street. Wrong decision.

In retaliation, Raver puts a curse on Lohman where a demon named the Lamia would harass her for three days before, well, dragging her to hell, naturally. And as dramatized in the prologue, this is definitely not something you want to partake in. Along for the rise I the surprisingly straight man Justin Long (Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story) as Lohman loyal boyfriend who stays by her despite actually believing that she is being cursed and an eventful dinner with his parents who meet Lohman for the first time.

Drag Me to Hell might not be the scariest horror movie you will see (it is only PG-13) but for Raimi that is not the point as a full entertainment experience is what he wants to give you and that is what you get with this movie. And now that he has dipped his toe back in the genre, hopefully more adventures of Ash are not far behind.

Drag Me to Hell gets a on my Terror Alert Scale.