Photo: Melissa Moseley/Universal Pictures
Long before Sam Raimi became a huge box office success with "Spiderman," he endeared himself to horror fans everywhere with the cult classic "Evil Dead" series. Even as someone who tends to frown on schlockey "humorous" horror, I have to give props to Raimi for these low budget, indie classics.
Which is why it's so painful to criticize "Drag Me to Hell."
Okay, it's horror. You are going to present us with concepts out of the ordinary and ask us to suspend our disbelief. I'll go along with you on that. But what I really hate, even when dealing with films about supernatural forces, is when characters act… out of character. In other words, I'll go along with you on goat-like demons trying to steal souls, but when your characters act in ways that make no sense to me and defy logic, you've lost me.
SPOILER ALERT.
First, when our "heroine," Christine (Alison Lohman) takes, shall we say, her first attempt at resolving the issue of shaking the goat demon off her back, I just wasn't buying it. Maybe I'm just soft about kitties, but no…no way would she try that without so much as an afterthought, even with the clunky "foreshadowing" of the psychic saying "you'd be surprised at what people will do." Well, yeah, but that was WAY too surprising to the point of being unbelievable.
Then after she tries attempt number two, and fails, suddenly she learns of the simplest, most direct way to rid herself of her curse. Which, by the way, was going through my head all the damn time. Duh. Now after the butchered first attempt, pun intended, I'm supposed to believe Christine suddenly has some moral dilemma about an indirect way to resolve the problem where she doesn't have to see the results or do the deed herself? In fact, I am so annoyed at her for attempt number 1 and this idiotic lack of sensibility, I'm ready to see her lose the battle. Like…NOW. Drag this stupid bitch to hell, already.
As far as the "twist" ending, am I the only one who saw that coming a mile away? I mean, please.
I'll follow you on all kinds of strange monsters and myths, but you better make your characters act consistently and logically for their personalities. And really, when trying to foreshadow future events or set up a twist ending, subtlety please. I know subtlety is a lot to ask from the man who brought us "Evil Dead," but Bruce Campbell was way more believable than this twit. And FAR more likable.
Grade: C-