Raimi made two sequels (among other, straighter Hollywood movies) but would go on to become the more polished, better-funded director behind the Spider-Man franchise. He gave those movies an amiable pop-whiz that honored adolescence instead of pandering to it. But let's face it, the soaring professionalism of "Spider-Man 2" is a long way from the winking trash of "Evil Dead II."
His jubilant new movie, "Drag Me to Hell," splits the difference between blockbuster and schlock: a horror movie that eventually finds that contagious comic high of Raimi's no-budget youth, but with grown-up money now.
A young California bank loan officer named Christine Brown (Alison Lohman), eager for a promotion, refuses a little old lady's request for an extension on her mortgage payment. The old lady (Lorna Raver) is a nasty crone. Actually, she's something a little more problematic - a Slavic "gypsy" with a touch of evil. In any case, she removes her dentures, steals candy, hocks up some radioactive-looking mucus, begs on her knees for the extension, and, as she's being thrown out of the bank (yes, she's that foul) installs a hell-bound curse that Christine spends the movie scrambling to remove.
Christine leaves the bank, happy that she's impressed her nasally boss (David Paymer) and upstaged her chief rival for the job (Reggie Lee). But the old lady is waiting in the back of Christine's car to inflict more foulness. Their tussle is a nimble cartoon dance whose comedy is entirely physical and whose horror is entirely corporeal. The old lady's fanged dentures unwittingly fly out of her mouth, so when she goes in to bite Christine she winds up gumming the girl's chin.
That sequence is the tip of a gross iceberg. And as expertly orchestrated as it is, I wasn't convinced "Drag Me to Hell" was working by the time that parking lot fight ends. The principle problem is Lohman, a 30-year-old blonde who sounds like a drunk baby. In order for the supernatural effects to impress and for the plot to take off, Lohman is required to stand around and watch them happen to her. Raimi is a good filmmaker, but he can't keep you from asking the age-old horror-thriller question: Why don't these people ever run for their lives - or, at least, run faster?
