Fanboys have waited patiently for Raimi to return to the "splatstick" horror genre he more or less invented with the Evil Dead trilogy. Drag Me to Hell never quite hits the psychotronic heights of Evil Dead II – Raimi's working with a PG-13 rating this time – but, in the interim, the director's ability to create nerve-racking suspense and jarring shocks has been honed to a razor's edge. This film moves with the herky-jerky gait of a spook-house trolley car, rocketing along for whole sequences and then punctuating them with shock cuts and tinnitus-inducing Foley cues that'll have audiences wishing they had borrowed a pair of grandma's Depends. Raimi co-wrote the script with his brother Ivan in the downtime between Spider-Man films, and the story is as basic a terror tale as they come. Raimi's pairing of Three Stooges-style physical comedy with moments of pure gross-out schtick creates one of the most satisfying horror films in decades.
Opened 05/29/09