Drag Me To Hell

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Year:	2009
Country of origin:	USA
Director:	Sam Raimi
Genre:	Horror pastiche
Starring:	Alison Lohman, Justin Long, Lorna Raver
Rating:	5/5
IMDB link:	http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1127180/
Tagline:	Christine Brown has a good job, a great boyfriend, and a bright future. But in three days, she's going to hell.
Favourite line:	“I beat you, you old bitch!”

Sam Raimi returns, after seventeen long years, to the genre that spawned him.

The plot:
Christine Brown works for a bank. She's damned ambitious, and irritated that a co-worker keeps getting all of the praise. With an assistant manager position at stake, her boss tells her she needs to learn to make the big decisions.
An old lady enters the bank, requesting extra time on a foreclosure that will see her on the street. Christine, flushed with the bosses words of wisdom, refuses her the time she needs but, unfortunately for Christine, the woman is a Gypsy, possessed of supernatural powers, and lays a curse on her that will see a demon arise and try to Drag Her To Hell......

In many ways, this is as much a homage to horror movies as it is anything original in its own right. Though the plot has not been seen directly, in precisely this form before, all of the elements have already been used, and Raimi is effectively giving the cauldron a bit of a stir before pouring out the latest potion. You can see bits of Poltergeist, a smattering of Thinner, a dash of House, a pinch of Gremlins, not to mention not-so-sly nods to Raimi's most infamous offering, The Evil Dead.
Not that I'm moaning, mind.
This was a fucking riot.
From the outset, Raimi's trademark camera-work is in evidence; odd camera angles; the camera swooping in on objects one after the other; eyeball and fingernail close-ups.
In Mrs. Ganush, a truly memorable villain has been conceived; frightening, ugly, as malevolent as evil itself.
Special effects wise, this is a mish-mash of CGI, puppetry, prosthetics and even, in one sequence, claymation, the SFX Supervisor wisely choosing the most appropriate medium to put on screen the desired effect – you know, just like it should be done.
So kudos to that.
With exceptionally high production standards for a horror movie, a script that fucking sparkles with wit and invention, lashings of sickness – rotting corpses, vomiting insects, eye-pops, animal mutilation and open graves – and a rollicking good score from veteran horror composer Christopher 'Hellraiser' Young, this raises the bar for Hollywood horror good and proper, and only loses a mark for the occasional moment of slapstick.
A fantastic horror romp.