What happened to the goat?
Watched Drag Me To Hell last night. I’d only seen posters when it came out, and given how they quite blatantly showed what happens in the ending, I was under the impression it was some kind of battle-your-way-out-of-hell nice-girl-becomes-ass-kicker sort of thing. Instead it’s kind of Evil Dead with a sprinkle more plot, a bigger budget and a fetish for bodily fluids excreting from one person’s mouth into another person’s mouth.
Uh huh.
So a cutesy girl next door accidentally summons the wrath of a gypsy woman by refusing to give her an extension on her home payments and is cursed; she will be tormented by a demon for three days before she will be dragged to hell (natch). She enlists the help of a medium to try and save her from such a fate, while also having to meet her boyfriend’s snooty upper-class family and claim a promotion in her workplace, all the while being haunted periodically by a demonic spirit that torments her. Plenty of places and scenarios for her to freak out in!
The film balances seriousness and comedic moments pretty well, and once again, the effects, the look of every scene and angle, it’s a brilliantly put-together film. Evil Dead looked fantastic for even a cheapo B-movie, but with an actual modern day budget it’s still great in the looks department. Also, camera guys? Serious props, yo. Keep up the good work.
However, while it’s a good put-together film, I will admit that it just didn’t feel like it made the most of it. Evil Dead, for all its limitations, seemed to make the most of its premise and shenanigans – it had only five people, a cabin and a forest to play around with, but it made for a fun and varied hour and a half. It wasn’t just the same elements tormenting them every time – it had possession, floating objects, the unseen thing that chases Ash, rapist trees and all kinds of stuff. Drag Me To Hell just seems to repeat the formula of having five minutes of dramatic build-up, throwing a jump scare at you, and repeating ad nauseam. As said earlier, it helped that the movie was just produced so well, and the climatic attempt to banish the demon is madcap mayhem, but I’m just not the kind of person who has patience for repeated jump scares, I’m afraid. I walked out of a movie a few years ago because it was too occupied throwing jump scares around than advancing the plot; I’m told it picked up afterwards, but it did a fantastic job of making me lose interest.
The climax of the girl finding someone to pass the curse onto is a really intriguing sequence, and I’d dare say it could fuel an entire movie on its own and not just restricted to a mere ten minutes. One could argue that the simple idea of “doing bad things to others for personal gain” is something that’s been played out a lot, the first movie that springs to mind being The Box from not too long ago – but while Drag Me To Hell is just passing on a curse so the girl won’t be tormented so much, The Box, as far as I’m aware, was just gaining lots and lots of dosh at the expense of one random person in the world dying. Apparently the recent movie also had aliens involved. My suspension of belief works in weird and wonderful ways.
I’m a little torn on it, as it’s a wonderfully produced film with lots of amusing and entertaining scenes, but ultimately it came across as rather… half-hearted? I can’t find the right terminology, but I just felt that it came and went and it didn’t really leave too much of an impression on me. I’d be happy to watch it again just to admire the great camera work (of all things!), but otherwise I’m not too fussed.
