I was surprised to like this, since I'm not an Evil Dead fan.

Rating: 8/10 (15 January 2010)

I haven't been a fan of writer/director Sam Raimi's The Evil Dead trilogy, and his track record with Spider-Man has been spotty (I only loved the second one), so I was pleasantly surprised to really enjoy Drag Me to Hell.
This movie isn't unlike The Evil Dead series in terms of humor and camp, but this time, with a bigger budget and I think more of an inclination towards horror than comedy, it appeals to me a lot more. There's a good lot of suspense and a coherent story (that's definitely unlike The Evil Dead), and I liked the change in acting style too. As opposed to Bruce Campbell's OTT tongue-in-cheek acting, Alison Lohman went for straight- faced naiveté that could've almost be mistaken for bad acting until she started ghost-wrangling. As her beau, Justin Long also plays it straight, and it's refreshing that his character is not an arse who stubbornly refuses to believe she's being haunted. And it's nice to see Babel's Adriana Barraza get gainful employment, even if it's for a kooky medium role.