Overrated movie that has some very serious issues

Rating: 2/10 (15 January 2010)

First I simply must express my curiosity: why have so many people found this to be an entertaining, good movie? After all, there is nothing particularly original or special about Drag Me to Hell to begin with.
The movie plot itself is very unoriginal but it works: main character makes a B-A-D choice which causes the antagonist to suffer greatly. The main character is cursed by the antagonist and spends the rest of the movie unraveling what has happened, what the curse is and how to get rid of it. It is in fact very reminiscent of two other movies: Stephen King's THINNER and The Ring. Particularly the former because Drag Me to Hell also implements the idea that gypsies are in possession of dark, super-natural powers.
Well, I can live with then the mediocre special effects, the pitiful attempts of "shocking" us by rattling furniture and kitchen gear, the redundant characters, the overall poor acting, the stereotypical office-competition story, the lame one-liners, the grotesque witch who does equally grotesque things --- but I can't live with the malicious portrayal of an already shunned ethnic group.
Whereas THINNER at least serves us a slightly more complex story about moral dilemmas, and in which the cursed Billy Halleck hardly counts as a decent human being, the main character in Drag Me to Hell is a fairly "white" young woman whose poor self-esteem causes her to do ONE (questionably) bad choice. And for that she gets a curse thrown upon her by the nasty, disgusting, thieving gypsy witch. A curse way worse than anything thinning Billy Halleck ever had to deal with.
Naturally this is to be expected from gypsies in this movie. After all, those folks won't hesitate to curse a foolish little child thief, causing him to be tortured by demons for three days and then be dragged to hell - in front of his horrified parents. And since the gypsies can command demons from hell to seize the soul of whoever they please, it is easy to deduce what kind of people THEY are --- right?
Anyway, good job movie makers, for making such a poor piece of dung, using all clichés in the book and strengthening nasty prejudices against a big ethnic minority – all in one fell swoop.
Topnotch!