One "Hell"uva great horror film! "Drag" yourself to a theater!

Rating: 9/10 (1 June 2009)

DRAG ME TO HELL (2009) ***1/2 Alison Lohman, Justin Long, Lorna Raver, Dileep Rao, David Paymer, Adriana Barraza, Chelcie Ross, Molly Cheek, Reggie Lee. Filmmaker Sam Raimi returns giddily/ghoulishly back to his horror roots in this entertaining and fiendishly funny spookster with sweet bank loan officer Lohman finding herself cursed by an elderly gypsy (Raver making an affective villain to trouble one's sleep since the hey-day of Freddy Krueger!) after she has rejected for an extension on her home. What follows is bad news and three days to make good or find herself on the highway to well the title is appropro. Raimi's skillful use of sound and vision to play tricks on the unsuspecting audience and milk every genre cliché (i.e. squeaking gates, sudden jolts, debunking fortune tellers) that the end result is a humdinger of a good time watching someone truly going through hell to avoid it. One of the best horror films in years; welcome back Sammy!