Scary, Exciting, Goofily Good Fun Gypsy Curse Horror Flick

Rating: 6/10 (13 July 2013)

Christine Brown is an aspiring banker who refuses to grant credit to an old gypsy woman who can't make her house payments. Big mistake - the nasty old woman places a curse on Christine, and in three days a demon will come to drag her to hell ...
This gleefully nutty and highly enjoyable little horror movie is a groovy return to their roots for Evil Dead auteur Raimi and producer Robert Tapert. It's wonderful to see that a filmmaker can swap a two-hundred-and-fifty million dollar budget back down to a mere thirty million and still have a lot of fun. If the movie has one weakness it's that the story is a little slight, but it has plenty of amusing twists and both the pacing and the character / loony-toon situations are balanced just right. Lohman suffers horrific indignities (usually involving unpleasant things administered orally) but keeps plugging away so we root for her, whilst Raver has a whale of a time as the ever-increasingly horrific Mrs Ganush (her teeth exploits alone are worth seeing). The realisation of the Lamia demon is wonderful as a shadowy goat-like monster who seems to twist reality and enjoy tormenting victims more than capturing them. All its scenes are memorable, especially a hair-curling seance and a hilarious Wile E Coyote setup in Christine's garage. There's also a fabulous score by Christopher Young to accompany these scenes, which is real Old School Orchestral Horror - all Romany violins, choral harmonies, discordant sound and driving rhythms. A good scary movie uses all of cinema's techniques - photography, editing, sound, music - and when done well, as is the case here, is a deliciously exciting and visceral experience. Written by Raimi and his sensible older brother Ivan (who also wrote Darkman and Army Of Darkness) - fans of the director can also spot his trusty 1973 Oldsmobile Delta 88 in a prominent role as Mrs Ganush's car. A great little demonic horror flick, this would make an excellent double-bill with Jacques Tourneur's similarly themed but fifty years older cult classic Night Of The Demon.