Bravo! Finally A Scary Horror Movie

Rating: 9/10 (14 June 2009)

I don't usually review movies here when there are already nearly 300 reviews, but I liked Drag Me To Hell a lot, so what the hell. First off, I like the title, in an I Spit On Your Grave sort of way. Secondly, I like the timeliness of it being about a woman who gets a curse put on her for foreclosing on a loan, you know, in this day and age of loan foreclosure horrors. But what I really liked is that, although it has its funny moments, its not one of your camp, stupid gory movies like the Evil Dead sequels, but instead is made to scare the hell out of you, and it does a pretty good job at it. I must say, the old gypsy woman is a great villain ranking up there with Freddy. Few movies have legitimately scared me. Let's see, there's the original Evil Dead, there's Descent about the cave exploring chicks, there's The Exorcist, there's Suspiria, Seven and Silence of the Lamb were both good and creepy, there was that Italian "Zombie" movie with the zombie fighting a shark underwater, the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre (forget about all the remakes), Invasion of the Body Snatchers 1978, The Thing 1982 is good for a heart attack the first time you see it, I actually liked CHUD a lot, and . . .and . . . and now there is Drag Me To Hell. It really does deserve to be ranked up there with the greats. It's really a shame that the so-called modern masters of horrors usually just make crap. I mean, look at George Ramero. What has he done since Dawn of the Dead? Nearly every Stephen King movie with the exception of Carrie and the original version of The Shining is just doo-doo. John Carpenter made a bunch of cult classics, granted, but he's also made some dogs such as Prince of Darkness. Seriously, when is the last time Wes Craven really scared you? I'm truly happy to see Sam Raimi back in action with his original genre. I hope he pumps out a bunch of good, old fashioned shock schlocks to entertain the hell out of us all.