One 'hell' of a movie

MANILA, Philippines - If the advance buzz for the horror movie Drag Me To Hell is any indication, it will scare away the competition when it premieres in the Philippines on June 3.

Drag Me To Hell is directed by Sam Raimi, the same man who did Spider-Man and The Evil Dead trilogy. This is his first time to do a horror movie in 15 years. He also wrote the screenplay of Drag Me To Hell with his brother Ivan. Though it’s Sam’s first time to direct a horror film in years, his production house Ghost House churned out some of the highest-grossing horror films in recent years, namely The Grudge, The Grudge 2 and The Messengers.

Drag Me To Hell stars Allison Lohman as an ambitious loan officer named Christine Brown, whose charmed life comes to a screeching halt when she becomes the victim of a supernatural curse.

One day, a mysterious European woman named Mrs. Ganush (Lorna Raver) walks into Christine’s office. Mrs. Ganush asks Christine to give her an extension on her home loan. Christine is torn between her desire to give the old woman a break and her desire to do well at work. In the end, she rejects Mrs. Ganush’s request to prove to her boss that she can make tough decisions.

In retaliation, Mrs. Ganush turns Christine’s life into a living hell by placing the curse of the Lamia on her. Haunted by an evil spirit and misunderstood by her skeptical boyfriend Clay Dalton (Justin Long), Christine turns to a psychic (Dileep Rao) for help. As evil forces start to close in on her, Christine must decide how far she is willing to go to break the curse.

After seeing a rough cut of the film, Josh Tyler wrote a review on cinemablend.com, in which he called Drag Me To Hell a movie with a “simple, effective story told with style, wit, and a twisted, sometimes gloriously stomach-turning imagination.”

Released locally by Viva International Pictures, Drag Me To Hell was invited to the Cannes Film Festival for a Midnight Screening as part of the Festival’s Official Selection. Sam Raimi, together with the movie’s main cast, will make his third trip to Cannes for the said event. There will also be a premiere night at SM City North Edsa Cinema 7 on June 2, 7 p.m. The event is presented by Viva International Pictures, Viva Video City, and SM Cinema.