Hella lot of screaming

Film review: Drag Me to Hell

MANILA, Philippines - People love bungee jumping, roller coasters and scary movies. The rush of adrenaline, the primal screams that ensue — invariably make us realize we’re alive.

So while critics and moviegoers intellectualize endlessly about Academy Award-worthy films and scripts, gleefully slipping through the cracks are the B-movie scream fests that are neither brain bogglers nor heart-stirrers. What we have in films like The Ring and The Grudge are unapologetic exercises in cathartic fright. There’s no need to think; just you raise your hands and scream through the ride.

From its in-your-face beginning, there is no doubt Drag Me To Hell (I don’t know whether to laugh at the title) is going to be as subtle as a hammer to the groin. In the first few minutes, a young boy who unwittingly steals a cursed necklace is (surprise, surprise!) dragged straight to hell by a demon figure known as the Lamia.

Fast forward a couple of decades, we find our heroine Christine Brown (Alison Lohman, Beowulf) on the verge of a promotion from a bank loans officer assistant manager — not if smarmy competitor Stu Rubin (Reggie Lee, Pirates of the Caribbean) has his way, of course.

There is a persistent comic flavor to all the goings on — from the wooden acting to hopelessly clichéd shots and scriptwriting. Everything develops quickly, but you get a feeling things are a little too obvious. I mean, how many times should a shot of the vacant assistant manager’s office be put in, for crying out loud?

Then there is the almost laughable, nauseating Mrs. Ganush who does every conceivable icky thing from expectorating on her kerchief to removing her extra slimy set of false teeth in public. So Drag Me To Hell tries to hit two birds with one stone: It wants to both frighten you and gross you out. It calls to mind the flavor and treatment of Tales From the Crypt.

So, okay, now we know that Christine is ambitious and Mrs. Ganush makes the Real Monsters (Remember that scrumptious Nickelodeon cartoon series?) look almost appetizing. When the two meet one day at the bank, fate must have looked the other way and barfed. Of course, Mrs. Ganush needs a loan. Of course, Christine will not grant her said loan. “You shamed me. You shamed me,” declares a dejected Ganush, and goes ballistic. The battle lines have been drawn. Now ensues a classic war of bitches with the dependable old demon Lamia thrown in the mix just for good measure

Not to spoil the fun, but you should see the car fight scene of Ganush and Brown. That was scary and disgusting. One half expects Wile E. Coyote to jump out and deliver a few eye-popping sticks of dynamite. Beep! Beep!

Just like previously mentioned, there is such a preponderance of old-school horror movie cliché cum obligatory shots that director Sam Raimi (who also co-wrote the screenplay with brother Raimi) must have exhumed from his Evil Dead portfolio along with other over-the-top, full-throttle scream fests. (This is the part we say “spoiler alert.”) I mean, must the climax happen in a cemetery? Must there be frantic digging to get at a corpse at said cemetery? Must there be rain while said digging is going on? Sigh. And, truth to tell, the “twist” at the end was as predictable as political advertisement.

 Cracking $15-M as of writing, Drag Me To Hell hasn’t performed, well, hellishly. Obviously, there are more indulging films this time of the year to spend on, but that’s not the point. Sometimes, you crave for some mind-numbing, spine-tingling no-brainer gore candy. In addition, Justin Long is our main protagonist’s love interest, seriously. Justin Long! That certainly downgrades our expectation.

But I digress. If you want a good fright and some skin-crawling action, catch this in the theater while you can. The audience reaction is also something to, uhm, die for.