I typically don't like horror movies, especially the loathsome torture porn that has dominated the genre of late. But Sam Raimi's Drag Me to Hell is great, more a comedy wearing horror-movie clothes than Saw XIII. The premise is straight out of the Brothers Grimm: bank loan officer Christine Brown (the gorgeous and wonderful Allison Lohman), angling for a promotion and looking to appear stalwart, refuses a gypsy woman's mortgage extension despite the crone's pleading. Bad move.
The gypsy woman curses her, and now Christine has three days to reverse the spell, or suffer an eternity in hell. The bulk of the movie follows Christine's increasing desperation to avert her fate. Raimi fills the movie with cheap horror movie thrills, but like the Scream series, the clichés work to both scare and elicit laughter. The film logically builds to its twist ending, which is nasty, but also perversely satisfying. Recommended.
