Drag Me to Hell Marks Horror Return of Sam Raimi
Spider Man Director Back in the Evil Dead Style with Alison Lohman
May 13, 2009
In Drag Me to Hell, Alison Lohman stars as Christine Brown, a bank loan officer who, against her will, evicts an old woman from her home and brings down a hellish curse that will drive her to the brink of insanity and death. Justin Long co-stars in what is sure to be a wild and raucous ride, thanks in large part to director Sam Raimi stepping back into the genre he knows so well after a too-long hiatus.
Most younger audiences will remember Raimi as the Spider Man director. After all, the Spider Man films have been his greatest financial successes to date. But for those that got in on the ground floor of his career (circa early eighties), Drag Me to Hell is cause to rejoice...especially if heavy doses of suspense and humor are in your blood. Here's a look back at Raimi's early work.
The Evil Dead
In The Evil Dead, Raimi uses one interior location, the creepiness of Mother Nature, and buckets of fake blood, to introduce his now iconic Ash to horror audiences everywhere. Fans of the later films will be surprised to see Ash (played by Bruce Campbell) is really a timid weakling in this entry and survives largely in spite of himself, thanks to the efforts of his traveling companions. Also surprising is the tone of the film...it's much more of a horror film than its other two entries.
The Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn
Part remake, part sequel, The Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn won both critical and commercial success as a cult oddity that stayed around long enough and built enough of a following for the third entry to become inevitable. It also mixes horror and comedy in greater doses than did its largely stark-toned predecessor. This time around, Ash takes a beating but is also more apt to dish one out. It's also the film responsible for his chainsaw hand and sawed-off "boomstick" (though the actual reference doesn't come until the final film in the trilogy).
Darkman
In between the Evil Dead sequels, Raimi made what is perhaps his hidden masterpiece. Darkman, a film that shows both his familiar horror chops and his blossoming competence with action and heroics, tells the tale of a disfigured scientist (played by Liam Neeson) out for vengeance against the hoods that nearly killed him. A Phantom of the Opera-type, Darkman exacts his revenge through both genius and mayhem. As a man, he has developed a synthetic skin replacement that allows him to hide his scars and become virtually anyone he desires to be. But there is a time limit to the material's effectiveness, and ultimately, the skin will not hide the darkness in his soul. Darkman is a gleeful revenge epic that evokes our pity and our most primal urge for payback.
Army of Darkness
If you attended college in the late nineties or early 2000's and didn't see Army of Darkness at least once on video, you were either female or didn't have a lot of friends. In outing three of the Evil Dead series, Ash picks up where he left off in The Evil Dead 2...in the Middle Ages. The story crosses over to comedy more often than not, holding on to just enough of the other two films' horror elements to qualify as a sequel. However, it's clear that Ray Harryhausen is more Raimi's inspiration than anything else. While it's one of Raimi's most popular horror-esque films, it is also a clear indicator that he was ready for a break from elements of the horror genre.
But on May 29, 2009, Raimi is back and rather than bringing Hell with him, as the old saying goes, he will be dragging viewers there on a one-way trip.
To view the trailer for Drag Me to Hell, visit the official site.
For more on the career of Sam Raimi, visit IMDB.
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