Drag Me to Hell (2009)

Score: 8/10

I’ll be brief on the synopsis. Christine Brown (Alison Lohman) is a loan officer in a bank. She wants to impresses his boss so she can be promoted to be the assistant manager. She decides not to extend the loan of Mrs. Ganush (Lorna Raver), an old gypsy woman, to show that she can be aggressive. Mrs. Ganush tries to beg with no avail and she becomes extremely angry.

She curses Christine that in three days an evil spirit will come for her and take her soul to hell for eternity. Many strange occurrences start to appear and haunt Christine. She asks help from a physic named Rham Jas (Dileep Rao). He brings Christine to Shaun San Dena (Adriana Barraza), a powerful medium who has the experience of facing the same spirit many years ago, to help them destroy it.

That’s the general plot of the movie. Don’t get me wrong though. My short synopsis does not automatically indicate that this is a bad movie. On the contrary, in my opinion Drag Me to Hell is among the best of its kind. The start of the movie is brilliant and eerie. There is a short scene showing how Shaun San Dena was facing the demon many years ago. It is the right opening to show the authority of this movie.

The visual effects are not special, but they are sufficient to be effective. The sound effects are perhaps one of the loudest that I have heard. There are many jumping-from-your-seat surprises throughout the movie. I have prepared for them, but sometimes they still caught me off guard. The acting is good and effective from all the casts. I have no complaint on this sector. There are a little of comedy here and there and the good thing is that they do not seem out of place.

Sam Raimi, the director, has successfully created a horror movie that keeps the suspense throughout the runtime. Perhaps the concept itself that makes the movie wonderful. The imagination of having to live in hell for eternity is the thing that makes this movie so gripping. Even some simple tricks with shadow are enough to create suspense in Drag Me to Hell.

There is a message here. We need to be responsible of every action that we take. Even if perhaps we are “good person”, we can still be greedy and do things that we are not suppose to do. Or perhaps the message is “never mess with an old and odd looking woman!”

The woman sit next to me was closing her eyes and ears. A friend of mine said that some women went out from the studio and never returned. This shows how effective this movie in creating a chilly environment. Just one more thing, I’m surprised that this movie only gets a PG-13 rating. It’s just too intense. If you like horror flicks, you should not miss this movie.

If you want to find additional information, try to visit these websites:
- IMDB: Drag Me to Hell (2009)
- The official site of Drag Me to Hell

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