A lot of people had a lot of problem with the movie that marked the return of Sam Raimi’s return to horror filmmaking, Drag Me To Hell.  And some of those problems are justified, but some are not.

Drag Me To Hell features a young loan officer bucking for an assistant manager’s position at her bank branch.  She’s given the opportunity to “prove she can make the tough decisions” by refusing a third loan extension for an elderly woman’s house.  But, as we discover, this old woman is a gypsy with connections to a powerful evil known as the lamia.  And when such a monstrosity is invoked, it is targeted to the soul of a person who has gravely offended the gypsy who summoned it.

So now, our young loan officer has just three days to get rid of the lamia before it does what the title implies and drags her to hell.

Like I said, there are definitely problems with this little package.  The concept is as outlandish as they come, and much of the movie is more awkward than scary.  But there are some sequences that are actually pretty terrifying, and there are several pieces of the movie that are downright Sam Raimi all over.

See, going back to Evil Dead 2, Sam Raimi has always had a touch of the whimsical in his horror style, an almost cartoonish effect that he’s used to good measure.  And that shows up in several sequences of Drag Me To Hell. Goofy sound effects, unlikely dialogue, and other such plot elements (like, for instance, dancing lamia and lamia getting clocked in the head by unlikely-placed falling anvils) have that standard Raimi feel that we haven’t seen very much of since The Chin himself, Bruce Campbell, stopped showing up for anything more than a few cameos.

Drag Me To Hell isn’t a bad movie, really.  It has its bad parts, but it specifically isn’t bad.  What it is is really one for the fans.  It’s got tons of sequences that are fully Sam Raimi, and if you’re not a Sam Raimi fan, then most of them will sail right by without leaving the proper impact.  Even the clever twist ending is something Raimi’s fond of.

The Screenhead Ten Scale gives this one essentially two scores–if you’re not a Sam Raimi fan, it’s a five out of ten for being interesting, but not really terrific.  If you ARE a Sam Raimi fan it’s a full eight out of ten for having all the great Raimi style, but some awkward moments too.