Drag Me to Hell may be the best movie about a cursed
button made in the last 44 years. Director Sam Raimi, who has earned
billions of dollars with the Spider-Man franchise, has now
returned to his roots: making grade-B horror flicks inspired by the
drive-in movies of the 1960s.

While Drag Me to Hell has a fraction of Spider-Man 3‘s
budget, it has a lot more charm, takes itself way less seriously and is
probably twice as fun as trying to figure out which side of the
spider-suit holds Tobey Maguire’s package.

The plot is sort of an homage to all of the Gypsy-curse stories ever
told, with the added modern twist that it revolves around a failed
mortgage. Loan officer Christine Brown (Alison Lohman), on top of being
the whitest person ever born, is trying to get a promotion. But she has
sharp competition from the sleazy Stu Rubin (Reggie Lee), a sort of
double-stereotype of the cunning Asian and the avaricious Jew.

While Christine’s farm-bred innocence makes her beloved by her WASPy
boyfriend, Clay Dalton (yes, he’s named Clay Dalton!), her boss (David
Paymer) thinks she needs to be more hard-core if she wants to be an
assistant manager.

So when an impoverished Gypsy mystic comes in and asks for an
extension on her mortgage payment, Christine turns her down. This winds
up being a bad idea, because Gypsies have the magical power to curse
the buttons on your coat.

Thus, Christine winds up being chased by a Lamia, an evil spirit of
retribution that wants to drag her someplace horrible—probably
hell, if the title is any indication. Actually, it’s a mystery why the
title is in the imperative affirmative, since what Christine wants is
to not be dragged to hell.

But whatever. The whole thing is goofy fun, with lots of “scary”
moments that wind up being more hilarious than terrifying. It’s also
rife with silly racial stereotypes. Christine was born on a farm, and
her pale skin and blonde hair mark her as a gentle naïf. But her
boyfriend’s parents reject her, because they’re even whiter than she
is—so white that they’re evil. Meanwhile, any nonwhite person
either has magic powers or really likes money.

When Christine realizes she’s cursed, she seeks out the aid of a
new-age man from India, who, finding his powers insufficient, directs
her to a magical Mexican. It’s like a mystical reverse United Nations
meeting, as the Gypsies, Mexicans and Indians fight to conquer or give
aid to the white person.

Writer/director Raimi really knows how to spin a yarn. Not only must
Christine escape the Lamia; she also has to prove that growing up on a
farm doesn’t make you worthless. Meanwhile, she’s being hunted by an
evil handkerchief. Plus, the Gypsy woman is always pulling out
Christine’s magnificently blonde hair, even after the Gypsy woman is
dead.

All of these would be throwaway gags if the plot wasn’t so tightly
woven and so intricately twisty. Raimi and his brother Ivan, the pair
who wrote Darkman and Army of Darkness, pull off the
difficult task of fooling the audience while still producing a story
that makes sense within its own logic.

The final scene in particular was a complete surprise to me. The
film sets up two obvious endings, but neither occurs, and what does
happen is far more satisfying. It’s not just the plot that makes it
work; the casting is genius. Lohman is so wide-eyed and innocent that
you’d think she danced over from a Busby Berkeley musical. And her
boyfriend is played by Justin Long, who, in stark contrast to his
annoying hipster Mac-guy character, seems like he’s just wandered out
of an episode of Leave It to Beaver.

The effects also highlight the film’s concept. They’re so cheesy
that I wondered if Christine was being swindled by the mediums and
mystics who make the dead appear to her. Actually, that’s one of the
best misdirects in the film, because maybe that is what’s happening.
Maybe!

Even the narrative style works with the sly camp, as the opening 10
minutes involve people speaking in silly exposition with straight
faces. Normally, I hate expository dialogue, but here, the point is
that it’s expository, and yet, it’s so neatly woven into the whole feel
of the film that it works on two levels.

Special props go to cinematographer Peter Deming, who knows exactly
how to light a scene to create a superficial mood. Whether it’s
Lohman’s glowing skin, or the Gypsy woman’s ridiculously stained and
broken dentures (and why would someone wear dentures that look like an
old wino’s teeth?), Deming nails it with comic perfection and raw,
early-color-cinema overtness.

So, yes, Drag Me to Hell is hilarious fun. Its ending alone
is worth the price of admission. And while there’s nothing deep in its
superficial story, the superficiality itself has a real depth,
revealing a love of early color horror films, a winking comment on
racial stereotyping and a story that works as a never-boring,
always-engaging thrill ride.

Bless you, Sam Raimi, and your willingness to, at least temporarily,
turn your back on that big pile of money that Moloch keeps shoving in
your face, in order to give the people expertly executed drive-in
fun.

This article appears in Jun 4-10, 2009.