Hey folks, Harry here with long time AICN test screening reviewer, Red Redding with a look at DRAG ME TO HELL. Red now joins Quint and Kraken as people I absolutely hate for having seen this before me. ARGH! The anguish and pain coarsing through my body as I read reviews on this movie is killing me. I WANT TO SEE A WONDERFUL SAM RAIMI HORROR FILM NOW PLEASE!!!!!!

Red Redding here with a review of Drag Me to Hell, Non Disclosure Agreement be damned (although I hope AICN doesn’t rat me out). Besides the video quality, this seemed like the final cut as the movie was only 1 hour and 45 minutes and moved at a very nice pace.

The plot: Christine (Alison Lohman) denies an old gypsy woman a third extension on her home. Said gypsy woman puts a curse on her where she will be tormented by a demon for three days before the demon comes for her soul and drags her to hell. This movie shows what happens in the three days of the tormenting and what she tries to do to get out of it.

There is really only one word that I can use to describe how I feel about this movie: Good. To some that might be disappointing because you wanted this to be a master horror movie; it isn’t. In fact, I really do not think it is a horror movie at all. Yes there were a few (see: maybe three) scary parts, but on the whole the movie was not scary. Fortunately, this movie has a lot more going for it than just trying to be a horror film. This movie is funny, intense/suspenseful, and more importantly, entertaining. It is a solid movie to go to the theater on opening night and see with a bunch of friends. Just don’t take the movie seriously because that is not what this movie is about. It is campy as hell, but not cheesy at all. There is a difference and Sam Raimi knows this. I was actually surprised at how much I laughed/smiled because of my notions that this was a horror movie. Drag Me to Hell reminded me of Evil Dead 2 a lot. In the first Evil Dead, Raimi tried to make a scary ass film and only partially succeeded because of his small budget. When that movie made its money and he did Evil Dead 2, he realized what Evil Dead had become in the public eye and he intentionally made it funnier and campier and not as serious (that is just my opinion on it) and I think it is the better of the two. Fortunately it is unlike Army of Darkness; that was campy and cheesy to high hell and this movie feels nothing like that. As far as performances go, Alison Lohman was pretty damn good. It was nice to actually feel for a character in this type of movie. Justin Long played the same nice guy he has played in other movies. The gypsy woman was awesome in her short time on screen and the remaining supporting cast played their parts well enough.

The main negatives about this movie really come in the form of the overall movie. It just felt like nothing new that we haven’t seen before and it was pretty predictable. I would say that it is a standard horror movie, but the “standard” horror movies that have been and are coming out are absolute garbage (i.e. Rob Zombie’s Halloween and the upcoming Friday the 13th, etc. etc.). So compared to those movies it is much better. Just like I said in my review of The Informant (on a side note, I am not a plant. I live near Hollywood and see screenings through moviefone.com) it is entertaining, but as an overall film, it is just good. 7.5/10