Beaks here...

It appears those worries regarding DRAG ME TO HELL's marketability were completely unfounded. I mean, what could possibly be more enticing in 2009 than a horror film in which a bank employee gets cursed for not granting a helpless old gypsy woman an extension on her mortgage? Granted, it's difficult to empathize with gypsies, but the cold, corrupt heart of the banking industry is a far greater evil than someone who casts spells and showers once every Winter Olympics.

So good on Sam Raimi for literally giving the plundering bastards hell with his much anticipated return to horror. Quint, Ryan Rotten and half the internet have already raved over Raimi's latest, and many others will be chiming in when DRAG ME TO HELL screens at SXSW next week. I wish I was heading out to Austin to check it out for myself, but I'm not (*sniffle*), so I'll just have to content myself with this expertly-cut trailer posted at Yahoo! Movies.

Though the film is PG-13, that doesn't seem to have kept Raimi from cutting loose with his signature "spook-a-blast" style (freeze-frame at 1.31). All that's missing is a smirking, wisecracking Bruce Campbell. That said, it's always a pleasure to see Hollywood sex god David Paymer steaming up the screen. And Allison Lohman ain't hard on the ol' peepers neither! It's just... she wasn't in CHILL FACTOR.

DRAG ME TO HELL opens wide on May 29th.