As always, I'm trying to modulate my expectations a little, but I can't help but get a warm, fuzzy feeling from the fact that there's a new Sam Raimi-directed horror movie coming out in a few months. The general word on it seems to be pretty good so far:

http://www.slashfilm.com/2009/01/28/early-...mi-at-his-best/

Does the premise sound a tiny bit like "The Viy" to anyone else?

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/39918

Alison Lohman, huh? Last I heard, it was going to be Ellen Page (aka "the future ex-Mrs. Wells"). Well, I might still see it.

EDIT: Now that I've actually checked out the first link... I dunno. Comments like "70% Army of Darkness" might be encouraging to most people in the target audience, but I hated that movie.

Totally, emphatically, and exuberantly looking forward to it. I think I've mentioned here before that I commented to friends after seeing Spiderman 3 "What Raimi really needs to do now is a low budget, crazy horror movie." Considering that my granted wish is opening the same day as the new Pixar film, I will be there to see Drag Me To Hell at least once that weekend.

I agree. I'm not sure I hate it, but I can't say I find it encouraging, especially if this is supposed to be a horror movie.

There's a trailer for this up at Yahoo:

http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1810029193/video

Not the most thrilling trailer that I've ever seen, but I'm still looking forward to this.

Things being what they are these days, the mortgage office scene seems unbeatable as the scariest part of the movie. Never set yourself up so real life is more compelling than your movie.

As someone who just bought his first house a few weeks ago, I had the exact same reaction. :unsure:

And you know? I would watch an entire movie about an old gypsy woman stalking someone to get an extension on her mortgage. Horror needs another good shake-up and that's as deceptively potent a concept as any.

These comments about home-owning (I took the plunge last summer and am now dealing with property taxes and income taxes connected to money I liquidated to buy the place, which counts as income) are interesting because I've been feeling lately that horror movie characters are disconnected from their make-believe homes when they start breaking up due to horrific events. I never get the feeling anyone really lives where the horror films are set, which is something I did sense with THE original AMITYVILLE HORROR - the scene where George is tearing the place apart looking for the deposit money rings especially true to me now. I don't get that same sense of balls out panic from current movie homeowners.

On another widely divergent note, does anyone else remember the David Jansen werewolf movie where he bars the werewolf's entrance to his own home by closing French doors? And the heroine asks something like "Can't he break through those easily?" and Jansen replies "It's his home, maybe he'll be reluctant to damage it." And of course the monster just EXPLODES through the French doors like a heat-seeking missile - one of the oddest, funniest horror exchanges I can remember.

This must be a running concern for Raimi, since he also had Aunt May turned down for a home loan in Spider Man 2. JR Taylor discusses that scene quite humorously here.

Ah... Moon of the Wolf. Love that flick... surprisingly good for a Movie of the Week. Doesn't quite measure up to the potential of Leslie Whitten's novel, though.

I find this reaction to a "polished-enough" workprint of the movie screened at SXSW to be very encouraging:

http://daily.greencine.com/archives/007394.html#more

Ooh Sounds promising. Up 'till now I'd assumed it was gonna be kind of another bland The Gift kinda thing and kept my hopes down.
(Not that The Gift sucked or anything... but it was pretty forgettable.)
Maybe I'll actually go out of my way to see this one.

Clicking a bit through IMDB, I've found another big reason to be really pumped for this film. Peter Deming is the Director of Photography. His films include Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive, From Hell, and... Evil Dead II!

Peter Deming at IMDB

Seems like a lot of Raimi vets are behind the scenes on this one, including KNB Effects.

It's Deming, actually (with an "m"). I was just discussing Raimi's DPs this past week and how his penchant for interesting camera work has benefited his DPs' careers. Along with Deming, Bill Pope, who was DP on ARMY OF DARKNESS went on to do all the MATRIX films as well as SPIDER-MAN 2, 3 and (the upcoming) 4. Oh, and TEAM AMERICA: WORLD POLICE, which must have been an interesting challenge.

Thanks for the correction. I should remember not to post too early in the morning. Deming also did I Heart Huckabees, which probably helped a lot with his filming (or just witnessing) fight scenes.

Old school Sam Raimi fans, get ready to be happy. I've seen the flick in question and (moderate use of CGI aside) he is firmly in his 80s-early 90s mode. DMTH may be PG-13, but it is the nastiest and most goo and glop-filled PG-13 ever allowed. Much like one could surmise from the ad campaign, the plot is a cross between Thinner and Tourneur's Night Of The Demon (a couple of knowing nods to the latter film pop up). But the style of delivery is so uniquely Raimi in Evil Dead-style (again, spot the Evil Dead references, kids!) with his Tex Avery action esthetic in full low-budget mania. In a lot of ways, it's like the perfect sequel to either Evil Dead II or Creepshow with its simply-plotted and hyper-charged take on the usual EC Comics morality fable.

If I had any real problem, it wasn't CGI or any of the other pre-release suspicions I've heard voiced online. Sad to say, but Raimi loves to scare via the volume knob. Over and over again, he likes getting things really quiet... until he... BLASTS you with noise. And he keeps trying to top himself with this, resulting in quite possibly the loudest movie ever made. I guess he did the same thing back in the Evil Dead days, but it seemed far too intense in these 21st century DTS digital surround sound chambers we trap ourselves in. Anyway, my little pet peeve, as I think volume-blasting pop scares are a lazy tool of hack Hollywood horror crap, something of which Raimi is far too good a filmmaker to need.

But hey, Raimi's not out to make any doomy or deep horror masterpiece. The whole point of the flick is to make you scream a lot. And you will. Shout and scream your fool head off. And then you'll be pushed so far by some of the sick craziness on display that you'll be both groaning with disgust and laughing constantly. Which is why I really recommend seeing in the cinema, as it surely must play better with an excited crowd. I was with an audience fully and vocally engaged, yelling back at the actors onscreen, freaking out, having a great time.

Take a bunch of friends this weekend, get properly uh... merry... in any way that seems best, and see the first take-no-prisoners Sam Raimi horror flick in over 20 years. Maybe, if it's a hit, he won't wait as long for the next one.

Been looking forward to this and it just opened here Wednesday. Got to see it last night and thought it was a riot. What really helped was the audience that responded with gusto at every suspenseful and gruesome moment. Particularly the entire fight in the car and the various vomits. I loved the whole bank story and David Paymer's bank manager (I'd only seen him earlier this week in a forgotten role in NIGHT OF THE CREEPS). The slight story was enlivened by the masterful balance between terror and comedy and I really felt that Sam was in his element making this. A recent Fangoria interview was at pains to paint a picture of the loveable scamp Raimi that we know of old and that set the tone for the movie when I got to see it. The nods to NIGHT OF THE DEMON and EVIL DEAD were enjoyable and I haven't had this much fun with a movie since CRANK2.

Victor

I loved it. Laughs and thrills like an old funhouse ride. One of the most entertaining horror films in years - seriously. See it in the theater.

Stoned teenagers rejoice! Those of you who have shunned the theater need to get out there and see this on the big screen. Easily the best American horror film in years.

I paid to see it twice already. I thought it was a horror masterpiece. An instant classic. As good as anything Raimi's ever done. (And he's one of my favorite filmmakers.)

I saw this last night and enjoyed it quite a bit. It may be that most fun that I've had at any 2009 movie so far. It's not really as Viy-like as what I was expecting, but I think that fans of classic horror will find a lot to like here. I especially appreciated that it had (MAJOR SPOILER: highlight white text below if you want to read it)

about the most sadistic ending you're likely to see in a mainstream Hollywood movie and that Raimi had the balls to not bury it after the end credits like a certain recent horror remake that I won't mention. I was slightly worried that we would get a cliched ending with the nerdy boyfriend rescuing the damsel in distress, but that's not what we got at all.

(END SPOILER)

According to the music credits at the end, the movie used a little bit of Lalo Schifrin's unused score for The Exorcist somewhere, does anyone know where it was? Also, I think I heard a little snippet of Ennio Morricone's Exorcist II score in there somewhere. The music credits listed something by Ennio Morricone but didn't say where it was from.

Be sure to stick around for a fun little post-credit cookie. It's nothing major, but it made me smile.

Does it have to do with a little post-credit something that used to be common with certain films? If it does, I've heard about it and doubt I'll stay through the end credits for it (unless Christopher Young's score really burns it up during the crawl).

Yes. Like I said, it's nothing major, but I just enjoyed the novelty of seeing it at the end of a 2009 movie.

Coolness - thanks for the confirm.

I'm fairly certain that the unused Schifrin music from THE EXORCIST is the muzak that's heard during the coffee shop scene late in the film. The Morricone track is from THE BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL PLUMAGE, titled "There's No One Left" on my Argento-Morricone Trilogy CD, and heard during the breakroom scene. I'm pretty sure I'm right with each of these.

And since what comes at the end of the credits is being mentioned, we may as well point out the Universal logo seen at the beginning. I love this movie.

Okay, I'm going to guess:


SPOILER POSSIBLY










Is it the MPAA rating card?

It woulda been cooler if they told me to ask for Babs. :ph43r:

When a relaxing retreat to a remote cabin was offered, did anyone else roll their eyes and think "Uh oh, I know where this is going"?

Actually, yeah! LOL! I was oh so hoping that the cabin (if shown) would've looked exactly like, well... you know.

I also though DRAG was a great deal of fun. Was a blast with a crowd (which is odd for me because I normally HATE watching movies with largish crowds). I swear I noticed a music cue from the original EVIL DEAD as well (on a shot of some trees), but I didn't see anything referenced in the credits.

Nothing really to add, just wanted to chime in and say what an absolute blast this was. It was an old-fashioned (well, 1980s old-fashioned) crowd-pleasing fright flick. They don't make them like this anymore. It reminded me a lot of the kind of throwback fright flick we see too rarely these days. SLITHER comes to mind (why wasn't there more love for that? It's currently a staple in $3 DVD bins at Big Lots, if anyone's looking....).

DRAG ME TO HELL will be in my Top 10 of 2009, for sure.

So I saw this tonight and enjoyed it as well. Raimi really took me through a time warp with that opening logo and I really felt like I was back in 1993 watching the film he decided to follow ARMY OF DARKNESS with. I don't know if I would declare it a classic, but it was indeed very fun. I really liked a lot of the misdirection Raimi used in the end there. Anybody think that extreme close-up of the fly in the opening credits was a nod to Argento?

I had a big problem with this. This film was so loud that it became annoying and to the point that I left with a headache. I mean, it was easily the loudest film I had ever seen and I don't think Raimi really needed all of that to induce his scares. I was also shocked at the amount of CGI because all the geek reviews online said it was used sparingly.

Finally saw this tonight and enjoyed it so much I wanted to jump right back in line and watch it again. I might even go as far to call it my favorite Raimi film to date. I wish there was more of crowd and it was nearly empty, not surprising on a Weds night. The few of us in the theater had a great time though.

And actually I really loved the sound mix. It was loud alright, sometimes too loud, but I think it worked well within the film and was played off well against some periods of near silence. I thought the mix on the new Terminator was really loud too, and that one actually bothered me a lot more than DMTH.

I went back to see this a second time with a friend the other night and enjoyed it even more than before. Raimi truly is a masterful filmmaker. Knowing the whole story and where all the big scares blast out, it was a pleasure to sit back this time and appreciate how well-crafted it all is. That opening title sequence is a classic, with gorgeous animation and Christopher Young music, declaring itself loud and proud as a straight-up scary supernatural horror flick.

My friend had a great time too, but was so scared by the film that something really charming happened afterwards. We hit a local pub afterwards that had dim, moody lighting. The wall adjacent to our table had a shadow on it, but not cast by an immediately visible object. Well, my friend absolutely refused to sit anywhere near it. He knew it was just a movie, but his imagination had been deep-fried by it anyway. I love it when that happens.

***SPOIL-A-BLAST***



Sitting a bit further back from the screen helped a bit with the intensity of the volume and helped me appreciate the complexity and downright bizarro nature of the sound mix. Did anyone else catch the sound effect nod to The Munsters? During the daylight attack of the Lamia in Christine's house when we briefly get a glimpse of it coming through the window, you can hear Spot's dragon roar mixed in! That effect was also in a Tom And Jerry cartoon back in the day. I also loved the vibrating trill of the ruler when it's jammed into Mrs Ganush's mouth, as well as the squeaking death of the hankie. The use of sound during the seance is downright deranged, particularly impressive during the chanting. What exactly was the medium saying? It sounded to me like "You are dead!" over and over, creeping me out in a delicious way.

It's amazing how the main spoiler of the film is right there in the trailer, the TV ads, the poster, and even the title... and yet, you refuse to believe things will play out that way because Alison Lohman seems just too pretty and appealing to deserve such a fate. You just don't expect something like that in a big studio film. Really cruel Tales From The Crypt/Old Testament justice. Imagine if they pulled that with Dana Andrews in Night Of The Demon? I picture 1957 audiences looking like the crowd in Brooks' The Producers, sitting in frozen open-mouthed shock.

This sort of subversive morality and audience manipulation is threaded through the whole film. With my first viewing, Lohman had me totally on Christine's side. Watching again, I see how Raimi keeps exposing her as a such a casual moral hypocrite. She's a farm girl who's probably done her fair share of animal killing. Part of her reinvention as a classy L.A. girl is the whole kitten-vegetarian-puppy shelter ethos, which all goes out the window faster than you can say "nine lives". Lohman shows us Christine's true colors in that close up while holding the knife, calling out "kitty, kitty" with a savage glint in her eye. And right after, she's all sunshine and smiles, in her pretty dress, and absolutely guiltless. She lies and comes close to many despicable acts through the film. And yet, you identify with her. You're a wicked man, Mr Raimi.




***END OF THE ULTIMATE EXPERIENCE IN GRUELING SPOILERS***


Sad to say, the movie is not making big waves at the box office. And despite the fact that it's one of the best reviewed films of the year. Any horror fan around here who complained about The Mist that it was too serious and wasn't just a fun ride... and then didn't go see Raimi's "spook-a-blast"... well, I personally think all rights to complain should be revoked.

I guess Universal is doing the typical modest theatrical release and promotion, hoping to clean up on Blu-Ray and DVD around Halloween. If it's a hit on video, I guess we'll see some DTV sequels from Universal/Ghost House. I wonder, if Vern is right, will they'll get Arnold Vosloo to be Mrs Ganush?

EDIT: To add The VERN Review

In what seems like an annual event, Entertainment Weekly dissects why the little horror film (DRAG ME TO HELL this year) released during summer blockbuster season didn't do well:

http://popwatch.ew.com/popwatch/2009/06/dr...do-better-.html

What a bunch of crap. Was EW expecting DRAG ME TO HELL to be a SPIDER-MAN-sized hit? Funny, when HOSTEL 2 (also a summer release) tanked, I recall EW saying that horror fans were sick of the gore and the torture porn and wanted to be scared again. Can someone alert EW that the economy--along with their magazine--is in the toilet?

The real issue is that horror films usually don't do well in the summer. If DRAG ME TO HELL was released in that late January-to-mid April period or in early fall, it probably would've done better. Too much competition, especially when everyone--and I mean all age groups--was going to see UP that same weekend. Not many people have enough play money right now to be paying to see two movies a week at the theater.

Not to change the subject, but EW really has gone downhill the last couple of years. I had a subscription, but didn't even see the point in renewing it, even when they lowered it to under $10. Film reviewer Chris Nashawty--a huge Italian horror fan--occasionally gets the space to write a good piece, but overall, the publication has basically become the movie & TV equivalent of US Weekly. Not that it was ever Film Comment or Video Watchdog to begin with, but it wasn't always the vapid, tabloidy drek that it's become.

How about Gleiberman's theory that the film is too good for horror fans, who read the reviews and thought, "Gee, I don't want to see a horror movie that's actually good." How stupid does he think horror movie fans are?

I do have to agree with the PG-13 "alienating the base." Why the hell should I pay $9 or $12 or whatever to see this when I know damn well there's going to be an unrated DVD out in stores in two months that I'll be able to own for the same price. Seeing this movie with an audience is a big part of the fun, I admit, but as a horror fan I don't like being double-dipped because the studio wants to put a lot of text-messaging teens in the seats opening weekend.

Exactly! I think this is the fourth consecutive summer I have seen an article like this. It was LAND OF THE DEAD, THE DEVIL'S REJECTS, HOSTEL PART II and now DRAG ME TO HELL. Each article had Hollywood execs scratching their heads and, in a perfect Joe Schmoe voice, saying, "What is going onnnnnn?"

Well, if everyone else is going to sound like a broken record then I may as well go ahead and do the same:

Why in the hell wasn't this movie released on Halloween? Is SAW VI really considered to be THAT unbeatable? Seriously, the opening weekend of the last one really had the whiff of pure duty about it. "Well, there's nothing else out so we may as well..."

I might also point out that regardless of what you thought of the movie, the release of REPO! THE GENETIC OPERA on dvd was met with a lot more enthusiasm than the simultaneous home video release of SAW V. As I understand it, this really helped turn Lionsgate's opinion around on the commercial viability of REPO. I sincerely believe that had as much to do with the unavoidable staleness of SAW as it did the relative freshness of REPO.

If the next SAW has the right kind of competition, its legacy as the annual, unbeatable Halloween champ will blow away like a dandelion. DRAG ME TO HELL could have been that movie.

Not that I'm complaining. All this means is that I'll have a nice DRAG ME TO HELL dvd (hopefully with a Sam/Alison/Justin commentary) in time for my birthday. :rolleyes:

It's also worth mentioning that for the first time in my life, I'm giving serious consideration to writing a "fan fiction" sequel to DRAG ME TO HELL. Normally, this isn't the sort of thing that I'd waste my time with, but I have such a fully formed idea (well, 70% fully formed) that my girlfriend suggested, "Why don't you just write it?"

Like I said, I normally wouldn't, but hey? What have I got to lose? I can knock out a treatment in one day and a full fledged first draft in less than a week.

And who knows? I have no delusion that this script would ever be made into a movie but there are other options.

I mean, how many EVIL DEAD spin-off comic books are there out there again?

I think you just answered your own question. Like with Land Of The Dead, Universal figured they could gamble on some counter-programming summer box office with the guarantee of Halloween DVD sales.

No offense to Justin Long's commentary track skills, but I'd rather it be Raimi, Lohman, Deming, and Nicotero. Long is an Evil Dead fan and I bet he'd want to hear two ED2/DMTH vets share stories as much as I would.

If the DVD sells well, I wouldn't be too surprised if some DTV sequels show up. I know Raimi has no plans for one, but did joke about Justin Long as Orpheus in an interview. Write the fan fic, Tom!

But let's not sweat the EW article too much. Remember, this was written by a guy who can't understand why a vampire's servant gathers blood.

Of course, if DRAG was a big hit right now, Universal would have been applauded for their savvy counter-programming. SCREAM opened on Christmas day and was a big hit so anything could happen if you connect successfully with the potential audience. Personally, I thought the marketing for DRAG was pretty lackluster, especially the trailer. The poster wasn't any better. I didn't see any tv spots, although I don't watch much tv. Even though I loved Raimi's early films, I wasn't in any hurry to see this new film. It wasn't until the overwhelmingly positive reviews started pouring in that I had any interest in going to see it. I don't know how much of the general population even reads reviews, so it's mostly up to the marketing and how effective that is to get an audience, or if there is even an audience at all to begin with for this kind of supernatural horror. Word-of-mouth is excellent and even that isn't helping it retain a solid footing.

I think $16 million opening weekend was decent enough considering, even though it was below most expectations. This weekend, Universal is probably even happier with that total after the much-higher profile LAND OF THE LOST only opened to $19 million.