Movie Review: Drag Me to Hell

I think about people who like scary movies this way: They're the kind of people who, in a game of Truth-or-Dare, always picks the latter, because they're curious what the challenge will be, are truly up for anything, or want to prove they can. This isn't me – I much prefer Truth, and I don't typically do scary movies.

I made an exception this weekend to go see ‘Drag Me to Hell.’ Why the exception? Despite the fact that every time the commercial would come on, I'd find myself muttering "no, no, no," for some reason, I promised Sarah (that would be my Dare-devout, tried out for ‘Fear Factor’ friend) that I'd give it a chance.



The movie throws you right into it – there’s a gypsy curse that, quite literally, drags the person to hell 3 days after they are cursed – and it's pretty constant in-your-face-scares from the set-up through the conclusion. Here are 2 words to describe it: absurd and gross. Sure, it was also pretty fun, but it was SO gross that I had a lump in my throat for hours afterward. It definitely went for shocks over creepiness: We're talking multiple instances of fluid (be it bile, bodily or embalming) being expelled/projected onto faces, popping out eye balls, sacrificing cats, etc. It’s a catch 22: For my own psychological well-being, I prefer shock (I can get over bile, while I might never recover from something too realistically/quietly/psychologically creepy), but I know that there are smarter horror movies out there that one can also appreciate cinematically.

This isn’t one of them – the story was fine, if a little abruptly wrapped up, the acting was okay (bonus points to Trevor for pointing out that cleverly framed shot of Justin Long behind an iPhone) and the effects (once you got past the first scene, which I think was intentionally cheesy) were, well, effective. The most I can say about this movie is that I survived – and, hey, that’s actually something. 6.5 Twix bars!