Drag Me To Hell: A Modern Horror Masterpiece

I can’t believe I’m going to say this but Drag Me to Hell is my favorite movie of the year so far (Inglourious Basterds is a close second). I thought this Sam Raimi gem would get mixed reviews at best, so I was blown away when I saw the 100 or so positive reviews flowing in from critics. It ranks with UP and Star Trek as one of the best reviewed movies of the year. That rarely happens with a horror film, but this one is so much more. It’s full of dark humor, gross out gags (really pushes the PG-13 envelope), good acting, nice SFX and an interesting story. I can’t remember the last time I was this surprised at how much better the movie was than any of the trailers or what I had expected going in.

Alison Lohman really sold me here. She is very cute, but she shows the smarts and toughness you almost never see in a horror flick. Really good stuff from her. The whole cast from Justin Long to the evil gypsy lady is spot on and you can’t leave out director Sam Raimi. His visual style here will remind you of The Evil Dead trilogy, but with a bigger budget and just as much creativeness. It was great to see this now summer blockbuster director go back to his roots and knock it out of the park. The music and sound effects are some of the best I’ve heard in a long time. When it goes from quiet to extremely loud, the sound alone will make you jump. Out of all the movies I have seen in theaters, I can’t remember one with sound mixing this good.

Well, do you think I liked Drag Me to Hell just a little bit? Really? When it comes to horror films, especially in recent years, few pack the thrills, laughs and entertainment value that this one brings.

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Trick r Treat – A Real Surprise Shocker

People all over the webbins have been talking about Trick r Treat for some time now – exploring conspiratorial notions on why the film has sat shelved for so long while rhapsodizing about just how well X-Men 2/Superman Returns scribe Michael Dougherty’s directorial debut works. Having recently seen the film, I can tell you that I know why the film sat for years: It’s one of the more ruthless studio-funded horror films ever made. It’s not very gory or explicit at all – but it has a truly, deeply, bad attitude. If William Gaines penned morality plays this venomous – to hell with the Comics Code. He’d have probably served time. Trick r Treat is overflowing with the kind of anarchic, mean-spirited hilarity that never sits well with the suits.

One of the reasons the film feels so vile is that the people who populate the tale feel so utterly real. It’s really hard to explain without spoiling a lot of what makes it work so well, but – to give you an idea – director Michael Dougherty explained to us that one of the notes he received during the production process was that the children he cast were “too young”. Couldn’t he make the kids older? Couldn’t he cast hotter? That’s not to say that elements of the cast aren’t flat-out “foxy” (witness the sexi-sexi of Lauren Lee Smith and Rochelle Aytes) but there are sequences in the film that work perfectly because they’re not about plasticine twentysomethings. Again – I can’t explain exactly what I mean without doing you a disservice – but when you finally see the film, you’ll understand completely.

Trick r Treat has been described in certain quarters as an anthology film – but that’s not wholly accurate. In truth, the film possesses a non-linear narrative structure – it’s more a Pumpkin Pulp Fiction than a Creepshow copy (though the EC Comics connection this film shares with Romero’s classic make them kindred spirits – and a great double bill). The film moves back and forth between tales that, at first, seem to be related only by the presence of the mysterious, malevolent little creature seen in the film’s promotional materials. Over the running time, we come to realize that the tiny creeper pops up for a reason – and even that detail is something I don’t want to spoil for you.

Despite the aforementioned EC Comics vibe (wherein the table-turning reveal that hands the petty thief or adulterous couple their just desserts is par for the course), the twisted twistiness of Trick r Treat still manages to surprise. At different points during the running time, the audience could be heard to speculate on how they felt some swerve might play out – very early on, I had an idea of how I thought the tale featuring Dylan Baker should end – but I was convinced that there was no way my resolution would fly. That Dougherty was able to do exactly what common sense told me would be excised by an executive before it was ever filmed completely negated my anticipation of the last shot. The sequence ended the only way an understanding of the horror genre dictates it should – but instead of feeling “been there, done that” – the payoff plays like the reward for sitting through all of the committee-created genre projects that lack the spine to do it right. Another reveal – easily the film’s most glorious – made me feel like a complete idiot. Thinking about it now, I still don’t understand why I didn’t call it with a chuckle the very moment True Blood’s Anna Paquin awkwardly stepped out of her fitting room to face the derision of her friends. At least I wasn’t alone – by the end of her character’s arc, the audience I was part of sat in stunned silence…then burst into reverent applause – a response based on elements converging in a perfect storm: a beautifully-shot and edited sequence featuring a fantastic revelation, a flawless mix of practical and computer generated imagery, an awesome character beat – and one super-cool line of dialogue. You could sell the film with that single scene…if it didn’t give so much away.

The most brilliant thing about Dougherty’s film is how it uses Halloween holiday iconography to craft iconic visuals (if the film received the 3,000 screen release it so richly deserved, really cool parents would be dressing their kids up as “Sam” for years). It’s Jack O’ Lanterns and autumnal golds and vacuformed masks and flame retardant costumes that tie in the back and urban legends and classic monsters and tainted candy and everything else you know and love about October 31st. As so many before me (including Dougherty himself) have said, this is not a film that takes place during Halloween – this is a film about Halloween. It’s about the reason for the season. Dougherty says his hope was that his film could become a Halloween holiday perennial – the one you watch every year. And trust me – it is. I’ll watch Trick r Treat every CHRISTMAS – because the film is a gift.

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