Drag Me To Hell (no plot spoilers)

I saw Drag Me To Hell last weekend, and I'm still not entirely sure what to make of it. It wasn't what we'd planned to see, but my plans to hang out with C got postponed so many weekends in a row that The Haunting in Connecticut had already left theaters down her way. It's playing in my town - and it's yet another movie I won't see until it's out on DVD because I can't bear the idea of going to a movie alone - but she's dog-sitting her parents' dogs while they're out of the country this whole last week and part of next, so I had to see her instead. So, Drag Me To Hell was plan B.

By now I should know enough to look and see who directs a movie before seeing it, but I rarely do. Or, you know, pay attention during the opening credits so I'm not left wondering until the very end of the movie and the closing credits are up. Raimi isn't a director whose movies I won't watch (on the other hand, if anyone else tries to trick me into seeing a Richard Kelly movie again, I'm going to punch them. Seriously. I'm never going to get back the hours wasted on Southland Tales or Donnie Darko) but it would have been better to know that it had been one of his movies given I'm a much bigger fan of movies he's been the producer of, rather than the director or writer. As it was, the shift in mood two thirds into the movie was both jarring and unexpected. I'm sure fans of the Evil Dead movies will enjoy that, though. Me, I felt like we were suddenly yanked out of a fairly scary movie and dropped into Beetlejuice all of the sudden for a couple of scenes, and that was very odd.

As I said, I'm still not entirely sure what I think of the movie. I guess it was okay, but was it worth $8 to see? Hmm. The Mac Guy (Justin Long) playing one of the male leads did nothing for me, since he's neither a great actor, nor interesting to look at - and I kept expecting him to talk about computers. I also think he looked too young to play the part, given he was supposed to be "a professor" rather than a mere grad student teaching classes. Are there full professors who are only 31? Alison Lohman on the other hand, was really good. I keep thinking that she and Anna Paquin should draw on their characters from this movie and True Blood respectively to be sisters in a southern gothic horror movie, because they could really sell that. The other guy in the movie, Dileep Rao, seems to be new on the scene, but he was pretty compelling, so I'll keep an eye out for him.

One of the previews looked interesting - Orphan. Which means it'll probably not be very good. You get a real The Good Son vibe from the trailer, though.


"I'm not afraid of happy endings/I'm just afraid my life won't work that way" - Jack Off Jill, Fear of Dying