The "Drag Me To Hell" Review

I mentioned the new movie by Sam Raimi in my morning post. A friend and fellow blogger, Thallian, had inquired as to what I really thought about the movie, so instead of commenting in my comment section, I thought, why not just blog about it. So here is my review.

There might be some spoiler information, so I apologize. However, I do not think it spoils the overall movie.

My anniversary was this past Wednesday, so me and Mrs. Oakstout decided to take the day off from our respective jobs and do some stuff together and spend the day reminiscing about our 20 years of wonderful matrimony.

So, after lunch, I suggested that we go see Drag Me To Hell. I'm not a big horror person, but my lovely wife happens to be a fan of the genre. I need to clarify the term fan, when it comes to Mrs. Oakstout and horror movies. She has seen tons of them, whether in the theater, DVD or VHS. If she can't get it on video, then she'll read all there is about it on IMDB. She has an extensive Dario Argento collection and is a fan of Stephen King's work. So, when I say she likes horror stories and movies specifically, I'm not kidding.

I wanted to be a good husband on our anniversary so I suggested we go see the movie. Now, believe it or not, even after listing everything above and her love of horror, my wife is still not a huge fan of Sam Raimi's, but she had read very good reviews about the movie on line and it was something we could do together, so she said yes.

Now that explains why I was there to see the movie in the first place, so what did I really think of it.

Now, I am a fan of Sam Raimi's horror work. I've seen Evil Dead several times and the subsequent sequels that followed. Therefore, I kind of knew what to expect. Lots of dismemberment, gushing blood splatter, and lots of yelling with some slight campiness. I only saw maybe 10minutes of campiness or maybe it was 15. Hard to say, because the gross factor was at warp 20 for this PG-13 movie.

I mean, come on, how many times can viscus liquids of varying kinds come out of a human mouth? There were maggots, flies and talking demonic goats. Gum biting hags that seem to never die. At one point, the movie seemed to calm down from the loud shocking sound effects and grossness and really started to get me interested in the "Horror story" aspect of the movie instead of the over the top gross factor. If I wanted over the top gross in a movie, I'd have spent the afternoon watching Borat wrestle another man naked. Trust me, that is pretty gross.

The over all story was pretty good, aside from the tons of viscus liquids being squirted about. But I will say this about the story, at one point in the movie you just know what's going to happen at the end, you just do. It's so obvious. I won't say bad things about the ending because, well, that was the only bright spot in the movie, not because the movie was over, but because it was a good ending to an otherwise pointless movie.

Oh and there is no Bruce Campbell in this movie either, which was also a bummer for me. He seems to show up in just about all of Raimi's movies, including the Spiderman ones.

I would give it a c- for a horror movie, but then again, I'm not a huge fan of the genre. If you like your movie gross and over the top, then please, go see this movie.