Drag Me To Hell: Review

By: Movie-Cafe

When horror films these days are getting more dehydrates and fatigue, as they’re just move around with completely cliché plot, sadistic, nudity, and facts that they are just not that scary anymore. Thus, what formula that efficacious enough to drag the horror genre back to its reasonable form? If you demand the find the answer just like what I did, I think you better go to your nearest cinema and watch the ‘now showing’ horror, “Drag Me to Hell”. Why? Because, for me, this film is truly one of the answers that we’ve been waiting for, not only work as a jump in your seat scary movie, despite its PG-13 rating, but this is also an old school horror at its best. This film also has reminded me again on why I’m so in love with this genre. Directed by Sam Raimi who is now most well known for his three “Spider-Man” movies, “Drag Me” can be touted as his horror homecoming after many times ago he has created some cult classics including the first two in his “Evil Dead” trilogy. I'm really glad to see Raimi finally return to the genre that mad him famous and present his best work in years, which every horror fan is going to love it. Plus, if you want your date jumping into your lap, it’s really set to be the perfect choice for a night out.

# The Creepshow brilliantly begin with the ‘80s Universal logo and a prologue that set in 1969, where a young Mexican boy seemingly possessed by demons is at the center of an exorcism that ends with him literally being pulled through the floor of the house by a demon from hell. Before you have time to catch your breath, the giant words DRAG ME TO HELL slam onto the screen, taking up every inch in bold lettering.

# Co-written with his brother Ivan, Sam Raimi’s script actually isn’t too original but it’s still manage to be an enormously enjoyable house of cinematic horrors that is at turns funny, campy, shocking, and scary.

# Raimi masterfully utilizes the camera, tricking your eyes into thinking everything is calm when it never is. In this, he has re-teamed with cinematographer Peter Deming for the first time since “Evil Dead II”.

# The audio is also the real star of the movie. While the camera circles the room or closes up on faces, the score is given the full responsibility for several minutes to produce a feeling of terror and anticipation, and it works beautifully. The properly eerie/bombastic score is delivered by composer Christopher Young, a frequent collaborator with Raimi and his Ghost House Pictures fright factory.

# With nasty things popping out at regular intervals, some of which make you jump and catch your breath, some of which make you jump and then laugh at having jumped, and some of which just make you laugh.

# A sequence where Christine (Allison Lohman) battles the gypsy hag armed only with a tray of stationery is stand-out and memorable.

# Like “Evil Dead,” the movie is also at its best when the main character fights with random demons, and Christine is plagued with plenty of them.

# The story clearly going high concept with a gypsy curse premise that would have worked well within a '70s B-movie, but it retains so many modern sensibilities that it never feels dated or retro.

# Alison Lohman brings out a strong central performance. As much as we want to see her play the victim, she achieves that subtle distinction between screaming and suffering that so few horror protagonists truly nail, and it’s a remarkable performance in a genre that so often settles for less.

# Justin Long as Christine’s sceptical scientific boyfriend provides the grounding and logic, amongst the supernatural madness. He also gave a good performance in this show.

# Dileep Rao (upcoming “Avatar”) is hilarious and brings a lot of laughs to the table as the mystical stereotype Rham Jas who help Christine ward off the forces of evil.

# A terrifying 10/10 score for stellar performance of Lorna Raver (Freeway) as the possessed and demented, old Mrs Ganush.

# Raimi builds creepy scenes to a climax and either pays them off then and there or gives you a few moments to think the terror has passed. The ending also makes perfect sense; it’s effective enough to leave you buzzing long after you leave the theater.

Overall-Score: 9/10 (Raimi may have been away from the horror genre for a long time, but he can still turn stomachs and make audiences jump with the best of them. “Drag Me to Hell” is the most entertaining and accessible studio horror films of the past several years.)

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Posters of South Korean Horror "Whispering Corridors 5"

The upcoming summer horror flick "Whispering Corridors 5" from South Korea has a bunch of great released posters. With a little over 2 weeks until it's June 18th release, the distributor had again released some new final posters for the film and you can check all of them below.

"Whispering Corridors" aka "Yeogo Goedam" is a 1998 South Korean blockbuster horror film about a girl's high school. It has inspired a number of other Korean horror films set in girls high schools and there are three direct sequels (Memento Mori, Wishing Stairs, and Voice), though none of the sequels share a continuing plot or characters with each other. Now, the fifth film in the series is "Yeogo Goedam Daseot Banjjae Yiyagi: Dong Ban Ja Sal" which literally means "Female High School Ghost Story Fifth Story: Suicide Together".

Plot: Late night at the high school chapel friends swear their friendship with blood and promise that they will even die together. Then one student, Eon-ju commits suicide by jumping to her death. The remaining friends are then chased by death as their promise weights heavily over them. The school is soon covered in blood.

Via: Buzzescafe

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Two New "Grudge" Sequels: Preview

To celebrate the tenth anniversary of the "Ju-On" aka "The Grudge" series in its hometown, Japan is making two more films that will also coming out this summer. The two new installments are "Ju-on: Kuroi Shojo" and "Ju-on: Shiroi Roujo" which literally mean “The Grudge: White Old Lady” and “The Grudge: Black Girl”. According to Nippon Cinema, Both films will be released on 6/27/09 along with Takashi Shimizu‘s "Ju-on" survival horror Wii game which will be released around the same time, but there’s no real tie-in with the films other than being part of the franchise’s 10th anniversary.

The first movie "Ju-On: Shiroi Roujo," is directed by Ryuta Miyake, while The second "Ju-On: Kuroi Shoujo," is directed by Mari Asato. "The Grudge" creator Takashi Shimizu only back as the supervisor along with original producer Taka Ichise.

"Ju-on: Shiroi Roujo" plot: At a certain house, a son brutally and methodically murders all five of his family members after failing the bar exam. He then hangs himself, leaving behind a cassette recorder at the scene on which he can be heard saying, “Go… Go now.” in unison with a strange female voice. That voice belongs to a victim of the family massacre, the elementary school best friend of teenager Akane (Minami). When the two were young they wore yellow hats and red satchels to school. Akane, who has a strong sense of the supernatural, soon begins seeing visions of a female ghost wearing a yellow hat and red satchel.

"Ju-on: Kuroi Shojo" plot: A Nurse named Yuko (Kago) has a strange experience while taking care of a girl named Fukie. Test results show a cyst inside Fukie’s body, but that cyst is actually the leftover grudge from a baby who was unable to be born. The cyst’s grudge spreads to Fukie and everyone around her. Soon Fukie’s father goes mad and commits murder. Fukie’s sister Mariko has special spiritual power, and together with their mother they have some success driving out the evil spirit. But the worst of the grudge is yet to come.

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Hide and Seek: Preview

"Hide and Seek" is upcoming J-Horror about strange supernatural game which begins to spread on the internet among teenagers.

Plot: Ritsuko (Mayuko Kawakita) participates in the game out of anger and loneliness brought on by her parents' recent divorce. When Ritsuko doesn't show up at school her friend Ryoko (Yukie Kawamura) decides to check up on her, but instead of finding Ritsuko she finds a piece of paper with the following:

How to play hide and seek:
Materials: a doll, uncooked rice, red string, a sewing needle, a knife, and a glass of salt water
1.) Tear open the stomach of the doll, pull out the cotton, replace it with rice, and sew it back together with red thread.
2.) At 3am, repeat this phrase 3 times while holding the doll: "The first demon is [name of person]."
3.) Go to the bathroom and put the doll in the bathtub.
4.) Turn on the television, but turn off all the lights.
5.) Close your eyes and count to 10. Return to the bathroom with the knife. Say "I found [name of person]". Stab the doll and say "The next demon is you." Hide immediately.

How to quit: Sip a small amount of salt water and hold it in your mouth. Leave your hiding spot and find the doll. You may encounter a spirit along the way, but you must not -- under any circumstances -- spit the water out.

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"Friday the 13th" DVD/Blu-ray Info

New Line Home Entertainment has announced that the Marcus Nispel-directed "Friday the 13th" film will be released on DVD and Blu-ray on June 16th. Click on the image below to see the covers.

No extra material will be included on the rated edition of the film. The unrated "Killer Cut" will include additional scenes, and a Rebirth of Jason Voorhees featurette.

The Blu-ray release will include both the theatrical and unrated cuts, along with a terror trivia track, a Hacking Back/Slashing Forward feature remembering the groundbreaking original movie, additional scenes, a Rebirth of Jason Voorhees featurette, and a 7 Best Kills featurette. [via DVDActive]

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Magic Man: First Preview

In the serial killer thriller "Magic Man," Tatiana (Estelle Raskin) and her beautiful girlfriends are on holiday in Las Vegas, City of Illusion. The daughter of a magician's assistant killed tragically during an illusion gone wrong, Tatiana is drawn to Krell Darius' (Billy Zane) extremely popular magic show. Entrancing audience members with the help of his beautiful assistant Samantha (Bai Ling), Darius' charm, wit and magical talent prove difficult for Tatiana to resist. But as she becomes enraptured by Darius, it becomes clear that he may know something about her mother's death, and that it was not an accident. As Tatiana digs deeper into what Darius may or may not know, events take a sinister turn. One by one, Tatiana's friends are found brutally murdered. Fearing Tatiana might be next, Las Vegas police detectives Simpson (Robert Davi) and Orloff (Alexander Nevsky), along with Chief Taper (Armand Assante), seek answers from Darius and Samantha. Meanwhile, Tatiana uses some of her own magic to uncover the mystery of her mother's death and track down the real killers.

American World Pictures is handling the distribution sales end of "Magic Man," directed by Stuart Cooper, a veteran of many made-for-television movies.

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Altitude: First Preview

"Altitude" is being directed by Kaare Andrews and stars the gorgeous Jessica Lowndes (The Haunting of Molly Hartley, Autopsy). In the film, lost in a mysterious cloudbank, a rookie pilot and her four teenage friends must contend with a freak mechanical failure that first sends their small plane climbing to an impossible height, and then plummeting through endless mist. After regaining control, the survivors are confronted with a horrifying realization - the very ground beneath them has vanished and a malevolent force lurking in the clouds wants them dead.

The film marks the directorial debut of award-winning comic writer and artist Kaare Andrews, and if the rest of the cast is as good as Lowndes, we could be in for something good here.

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The Haunting in Connecticut: Review

By Ted Fry (The Seattle Times)

Take note, wholesome families, here are some clues that your ramshackle house might be haunted. It's a terrific bargain because, as the landlord reluctantly tells you, it has a "history." The drab walls wail and moan like the hull of a decrepit submarine. A bunch of weird stuff has been left behind, including an iron crib and a dusty tailor's form in the attic. You wake in the dead of night to a malevolent figure standing at the foot of your bed. The giveaway that you really should "get out!" is a perfectly preserved basement room full of cobwebs, barbaric surgical tools and vintage embalming equipment.

The fresh-faced family that finds just such a home in "The Haunting in Connecticut" makes the mistake of ignoring these signs until it's almost too late. Their bad judgment is our good fortune as it leads to a few genuinely spooky chills. But despite well-designed scare shots, the laborious telling of this elaborate ghost story ultimately fizzles under the weight of too much effort.

Leading the Campbell clan are Sara and Peter (Virginia Madsen and Martin Donovan), a 40ish couple struggling with the burden of bills, a mortgage and Peter's tenuous recovery from alcoholism. Their oldest son, Matt (Kyle Gallner), is seriously ill with cancer and is in an exclusive — and expensive — trial treatment at a hospital way too far from home. The rental house they find in suburban Connecticut seems a great temporary solution, except for all its bizarre trappings.

In addition to fashioning a convincing haunted house, director Peter Cornwell stages early scenes with manipulative aplomb that nicely set a tone of supernatural dread. Madsen and Donovan are credibly pained as parents of a terminally ill child who may be hallucinating the house's paranormal history as a side effect of his debilitating therapy.

The unknowable is always more disturbing in a horror movie, so when "Haunting" starts explaining too much the scares are noticeably lessened. That said, several puzzling details are left hanging in a seriously overwrought flight to the finale.

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Sorority Row: Preview

Sorority Row is an upcoming horror film which is a remake of the 1983 slasher film "The House on Sorority Row." Filming began on October 16, 2008 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania with Stewart Hendler as the director. The film is set to be released on October 2, 2009.

Plot:
Sexy college juniors CASSIDY (Briana Evigan), JESSICA (Leah Pipes), CLAIRE (Jamie Chung), ELLIE (Rumer Willis) and MEGAN (Audrina Patridge) are sorority sisters sworn to trust, secrecy and solidarity, no matter what. But their loyalty is tested when a prank at a raucous house party goes terribly wrong and Megan ends up brutally murdered. Rather than confess to the crime and risk destroying their bright futures, the girls agree to hide the bloody corpse and keep their secret forever. Fast forward one year to graduation.

As they prepare to say goodbye to the house and each other, the girls plan one last alcohol-fueled bash on Sorority Row, confident their dark secret remains buried. But does it? As the party rages in the front yard, the bedrooms and the hot tub, the girls receive cell phone videos taken the night of Megan's murder from an anonymous sender who threatens to forward the videos to the police. Then, one by one, the sisters and their unsuspecting boyfriends are stalked by an unseen killer. Has Megan returned from the dead to exact her revenge? Or was their secret discovered by someone else - someone now determined to make them pay? Trapped, the girls race to figure out which of them let their secret slip, who wants them dead, and how to fight back as the bodies pile up and their beloved sorority house explodes into flames.

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Cold Prey II: Review

REVIEWER: FrighT MasteR (UHM)

This is the sequel to the surprisingly decent Norwegian slasher Cold Prey, which hit US DVD shelves a couple months back. The first flick had a lot of great atmosphere and even a couple creepy scenes, but it was lacking on the action-front, which is why I didn't give it as much of a favorable review as I wanted. Now I understand why the first was all about the character development and mood -- it was basically to set things up for the sequel, which takes place immediately after the events of its predecessor. I'm sure that wasn't the intention of the two films, but that's exactly what we got. Basically what the first movie was lacking is more than made up for in this sequel.

Halloween 2 with Jason Voorhees is what I would best describe Cold Prey 2 as, because that's exactly was running through my head while watching the flick. The killer is big, brutal and wields large weapons, yet he captures some of the creepy and quiet-stalking-like qualities of Michael Myers. The story this time follows the remaining survivor of the previous film receiving aid at a small nearby hospital. After regaining consciousness, the survivor describes the events that led her there. The local police set foot to the abandoned ski lodge, where the remains of her friends lay, including the corpse of the killer.

The police bring the bodies into the hospital to confirm the girl's story and perform autopsies, but before they can get started, the body of the killer somehow begins to show signs of life. The doctors are then forced to help revive the killer to a more conscious state, which also inadvertently seals their fates. It doesn't take long before this beast of a man rises once again, grabs the nearest object, and starts offing the hospital staff. Now it's up to the remaining police and the sole survivor of the first incident to take care of this abominable mountain-man once and for all.

The flick takes about 30 minutes for the viewer to get a handle of the characters before it kicks into gear and gives nearly an hour's worth of sweet action, as the survivors attempt to avoid the mountain man and exit the hospital in time for more police to arrive. The death's are pretty bloody, but sadly there's not a lot of on-screen gore. Although there are a couple somewhat creepy scenes, a lot of the great mood and atmosphere that the first had is lost in this one. That's essentially the price you have to pay when you want a feature with lots of action elements, which in my opinion make for a more entertaining watch (depending on the story).

Slightly more backstory is revealed on the killer, but not much more than what we already know from the first. The events that unfold aren't easily predicted and some situations that these characters get into aren't entirely unrealistic. The killer also makes for an interesting hunter, laying down a couple traps for our victims to find themselves caught in, proving that he's also fairly intelligent. I also really loved the sequence towards the end when the police encounter the man alive for the first time -- very cool stuff. The ending? Luckily, unlike most horror efforts, the climax to this movie doesn't suck. Third film? Yes, please!

OVERALL

While the first film delivered a very moody and atmospheric slasher, its sequel offers us a great old-school ballsy action-oriented slasher with an intimidating and potentially iconic killer. If you thought the first movie was lacking then I'd recommend taking a look at this sequel. Worth a check, especially if you're a fan of the sub-genre.

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Jennifer's Body: First Preview

Jennifer's Body is a 2009 dark comedy and horror film written by Diablo Cody (Juno). The film will be directed by Karyn Kusama (Girlfight, Aeon Flux), and will star Megan Fox (Transformers) as the title character, Amanda Seyfried as her best friend Needy, Adam Brody (The O.C.) as the antagonist Nikolai and J.K. Simmons plays the school science teacher. This film described as being in a similar tone of "Heathers" and "Beetlejuice."

Plot:
The film follows Jennifer (Megan Fox), a mean-girl cheerleader possessed by a demon who begins feeding off the boys in a Minnesota farming town. It is then up to her "plain Jane" best friend Needy (Amanda Seyfried) to kill Jennifer, escape from a correctional facility and go after lead singer Nikolai (Adam Brody) and his Satan-worshiping rock band responsible for the transformation.

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Drag Me to Hell: Second Preview (Trailer)

Below is the trailer for upcoming horror film of Sam Raimi, "Drag Me to Hell." It’s his first horror convention in 16 years and Sam Raimi has joined the lineup of the next West Coast edition of Fangoria’s Weekend of Horrors convention, to be held April 17-19 at the Los Angeles Convention Center (1201 South Figueroa)! The director of the "Evil Dead" and "Spider-man" trilogies, Raimi will appear at the show on Friday and screen exclusive clips from his horror comeback.

Scripted by Raimi and his brother Ivan, "Drag Me To Hell" stars Alison Lohman as Christine, a loan officer angling for a promotion who denies a loan to an old woman named Mrs. Ganush (Lorna Raver). The latter winds up putting a curse on Christine that causes her to suffer horrific visions, and she’s fated to be dragged to you-know-where in three days if she’s unable to break it. Jeepers Creepers’ Justin Long co-stars as Christine’s boyfriend in the film.

Plot: Christine Brown (Alison Lohman) is an ambitious L.A. loan officer with a charming boyfriend, professor Clay Dalton (Justin Long). Life is good until the mysterious Mrs. Ganush (Lorna Raver) arrives at the bank to beg for an extension on her home loan. Should Christine follow her instincts and give the old woman a break? Or should she deny the extension to impress her boss, Mr. Jacks (David Paymer), and get a leg-up on a promotion? Christine fatefully chooses the latter, shaming Mrs. Ganush and dispossessing her of her home.

In retaliation, the old woman places the powerful curse of the Lamia on Christine, transforming her life into a living hell. Haunted by an evil spirit and misunderstood by a skeptical boyfriend, she seeks the aid of seer Rham Jas (Dileep Rao) to save her soul from eternal damnation. To help the shattered Christine return her life to normal, the psychic sets her on a frantic course to reverse the spell. As evil forces close in, Christine must face the unthinkable: How far will she go to break free of the curse?

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