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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