DRAG ME TO HELL, a nifty-gross horror hit from 2009, ripped thru the comfort fabric when director Sam Raimi, finished with years of duty on a big budget Spiderman trilogy, returned to his ‘shock with style & a smile’ roots that had sprouted The Evil Dead. Raimi and his brother Ivan first conceived the idea and a tentative script back in the 90s, taking a cue from vintage creepers like 1957s Night Of The Demon. If The Exorcist and The Omen mated, their he/she/it would look/act/barf like Drag Me To Hell. Unlike those glumstuck Satanic versers, this one is clever enough to be so outrageous that you can relief-chuckle after (even during) the grisly stuff. Of which there is plenty to please the average demon.

“And get your filthy pig knuckle off my desk!”

Cued by a great title sequence and a wild prologue segment in 1969 Pasadena that baits the trap, we touch down forty years later in Los Angeles, with ‘Christine Brown’ (Alison Lohman), a pleasant, well-meaning bank loan officer. Pining for a promotion, she allows her buttons to be pushed and acts against her better nature by turning down a desperate plea from ‘Sylvia Ganush’, an elderly Romani woman who is way behind in her mortgage payments. Ganush piteously begs, but Christine holds firm: then the grungy old lady morphs from an off-putting aura into the screeching hag zone. Later, the grotesque crone violently attacks Christine and issues (literally spits) a curse upon her. Surviving that (spectacularly yucky) assault, Christine is plagued by bizarre incidents of unexplained fright, at home alone, and in public. Her adoring college professor boyfriend ‘Clay Dalton’ (Justin Long, vetted in diabolical cul de sacs via Jeepers Creepers), tries to comfort her, but fortune teller ‘Rham Jas’ (Deleep Rao) informs her of the dimensions of Ganush’s hex (involving the ‘gift’ of a button). Revealing more of the event escalation that follows would be a cheat. Bring (a) sense of the absurd, (b) a willing eye for combined craftsmanship, and (c) the strong stomach of your inner 13-year-old.

Lohman, 29, is quite good in her last starring role (she retired to private life after this) and all in support play it wickedly straight, with a nod of Revulsion Accomplished going to Lorna Raver (66, perfectly christened) as the horrible spew hydrant Ganush, about as far from Maria Ouspensakaya’s wise ‘Maleva’ in The Wolf Man as Transylvania is from Tallahassee. Guess which is safer.

Raimi’s mastery of momentum whirls the malevolent mayhem past in 99 minutes. The Hades-headed dread is anointed by the score from horror specialist Christopher Young (two dozen as of 2026) and hat tips go to the art direction, to Grant Neilleson’s keen opening credits, to the 22 makeup genies, 218 special effects creators and a dozen puppeteers. Planted for $30,000,000, harvesting $42,100,000 in US/Canada (#70 in ’09) with a further $48,700,000 collected from international markets. *

With Adriana Barraza, David Paymer, Reggie Lee, Bojana Novakovic, Chelcie Ross and Molly Cheek. Look quick for Octavia Spencer.

* Ghosts of Ickness Past—in 2009, Avatar‘s scope and astounding visuals crushed all comers, which included new entries for the tribes of Harry Potter, Twilight, Transformers and Star Trek, along with utterly needless remakes of bottom feeder puke Friday the 13th, My Bloody Valentine, The Last House On The Left and Halloween II. The closest competition for Drag Me‘s vein-tapper was Zombieland, though that dark lark needs to include the warning label “contains Jesse Eisenberg.”