Movies
SXSW: New Raving ‘Drag Me to Hell’ Review!
While I was lucky enough to be one of the first audiences to see Sam Raimi’s big return to horror in Drag Me to Hell (read the review), both Tim Anderson and David Harley had a chance to check the film out this past weekend at the SXSW Film Festival in Austin, Texas. Anyone who has been snooping around the web would see that everyone is raving about Raimi’s film that takes on the curse of one Alison Lohman. Beyond the break you can now read David Harley’s thoughts on Universal’s latest horror pic hitting theaters this May. I think it’s safe to say this will be one of the year’s best.
(Note: The version I saw was a work in progress)
The idea of the comeback is always great in theory, but rarely does it ever deliver on what it promises. George Romero, dubbed the “King of the Zombies,” delivered the lackluster Land of the Dead and the hugely disappointing Diary of the Dead – which was supposed to be his true triumphant return, considering the low-budget nature of the project – after leaving fans waiting 20 years for another zombie film. John Carpenter, who consistently made great films from the late 70s to the early 90s, has only managed to crank out one kinda fun film since In the Mouth of Madness, his love letter to H.P. Lovecraft. Dario Argento, the Italian maestro who’s influenced countless directors worldwide, finally completed his Three Mothers trilogy in 2007 and while it was the bloodiest film of his career, it was definitely one of his dumbest. In other words, as horror fans, we’re constantly let down by once great directors who have just flat-out lost their golden touch.
Now, Sam Raimi hasn’t exactly fallen from grace as much as he’s been making our spider senses tingle rather than our spines. He’s been wetting his beak in other genres, from crime capers to sports dramas, but aside from The Gift, a southern gothic tale that is more of a supernatural mystery than anything really, he hasn’t made any thing that could be considered a horror film since Evil Dead 2. But, watching everything he’s made in-between, you can see his proclivity towards horror. Doc Ock’s surgery room scene in Spider-Man 2 should instantly remind everyone of the Evil Dead series: the action is fast, the cameras are invasive and the atmosphere is ominous. After Spider-Man 3, I think everyone was pleasantly surprised that he wanted to return to the genre that permanently engraved him into the hearts and minds of film geeks everywhere. Drag Me To Hell is THE horror comeback of the decade. For a director who’s been out of the horror business for so long, it’s incredible to see him jump right back into the game with that much gusto and knock it out of the ballpark. It’s almost like he never left.
Alison Lohman plays Christine, a loan officer on the verge of a promotion. In order to prove to her boss that she can make “the tough decisions” and deserves the assistant manager position, she decides to deny the extension on Mrs. Ganush’s (Lorna Raver) home. Feeling like she was shamed for groveling and still not getting anywhere, Mrs. Ganush exacts revenge on Christine and curses her with the mother of all curses, which causes a goat-like demon called the Lamia to follow her around for 3 days before dragging her to hell. The plot doesn’t attempt to be complex or metaphorical; it’s essentially Thinner meets Poltergeist and at a brisk 96 minutes, it has about 15 minutes of setup, 81 minutes of non-stop horror-comedy insanity, and absolutely no filler whatsoever.
Right from the beginning, you know Drag Me To Hell is a Raimi film. The opening sequence has a small boy being taken to Shaun San Dena (Adriana Barraza), a powerful medium who attempts to de-curse him. Then, BAM, people are being tossed around like ragdolls by an unseen force and Peter Deming’s cinematography goes to work, full force. Deming hasn’t worked with Raimi since Evil Dead 2 and considering that the nature of many of the scenes in Drag closely mirror those from the classic ’87 film, this was the perfect project for them to collaborate on again.
The scene where Christine is attacked by Mrs. Ganush in her car is a great example of how well Raimi can utilize horror and comedy in the same scene. Staplers are slammed into foreheads, rulers are crammed down throats, faces are gummed – as opposed to bitten – and the use of shadows manages to cloak a hideous face just long enough to elicit a jump, maybe even a scream, from those watching. These are ideas that seem ordinary on paper but when you have someone who knows what they’re doing in the director’s chair, even the simplest things turn into something special with the right visual interpretation. This scene is the equivalent of Ash warding off his possessed decapitated hand in Evil Dead 2 – which, in turn, means that it’s influenced by Crimewave since that’s where Raimi hit his stride with slapstick humor – or fighting himself and skeleton hands in Army Of Darkness. Drag even goes full-on Looney Tunes in one scene involving an anvil. The pure horror moments are also exceptionally executed. The séance scene, in particular, is pure Evil Dead, with the Lamia possessing different bodies and turning them into cackling deadites.
There’s a lot of really cool influences on display in Drag, the most interesting being a scene where Christine does a little bit of digging in a cemetery. Upon opening up a coffin, heavy rain begins to fill the grave while she tries to crawl her way out of it and push off the floating dead body. It’s a well-executed modernization of the scene in Poltergeist where JoBeth Williams is stuck in her emptied, muddied pool. The film prominently displays its Asian influence by having this powerful malevolent force that keeps on coming no matter what measures are taken against it, which makes sense considering the work Raimi has done with the Pang Brothers and The Grudge series through his Ghosthouse banner. The film culminates in a Twilight Zone inspired third act that is one of the ballsiest things I’ve seen a major studio allow to be in a horror production in quite a while.
Boasting great performances, a well-used mixture of practical and CGI effects and a fun, but familiar, story, Drag Me To Hell is a film that’ll have you jumping out of your seat and laughing simultaneously. I think it’s going to change a lot of people’s minds about the worth of a PG-13 horror film (an argument I never really understood to begin with, since it’s the quality and not the rating that makes something a worthwhile watch), based on its ability to use goo instead of blood effectively and create an atmosphere that makes what’s on-screen feel much worse than it actually is – the mark of an excellent filmmaker. But, above all else, Drag Me To Hell is going to stop people from whining about a new Evil Dead whenever Raimi announces his next horror film.
Score: 4.5/5
Found footage movies rely on immersion and a particular kind of suspension of disbelief in order to scare viewers, so it stands to reason that playing along with the “kayfabe” of it all is necessary for these movies to be effective. However, despite being something of a purist when it comes to in-universe recordings, I’ve come to accept that traditional productions can benefit from the occasional injection of found footage thrills.
For instance, Kane Parsons’ Backrooms adaptation makes genius use of the analog gimmick in order to trap us in the titular rooms alongside our main characters before effortlessly switching back to a more cinematic language. In honor of these dynamic films that manage to combine the best of both worlds, today I’d like to share six other hybrid horror movies that successfully incorporate found footage into their scares!
For the purposes of this list, “hybrid” horror movies are defined as any flick that shifts between diegetic recordings and traditional filming techniques for a significant amount of time (or at least for pivotal scenes).
As usual, don’t forget to comment below with your own hybrid favorites if you think a particularly freaky one was missed.
With that out of the way, onto the list!
5. The Last Broadcast (1998)
Internet critics may have overstated the influence that Stefan Avalos and Lance Weiler’s The Last Broadcast had on The Blair Witch Project, but the found footage subgenre still owes a huge debt to this underrated piece of avant-garde filmmaking. However, while the movie sets itself up as a documentary about the disappearance of a group of cryptid-hunters attempting to track down the Jersey Devil, things take a darker and much more grounded turn towards the final act.
I won’t get into details in order to avoid spoilers, but suffice to say that the jarring shift in perspective actually helps to sell the idea that everything we’ve seen before the finale was an attempt at using filmmaking to manipulate the public perception of a “real” incident.
Not bad for a movie with a $900 budget!
4. Cam (2018)
When you consider just how much the internet affects our daily lives, it’s strange that we don’t see Screenlife elements pop up in more movies these days. For instance, Isa Mazzei & Daniel Goldhaber’s highly underrated Cam only works as a freaky parable about online sex-work because it masterfully balances Madeline Brewer’s intimate moments with highly immersive segments within cyberspace.
While one might argue that the entire film could have been produced as a Screenlife experience, the hybrid approach allows the filmmakers to explore our main character’s life beyond the screens – with the duality of modern human existence actually becoming a recurring theme in the story.
3. Banshee Chapter (2013)
Most of H.P. Lovecraft’s popular stories were told in the epistolary format (where the text is presented as an in-universe compilation of letters or personal notes), so it makes sense that a spiritually faithful adaptation of his work would incorporate elements from the modern-day equivalent to epistolary fiction – found footage!
That’s why Blair Erickson’s Banshee Chapter is such an effective scare-fest, as this hybrid adaptation of From Beyond -retold through a conspiratorial lens as it references MK-Ultra and even secretive numbers stations- immerses viewers in a mind-bending tapestry of Cosmic Horror that blurs the line between fiction and reality.
2. The Deep House (2019)
The underwater setting does a lot of the heavy lifting when it comes to Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury’s The Deep House, with the film being especially uncomfortable if you’re already scared of tight spaces and being deprived of oxygen. However, even the universally unsettling elements of the flick only work because the POV often shifts into claustrophobic footage courtesy of our main characters’ GoPro cameras.
Telling the story of a couple of YouTubers who encounter a haunted house at the bottom of an artificial lake while vacationing in France, The Deep House’s first-person exploration sequences contain some of the film’s scariest moments. In fact, I’d argue that the movie didn’t even need ghosts, as becoming trapped in the titular House already sounds like a fate worse than death.
1. Behind The Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon (2006)
My personal favorite instance of filmmakers successfully managing to combine traditional cinematography with POV filmmaking, Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon, is proof that the two formats can co-exist if the right story comes along.
After all, what better way to conclude a mockumentary all about reality getting increasingly more cinematic than by ditching the found footage gimmick altogether during the finale? Not only does this shift in presentation work on a conceptual level, but it also elevates Behind The Mask into a proper Slasher, which is probably why we’re so excited for that long-overdue sequel!
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