Hell yeah

Sam Raimi is back in business. Sure, he directed the big-budget Spider-Man movies, but to the fanboys who worship him, Raimi is all about cheesy, shoestring thrills, and judging from his new horror film, Drag Me to Hell, he hasn't lost any of his schlocky panache.

At the core of its black little heart, Drag Me to Hellaims to be an old-fashioned horror movie, refreshing in this era of mindless slashing and torture porn.

The movie's paper-thin plot is established when we meet Christine Brown (Alison Lohman), an L.A. resident who's using Henry Higgins-style diction cassettes to erase all traces of her sweet farm-girl accent. At the Wilshire Pacific Bank office, she works even harder. But while Christine is good at handling mortgage loans, it looks like aggressive butt-kisser Stu (a scene-stealing Reggie Lee) is going to win the assistant manager position she's been vying for because he knows how to make "tough decisions."

Picking the wrong moment to test her assertiveness, Christine tells a phlegmy old lady named Mrs. Ganush (Lorna Raver) that her mortgage will be foreclosed. With her wonky glass eye and dirty fingernails, Mrs. Ganush is one scary customer, and when she drops to the ground begging and screaming "You shamed me!" in an Eastern European accent, we know Christine's got more than her promotion to worry about.

Shortly thereafter, things start to go bump in the night for Christine: ominous winds, an icky CGI fly and a piece of cake that comes terrifyingly to life. Much to the horror of her skeptical boyfriend Clay (Justin Long), she enlists the help of a local psychic (Dileep Rao), who pronounces that "a black spirit is upon" her a curse involving a black goat, or "Lamia," who will induce ghastly visions for three days before absconding to purgatory with Christine's soul.

What follows will have Evil Dead -heads squirming in their seats or belly laughing, depending on the scene. An expertly staged parking-garage confrontation between Christine and Mrs. Ganush, involving a stapler, some false teeth and a whole lot of hair-pulling, made me jump at least twice before I realized it was a campy catfight to rival anything on Melrose Place. This blend of shocks and gags doesn't always work (a scene involving a medium feels more Beetlejuice than Beelzebub), but in most instances, the humour is a welcome delight.

All of this is executed with Raimi's characteristic killer visual instincts. His tilt-a-whirl angles are on display throughout, and in one shot when the camera takes a graceful swan dive right over a staircase's landing I felt a little nauseous (in the best possible way). Vomiting would be an acceptable response to Drag Me to Hell there are enough shots of gushing blood and bile here to satisfy the gore hounds.

But at the core of its black little heart, Drag Me to Hell aims to be an old-fashioned horror movie, refreshing in this era of mindless slashing and torture porn. The film is at its best in its first hour, where the emphasis is on atmosphere: the billowing curtains, clanking gates and creaking floorboards in Christine's house should have theatregoers clawing their armrests.

Audiences wanting to claw deeper still will find a timeless morality tale hidden in here. Drag Me to Hell never lets you forget that all of the karmic payback stems from one weak little moment where Christine chose to do the wrong thing. But why dig deeper, when you're having so much fun? Christine might be headed straight to hell, but for the audience, this trash is heaven sent.

Drag Me to Hell opens May 29.

Lee Ferguson writes about the arts for CBCNews.ca.