Drag Me to Hell (2009)

After running himself and the audience tired with “Spider-Man 3,” Sam Raimi is back in disgusting, tongue-in-cheek horror form with “Drag Me to Hell.” This movie is a righteous hoot, a 90-minute reason to throw an actress in all sorts of jeopardy and mud and goo for shocks and laughs. Pure giddy bloody fun, start to finish. I loved it, every silly over-the-top moment.

Allison Lohman stars as a young bank assistant manager Christine, looking to climb the corporate ladder and make money. But to climb, she has to make some rough choices. Such as foreclosing on an old woman’s home. An ancient, evil, nasty, slimy, rotting gypsy woman with a dead eye and a soul’s curse on her lips. Lorna Raver plays this hag, and was robbed of an Oscar nomination. All those uppity twits, they missed this glorious take. See, Christine is going to hell, pronto.

Raimi, who came to fame on the “Evil Dead” films, knows how to make a scene that scares the hell out of audience, and yet make it laugh hysterically at the same time. There’s no better scene this year than when the old hag attacks Christine in a Honda in an underground parking deck. Dentures smashed out, the hag literally gums at Lohman's jaw, trying to … Eat her? Suck her soul? … I laughed aloud as I gripped the arm rest and squirmed in disgust at the saliva. Gobs of it. Strings. Nasty ass scene. Loved it.

Scenes like that abound – especially as Lohman is spewed with blood, gore, embalmer’s fluid, mud, maggots, and a fly crawls up inside her nose. To top it off, Lohman has the best game face I’ve seen since Quentin Tarantino put Uma Thurman through hell in the “Kill Bill” films. “Hell” is proudly dumb, and has Justin Long as a male lead for Christ sake, but Raimi’s antics are so on target, so far out bizarre and cheap and nasty fun, any sins and faults are washed away. It is Heaven, for twisted jokesters. A-