3. PG-13 Rating

Popular opinion states that a PG-13 rating takes the teeth out of a movie, horror or otherwise.  Christopher Nolan showed us last summer that a movie doesn’t need an R rating to show gruesome and frightning things.  In the same spirit, Sam Raimi turned the PG-13 rating into an opportunity to show us some truly terrifying things that don’t involve buckets of blood and tits.  He bites his thumb at the rating system to make a movie far scarier than any R rated film I have seen in years.

Many film makers use the R rating as a crutch.  Directors know they can get a primal thrill from the audience by doing next to nothing.  The R rated horror film has become exhaustively routine.  It takes no ingenuity or talent to have a film saturated in gore and unnecessary sex.  With the restrictions of a PG-13 rating, it forces film makers to think outside of the box to deliver the excitement.  Where most directors fail when such a restriction is imposed, Sam succeeds brilliantly.

2. It’s Scary

There is a big difference between being legitimately frightened and getting so grossed out that you need to look away and shout, “DAMN!”.  Yes, Jigsaw’s torture machines are unsettling and morbid.  But I doubt anyone left the theater terrified that some cancer ridden old dude will snatch them up in order for them to “play a game…”.  ‘Saw’ is onto something though, old people can be scary as hell.

The slow painful crawl of death is approaching all of us whether we like it or not.  Even if we ignore it, we have walking reminders all around us that beauty will fade, youth will disappear, and you will be back in diapers before you know it. ‘Drag Me To Hell’ plays with these themes. The old pathetic hag begs the young beautiful girl for an extension to pay her mortgage on her house.  After the young beautiful girl denies her this favor, the hag accosts her in a parking garage before planting a curse on her.  A really nasty curse.

When the hag isn’t attacking Alison Lohman she is being tormented by a demon.  We never see this demon.  Raimi knows, just as one time M. Night knew, your imagination can create things much more terrifying than what is on screen.  Perfecting sequences that originated in the ‘Evil Dead’ films, he creates a truly scary monster out of shadows, wind, and invisible forces.  Invisible forces that happen to bitch slap Ms. Lohman before dangling her from the ceiling as she screams for her life.  The scariest killer is the one you don’t see coming.

1. It’s Funny

Humor is the key to investing an audience in anything.  I am not talking about Mr. Freeze spouting off terrible puns, but humor that relates the situations with the characters who truthfully react in them.  The best example I can think of is Heath Ledgers portrayal of The Joker.  While watching him was terrifying you couldn’t help but be captivated by every move because, quite frankly, he was hilarious.  Everything he did tinged with irony and a scathing sense of humor.

Anyone who has seen any of the ‘Evil Dead’ films knows Sam can make scary funny.  Personally I think he owed me one after trying to make evil Peter Parker funny by dancing down the New York streets in ‘Spider-Man 3′.  No worries here, he paid me back in full with ‘Drag Me To Hell’.  This film proves that Raimi shines as a comic genius when he doesn’t have a massive budget.  What he does with humor in this movie is simply staggering.  Almost every frightening scene is punctuated by brilliant comedy.  The important thing is that the humor isn’t in your face, he doesn’t stop to say “Okay, now is the time to laugh”.  The laughs come out of the clever way he adds subtle detail that augments the tension and scares.  I won’t spoil any of the fantastic comedic moments but there is a scene involving an eye ball that will make any ‘Evil Dead’ fan smile.

So save some horror movies from corporate greed and mediocrity.  Go see ‘Drag Me To Hell’, you will thank me for it later.

-Bruce

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Tags: Box Office, Evil Dead, Horror, Sam Raimi