A Marlowe HDF Exclusive: DRAG ME TO HELL - UNRATED DIRECTOR'S CUT (Universal)

Peter Marlowe · 10-16-2009, 12:27 AM

Studio Name: Universal/Ghost House Productions
MPAA Rating: Unrated/PG-13
Disc/Transfer Information: 1080p High Definition; Widescreen 2.40:1
Tested Audio Track: English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (tested at DTS core)
Director: Sam Raimi
Starring Cast: Justin Long, Alison Lohman

MARLOWE’S PLOT ANALYSIS:

Amidst swirling, evolving and downright conflicting rumors regarding a shooting schedule for Spider-Man 4, Sam Raimi returned to his Evil Dead horror roots of sorts and released this much-anticipated little shocker fusing demonic possession, gypsy curses and a horrific look into the bowels of hell. Not receiving much theatrical run time, it was believed that Drag Me to Hell was going to be one of the more anticipated titles of the Halloween home video season – in retrospect, there was a great deal of hoopla leading to the video release of this title, and spending a good few days with it in my home theater, and viewing both the “PG-13” rated cut and the Unrated version, I attempted to get a better idea of just what the excitement was all about. In the end, it seems Raimi and co-writer Ivan Raimi borrowed heavily from many late-vintage horror flicks – notably the “exorcism” sequence at the end of the film in the Los Angeles house – but at the same time created something that was rather shocking in certain moments, based on the version you select to watch.

At times, Drag Me to Hell seems to dip into that “made for TV” realm of feel, where the performances and action get a bit campy – much like the other gypsy curse thriller Stephen King’s Thinner. As a matter of fact, I haven’t seen a good gypsy curse horror film since Thinner, and much of the gypsy folklore regarding their curses which was on display in that film carries over here. The film opens with the shot of a home in the suburbs of California many years back, and a Latin family arriving with a sick child; the woman and man carry their son out of their truck, and approach a woman who appears to be able to help him and his “symptoms” of demonic origins. Following her into the house, the sequence explodes into a horrific display of this boy’s spirit being dragged down into the bowels of hell (which are erupting right there in the entrance of the home) as black hands and arms and fiery licks of flame engulf him. The woman who was supposed to save him from this torment mentions “seeing you again” in Spanish, and the film then forwards to the present time.

Alison Lohman plays Christine Brown, a sexy bit of a thing who works at a Los Angeles savings bank as a loan officer. She’s trying to work her way up through a promotion to Assistant Manager, and much of this element plays a big role in the film’s screenplay and plot – her boyfriend (Justin Long) is, what appears to be, some kind of college professor yet he doesn’t seem “right” for the role, what with his sarcastic, immature replies and attitude towards everything around him. Long was an odd choice for this character, but we continue to see more and more of him in Hollywood, which is a disturbing trend to me. They should have just left him alone after Jeepers Creepers and called it a day.

At any rate, Lohman’s character is approached one afternoon at the bank by an old, horrifically decaying woman with a disturbingly displaced eye that begs for the bank not to take her home away from her. It appears she’s defaulted on the mortgage, and she has come to plead for an extension. When she brings this to her boss’ attention, he tells her the decision is hers – but in the interest of securing her promotion, she decides to take the side of the bank, and refuses to help the old lady. After one last ditch at begging, the lady goes into a violent fit that scares Lohman so badly, security must drag her out. Later that night as Lohman is leaving the bank and walking to her car in the underground lot, she spots the old lady’s decaying yellow car parked in the shadows, waiting for her. What follows is just some of the over-the-top visuals and moments Raimi injects into this film – some of it grossly offputting if you’re not prepared for it. The old lady begins an attack on Lohman as she inexplicably ends up in Lohman’s back seat and tries every which way to lay a gypsy curse on her. This includes ripping Lohman’s hair out of her head and then systematically losing her dentures as Lohman rams her car into another in a desperate attempt to get the old gypsy off of her and out of her vehicle – the gyp smashes against the car’s dashboard and the false teeth come flying out, solidifying all the nasty thoughts and nightmares you’ve ever had about old people.

Eventually, the lady gets the curse put on Lohman through ripping off one of the buttons on her jacket – now, a centuries-old demonic force will take possession of Lohman because she is the carrier of this cursed object in three days. How did she discover this? When Long comes to her rescue after the old lady’s attack in the parking complex, the two of them visit a spiritual fortune teller that is able to see this demonic force over her. This is where the film got a bit cheesy; and if you ever had any doubts as to whether or not these so-called “fortune tellers” are in it just for the money, after watching Sam Raimi’s Drag Me to Hell, you won’t be in doubt any longer. First, the fortune teller wants 60 bucks for the reading – later in the film, when he suggests the “demonologist” that tried to save the boy in the beginning, Lohman is informed she costs $10,000 in order to visit her. It’s absolutely ridiculous.

So Lohman and Long are informed that this gypsy curse includes a dark spiritual possession that will indeed drag her to an eternity in hell in three days – and in the meantime, she will be tormented by this spirit. Alas, when Long isn’t around, Lohman is assaulted by invisible forces that attack and harass her, including being belted around by invisible hands (a la An American Haunting and The Entity) and spewing blood from her nose all over her boss and customers at her bank job. One evening, with Long sleeping next to her, Lohman swallows a fly that ultimately shows itself at a dinner Long sets up so his parents can meet his girlfriend – whom they don’t approve of. At the dinner, Lohman is tormented by more demonic visions and attacks that nobody else can see; the old lady’s eye pokes itself out in a piece of cake in front of her, the walls pound with a relentless presence and the fly she swallowed comes bursting out of her mouth in front of her boyfriend and his disgusted parents. Some of the special effects used here are shocking and gruesome – notably a sequence where Lohman is dreaming that the old gypsy is next to her in bed, then rolls on top of her and vomits a sea of worms and maggots onto her.

Meanwhile, Lohman visits the address where the old gypsy’s granddaughter is supposed to live in order to beg her to remove the curse with the agreement that she will attempt to get her house back for her. Upon arriving at this creepy house, the door is answered by the granddaughter, who after seething at Lohman “you deserve everything that’s coming for you” invites her in to witness the gypsy funeral “celebration” taking place in the basement – apparently, the old lady has died.

After the fortune teller suggests to Lohman that she can sacrifice an animal as an offering swap to the spirits instead of her soul, Lohman decides to do just that even though she’s a self-proclaimed animal lover. Now, there’s a difference here between the Unrated cut of Drag Me to Hell and the PG-13 version which involves Lohman’s cat – but I cannot give this away. Suffice to say, her decision doesn’t work, and she’s forced to take the fortune teller up on his final suggestion for saving her life – come to the house of this spiritual leader he knows (the woman from the first sequence of the film that tried to save the boy’s life but failed) for the fee of $10,000, as she has had experience with this dark demonic gypsy force before. Here, the most memorable parts of the film take place with over-the-top effects and shocking demonic images – the last time we saw such antics was in Constantine but they’re taken to a new level here. There is a sense of borrowed elements from that Gary Oldman film that came out not too long ago, in which he played a “rabbi” attempting to exorcise a demon from a girl, but the application here was more effective. The fortune teller, Lohman, the spiritual woman and her assistant form a séance in the middle of this huge room in the house, and before long, she conjures up the demonic force cursing Lohman. The spirit jumps into the woman, possessing her, then into a goat – which actually speaks in possessed tongue with glowing eyes and all – and finally into her assistant, who levitates and spews horrific demonic babble at all of them. This sequence was actually quite effective in terms of demonic exhibition, and something we haven’t seen in awhile in this genre.

While Lohman believes she’s free of the gypsy curse – after this “exorcism” ritual at the spiritual woman’s house indeed claimed a life – there’s a surprise twist at the end of both versions that I will not divulge. It has to do with that coat button which the gypsy originally cursed and Lohman needing to “give it away” to someone else in order for the curse to be off her – she thinks she successfully gives it back to the gypsy after digging up her grave in a ridiculously silly scene and stuffing the envelope containing the button in the corpse’s mouth, but all is not what it seems.

Both versions of Drag Me to Hell share the same running time, and from what I could tell, the only major differences were that aforementioned horrific sequence involving Lohman’s cat – there may have been a bit more gore in the Unrated cut as well.

VIDEO QUALITY ANALYSIS:

Surprising for Universal, this wasn’t a disc that exhibited reference-quality depth or images as most of their releases have been doing – that’s not to say the transfer looked soft, but there was just something missing from this 2.40:1 transfer and 1080p encode – to begin with, the opening sequence which depicted events years ago with the “possessed” boy showed lack of color but exhibited sharp detail. Of course, the color scheme could have been purposely muted for this “flashback” sequence. As the transfer went on, facial close-ups just didn’t exhibit eye-popping detail and rather looked flat and DVD-dimensional; still, there was good detail in clothing and other images.

The detail in the old gypsy’s clothing – specifically her tweed jacket – were rippling with clarity and realism, and there were other positive moments in the transfer, I just feel this wasn’t Universal’s best effort on Blu-ray.

AUDIO QUALITY ANALYSIS:

What stood out most on the 5.1 English Master Audio mix (played back at the core DTS stream on my system) was the hushed quality of the dialogue as compared to the rest of the track – vocal delivery was extremely inaudible when the accompanying action was at its most comfortable level. Outside of that, dynamics were strong and aggressive, save for a slight tendency for most of the track to remain in the front channels. The first aspect I noticed when playing back Drag Me to Hell in either version was the rather lean presence of the surround stage – it’s not really until later in the film that the surround channels heat up and make a presence, as the ghostly spirits fly by Lohman’s house and all around her, or towards the end during the “exorcism” when the gypsy dark spirit cackles and glides through the rear channels.

SUMMARY:

The verdict is still out on this one. While effective creepy in places, Sam Raimi’s modern-day occult shocker seems cheesy and cliché in many spots, and the embarrassing performance by Justin Long just compounds the problem. I am uncertain if I am going to buy this title.

RECOMMENDATIONS:

There are some added shock/gore elements in the Unrated cut of the film, and this is definitely not for those “grossed out” by the exhibition of bodily fluids, bugs or demonic images – but it definitely makes a great rental for this time of year, once again. As for a buy…I’m just not sure.

Let me know what you think!

Peter Marlowe · 10-16-2009, 12:43 AM

Edited for nips and tucks.

**kamspy** · 10-19-2009, 08:25 PM

Agree with Long being out of place.

Rami took my wife and I on a fun rife with Drag Me To Hell. It's not a genre changing experience, but it's tangibly better than the average new release horror movie.

It manages to be fun and creepy at the same time. Sometimes the gags go a couple inches too far and it seems unnatural, but I think the overall effort is a win.

Recommended to all.

Peter Marlowe · 10-19-2009, 10:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kamspy

Agree with Long being out of place.

Rami took my wife and I on a fun rife with Drag Me To Hell. It's not a genre changing experience, but it's tangibly better than the average new release horror movie.

It manages to be fun and creepy at the same time. Sometimes the gags go a couple inches too far and it seems unnatural, but I think the overall effort is a win.

Recommended to all.

Thanks for the reply, Kam...glad we're in agreement over Long. He's just an immature-behaving character actor that actually seemed better suited to his computer hacker role in Live Free or Die Hard, or even Jeepers Creepers, which I mentioned in the review.

I'm not so decisive about the final recommendation as you are, though; this one definitely is not for the squeamish what with the vomiting bugs and the old gypsy's dentures flying out of her head accompanied by that "oral gravy" -- DAMN that was gross. For me, I don't think it's quite in the "buy" category.

But I would definitely recommend it as a shocking rental for the Halloween season.

Hey, Kam, how about those Bengals? They're givin' a good fight this year, eh? My Patriots did their thing in Foxboro yesterday in a snowstorm, and I love the way they brought back the original uniforms and helmets for certain original AFL/AFC teams -- especially my Pats!

**kamspy** · 10-20-2009, 07:11 PM

I liked Long's parts in most his other movies too.

But, you have to say that this is a clear level above the average horrors flicks being released; Mirrors, The Univited, etc.

Peter Marlowe · 10-21-2009, 03:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kamspy

I liked Long's parts in most his other movies too.

But, you have to say that this is a clear level above the average horrors flicks being released; Mirrors, The Univited, etc.

Agreed.

So, you a big Bengals fan?

**kamspy** · 10-23-2009, 04:26 PM

Biggest.

Season ticket holder for 9 years now.

GLOW · 10-23-2009, 06:19 PM

I didn't see this in theaters so watching it on BD was my first time seeing this. Very good but reminded me too much of Evil Dead 1 and 2 in the more over-the-top and special fx parts, only the Evil Deads did it better. I've watched this twice so far and I still don't know how I'd rate it. The PQ was top-notch though, that's for sure. Black levels were perfect. Compare them to a subpar BD like Surveillance and it's a night and day difference.

Peter Marlowe · 10-26-2009, 01:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kamspy

Biggest.

Season ticket holder for 9 years now.

Very cool. I've been a diehard Pats fan since they went to the 'Bowl XX against the Bears, when they had Tony Eason, Steve Grogan and Andre Tippett -- wish I didn't live so far away from Foxboro.

Peter Marlowe · 10-26-2009, 01:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GLOW

I didn't see this in theaters so watching it on BD was my first time seeing this. Very good but reminded me too much of Evil Dead 1 and 2 in the more over-the-top and special fx parts, only the Evil Deads did it better. I've watched this twice so far and I still don't know how I'd rate it. The PQ was top-notch though, that's for sure. Black levels were perfect. Compare them to a subpar BD like Surveillance and it's a night and day difference.

Thanks for your thoughts, GLOW.

The reason why it reminded you of Evil Dead was because of Sam Raimi!

I know what you mean about having a difficult time rating it -- I watched it maybe four times when the disc was in my possession, and I simply cannot figure out if it's a buy or not. As I said in the review, that final "exorcism"/ritual/possession sequence was pretty wild...especially when the goat began speaking in the possessed tongue.

The picture quality was definitely decent -- but coming from Universal, it wasn't quite as shiny and stellar as, say, Fast & Furious or Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor; it certainly wasn't a bad transfer by any means, though.

Chamillitary · 10-27-2009, 10:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Peter Marlowe

Agreed.

So, you a big Bengals fan?

Great review. I love that avatar! Huge Bengals fan from Canada here!!!

Peter Marlowe · 10-28-2009, 12:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by robson12

That's great!I will watch it.

Thanks Robson and welcome to the site.

I'll have a review of another Halloween title, Trick R Treat, up in just a little while, too!

Peter Marlowe · 10-28-2009, 12:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chamillitary

Great review. I love that avatar! Huge Bengals fan from Canada here!!!

Hey, Cham! Thanks for your thoughts and for reading! Appreciate the kind remarks; I'm enjoying my "sexy Halloween tart" up there, too...

Big Bengals fan in Canuck country, eh? I'm a huge Patriots fan from the time they were the Boston Pats; love those old uniforms and helmets!

Thanks again for commenting about the review; did you see the film yet?

GLOW · 10-28-2009, 03:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Peter Marlowe

Thanks for your thoughts, GLOW.

The reason why it reminded you of Evil Dead was because of Sam Raimi!

I knew that.

Haven't you figured out I'm a horror nut yet?

Peter Marlowe · 10-28-2009, 05:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GLOW

I knew that.

Haven't you figured out I'm a horror nut yet?

Sorry...

10-16-2009, 12:27 AM	#1
Peter Marlowe Blu-ray Reviewer Join Date: Jun 2008 Posts: 2,257	A Marlowe HDF Exclusive: DRAG ME TO HELL - UNRATED DIRECTOR'S CUT (Universal) Studio Name: Universal/Ghost House Productions MPAA Rating: Unrated/PG-13 Disc/Transfer Information: 1080p High Definition; Widescreen 2.40:1 Tested Audio Track: English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (tested at DTS core) Director: Sam Raimi Starring Cast: Justin Long, Alison Lohman *MARLOWE’S PLOT ANALYSIS:* Amidst swirling, evolving and downright conflicting rumors regarding a shooting schedule for Spider-Man 4, Sam Raimi returned to his Evil Dead horror roots of sorts and released this much-anticipated little shocker fusing demonic possession, gypsy curses and a horrific look into the bowels of hell. Not receiving much theatrical run time, it was believed that Drag Me to Hell was going to be one of the more anticipated titles of the Halloween home video season – in retrospect, there was a great deal of hoopla leading to the video release of this title, and spending a good few days with it in my home theater, and viewing both the “PG-13” rated cut and the Unrated version, I attempted to get a better idea of just what the excitement was all about. In the end, it seems Raimi and co-writer Ivan Raimi borrowed heavily from many late-vintage horror flicks – notably the “exorcism” sequence at the end of the film in the Los Angeles house – but at the same time created something that was rather shocking in certain moments, based on the version you select to watch. At times, Drag Me to Hell seems to dip into that “made for TV” realm of feel, where the performances and action get a bit campy – much like the other gypsy curse thriller Stephen King’s Thinner. As a matter of fact, I haven’t seen a good gypsy curse horror film since Thinner, and much of the gypsy folklore regarding their curses which was on display in that film carries over here. The film opens with the shot of a home in the suburbs of California many years back, and a Latin family arriving with a sick child; the woman and man carry their son out of their truck, and approach a woman who appears to be able to help him and his “symptoms” of demonic origins. Following her into the house, the sequence explodes into a horrific display of this boy’s spirit being dragged down into the bowels of hell (which are erupting right there in the entrance of the home) as black hands and arms and fiery licks of flame engulf him. The woman who was supposed to save him from this torment mentions “seeing you again” in Spanish, and the film then forwards to the present time. Alison Lohman plays Christine Brown, a sexy bit of a thing who works at a Los Angeles savings bank as a loan officer. She’s trying to work her way up through a promotion to Assistant Manager, and much of this element plays a big role in the film’s screenplay and plot – her boyfriend (Justin Long) is, what appears to be, some kind of college professor yet he doesn’t seem “right” for the role, what with his sarcastic, immature replies and attitude towards everything around him. Long was an odd choice for this character, but we continue to see more and more of him in Hollywood, which is a disturbing trend to me. They should have just left him alone after Jeepers Creepers and called it a day. At any rate, Lohman’s character is approached one afternoon at the bank by an old, horrifically decaying woman with a disturbingly displaced eye that begs for the bank not to take her home away from her. It appears she’s defaulted on the mortgage, and she has come to plead for an extension. When she brings this to her boss’ attention, he tells her the decision is hers – but in the interest of securing her promotion, she decides to take the side of the bank, and refuses to help the old lady. After one last ditch at begging, the lady goes into a violent fit that scares Lohman so badly, security must drag her out. Later that night as Lohman is leaving the bank and walking to her car in the underground lot, she spots the old lady’s decaying yellow car parked in the shadows, waiting for her. What follows is just some of the over-the-top visuals and moments Raimi injects into this film – some of it grossly offputting if you’re not prepared for it. The old lady begins an attack on Lohman as she inexplicably ends up in Lohman’s back seat and tries every which way to lay a gypsy curse on her. This includes ripping Lohman’s hair out of her head and then systematically losing her dentures as Lohman rams her car into another in a desperate attempt to get the old gypsy off of her and out of her vehicle – the gyp smashes against the car’s dashboard and the false teeth come flying out, solidifying all the nasty thoughts and nightmares you’ve ever had about old people. Eventually, the lady gets the curse put on Lohman through ripping off one of the buttons on her jacket – now, a centuries-old demonic force will take possession of Lohman because she is the carrier of this cursed object in three days. How did she discover this? When Long comes to her rescue after the old lady’s attack in the parking complex, the two of them visit a spiritual fortune teller that is able to see this demonic force over her. This is where the film got a bit cheesy; and if you ever had any doubts as to whether or not these so-called “fortune tellers” are in it just for the money, after watching Sam Raimi’s Drag Me to Hell, you won’t be in doubt any longer. First, the fortune teller wants 60 bucks for the reading – later in the film, when he suggests the “demonologist” that tried to save the boy in the beginning, Lohman is informed she costs $10,000 in order to visit her. It’s absolutely ridiculous. So Lohman and Long are informed that this gypsy curse includes a dark spiritual possession that will indeed drag her to an eternity in hell in three days – and in the meantime, she will be tormented by this spirit. Alas, when Long isn’t around, Lohman is assaulted by invisible forces that attack and harass her, including being belted around by invisible hands (a la An American Haunting and The Entity) and spewing blood from her nose all over her boss and customers at her bank job. One evening, with Long sleeping next to her, Lohman swallows a fly that ultimately shows itself at a dinner Long sets up so his parents can meet his girlfriend – whom they don’t approve of. At the dinner, Lohman is tormented by more demonic visions and attacks that nobody else can see; the old lady’s eye pokes itself out in a piece of cake in front of her, the walls pound with a relentless presence and the fly she swallowed comes bursting out of her mouth in front of her boyfriend and his disgusted parents. Some of the special effects used here are shocking and gruesome – notably a sequence where Lohman is dreaming that the old gypsy is next to her in bed, then rolls on top of her and vomits a sea of worms and maggots onto her. Meanwhile, Lohman visits the address where the old gypsy’s granddaughter is supposed to live in order to beg her to remove the curse with the agreement that she will attempt to get her house back for her. Upon arriving at this creepy house, the door is answered by the granddaughter, who after seething at Lohman “you deserve everything that’s coming for you” invites her in to witness the gypsy funeral “celebration” taking place in the basement – apparently, the old lady has died. After the fortune teller suggests to Lohman that she can sacrifice an animal as an offering swap to the spirits instead of her soul, Lohman decides to do just that even though she’s a self-proclaimed animal lover. Now, there’s a difference here between the Unrated cut of Drag Me to Hell and the PG-13 version which involves Lohman’s cat – but I cannot give this away. Suffice to say, her decision doesn’t work, and she’s forced to take the fortune teller up on his final suggestion for saving her life – come to the house of this spiritual leader he knows (the woman from the first sequence of the film that tried to save the boy’s life but failed) for the fee of $10,000, as she has had experience with this dark demonic gypsy force before. Here, the most memorable parts of the film take place with over-the-top effects and shocking demonic images – the last time we saw such antics was in Constantine but they’re taken to a new level here. There is a sense of borrowed elements from that Gary Oldman film that came out not too long ago, in which he played a “rabbi” attempting to exorcise a demon from a girl, but the application here was more effective. The fortune teller, Lohman, the spiritual woman and her assistant form a séance in the middle of this huge room in the house, and before long, she conjures up the demonic force cursing Lohman. The spirit jumps into the woman, possessing her, then into a goat – which actually speaks in possessed tongue with glowing eyes and all – and finally into her assistant, who levitates and spews horrific demonic babble at all of them. This sequence was actually quite effective in terms of demonic exhibition, and something we haven’t seen in awhile in this genre. While Lohman believes she’s free of the gypsy curse – after this “exorcism” ritual at the spiritual woman’s house indeed claimed a life – there’s a surprise twist at the end of both versions that I will not divulge. It has to do with that coat button which the gypsy originally cursed and Lohman needing to “give it away” to someone else in order for the curse to be off her – she thinks she successfully gives it back to the gypsy after digging up her grave in a ridiculously silly scene and stuffing the envelope containing the button in the corpse’s mouth, but all is not what it seems. Both versions of Drag Me to Hell share the same running time, and from what I could tell, the only major differences were that aforementioned horrific sequence involving Lohman’s cat – there may have been a bit more gore in the Unrated cut as well. *VIDEO QUALITY ANALYSIS:* Surprising for Universal, this wasn’t a disc that exhibited reference-quality depth or images as most of their releases have been doing – that’s not to say the transfer looked soft, but there was just something missing from this 2.40:1 transfer and 1080p encode – to begin with, the opening sequence which depicted events years ago with the “possessed” boy showed lack of color but exhibited sharp detail. Of course, the color scheme could have been purposely muted for this “flashback” sequence. As the transfer went on, facial close-ups just didn’t exhibit eye-popping detail and rather looked flat and DVD-dimensional; still, there was good detail in clothing and other images. The detail in the old gypsy’s clothing – specifically her tweed jacket – were rippling with clarity and realism, and there were other positive moments in the transfer, I just feel this wasn’t Universal’s best effort on Blu-ray. *AUDIO QUALITY ANALYSIS:* What stood out most on the 5.1 English Master Audio mix (played back at the core DTS stream on my system) was the hushed quality of the dialogue as compared to the rest of the track – vocal delivery was extremely inaudible when the accompanying action was at its most comfortable level. Outside of that, dynamics were strong and aggressive, save for a slight tendency for most of the track to remain in the front channels. The first aspect I noticed when playing back Drag Me to Hell in either version was the rather lean presence of the surround stage – it’s not really until later in the film that the surround channels heat up and make a presence, as the ghostly spirits fly by Lohman’s house and all around her, or towards the end during the “exorcism” when the gypsy dark spirit cackles and glides through the rear channels. *SUMMARY:* The verdict is still out on this one. While effective creepy in places, Sam Raimi’s modern-day occult shocker seems cheesy and cliché in many spots, and the embarrassing performance by Justin Long just compounds the problem. I am uncertain if I am going to buy this title. *RECOMMENDATIONS:* There are some added shock/gore elements in the Unrated cut of the film, and this is definitely not for those “grossed out” by the exhibition of bodily fluids, bugs or demonic images – but it definitely makes a great rental for this time of year, once again. As for a buy…I’m just not sure. Let me know what you think! __________________ ONKYO TX-SR605B HDMI 1.3a; Onboard Dolby Digital Plus/TrueHD, DTS-HD Master Audio Panasonic DMP-BD10A SONY 1080p KDS-50A2020 SXRD Mains: polkaudio R20 Center: polkaudio CSi30 Surrounds: polkaudio R15 Sub: polkaudio PSW10 marantz CC4001 TASCAM CD-RW900SL PROFESSIONAL Technics SL-QD33 (due for replacement) APC SurgeArrest System INTERCONNECTS & SPEAKER CABLING BY MONSTER Last Review:

10-16-2009, 12:43 AM	#2
Peter Marlowe Blu-ray Reviewer Join Date: Jun 2008 Posts: 2,257	Edited for nips and tucks. __________________ ONKYO TX-SR605B HDMI 1.3a; Onboard Dolby Digital Plus/TrueHD, DTS-HD Master Audio Panasonic DMP-BD10A SONY 1080p KDS-50A2020 SXRD Mains: polkaudio R20 Center: polkaudio CSi30 Surrounds: polkaudio R15 Sub: polkaudio PSW10 marantz CC4001 TASCAM CD-RW900SL PROFESSIONAL Technics SL-QD33 (due for replacement) APC SurgeArrest System INTERCONNECTS & SPEAKER CABLING BY MONSTER Last Review:

10-23-2009, 06:19 PM	#8
GLOW PUBLIC ENEMY #1 Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Chi 'til I die Age: 30 Posts: 7,647	I didn't see this in theaters so watching it on BD was my first time seeing this. Very good but reminded me too much of Evil Dead 1 and 2 in the more over-the-top and special fx parts, only the Evil Deads did it better. I've watched this twice so far and I still don't know how I'd rate it. The PQ was top-notch though, that's for sure. Black levels were perfect. Compare them to a subpar BD like Surveillance and it's a night and day difference. __________________ "In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is freedom, in water there is bacteria." - Benjamin Franklin

10-19-2009, 08:25 PM	#3
kamspy Esteban Moderatoro Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: Cincinnati,OH Good Posts: 12 Posts: 13,051	Agree with Long being out of place. Rami took my wife and I on a fun rife with Drag Me To Hell. It's not a genre changing experience, but it's tangibly better than the average new release horror movie. It manages to be fun and creepy at the same time. Sometimes the gags go a couple inches too far and it seems unnatural, but I think the overall effort is a win. Recommended to all.

10-20-2009, 07:11 PM	#5
kamspy Esteban Moderatoro Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: Cincinnati,OH Good Posts: 12 Posts: 13,051	I liked Long's parts in most his other movies too. But, you have to say that this is a clear level above the average horrors flicks being released; Mirrors, The Univited, etc.

10-23-2009, 04:26 PM	#7
kamspy Esteban Moderatoro Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: Cincinnati,OH Good Posts: 12 Posts: 13,051	Biggest. Season ticket holder for 9 years now.