Drag Me to Hell gets off to a strong start, with a young woman's stress at home and work reasonably well developed before, well, all hell breaks loose, and an assortment of colored fluids are expelled from various orifices, often from one person to another. There are a lot of squirm-inducing moments but they are spaced out reasonably well, and this is a fun film.
The young woman (Alison Lohman) is a loan officer at a bank who is vying with another to get promoted at work, but watching her hopes dim as he seems better at playing political games. She also has a boyfriend (Justin Long) whose wealthy parents believe she isn't good enough for. One day at work an elderly woman comes in asking for an extension on her loan payments so that she doesn't lose her house. Fearing that she needs to be perceived as tough enough to make hard decisions, she turns the woman down, leading to being cursed and soon haunted by an evil spirit called a lamia. She turns to a fortune teller for help, but naturally the solution is not as simple as sacrificing an animal.
I liked how Sam Raimi the director moved the action along, skipping unnecessary dialogue and physical movement to get from one scene to another. I thought Sam Raimi the writer (and his brother Ivan) were a little less successful in the middle part of the film, where it stalled a bit. One of the obvious solutions to attempting to lift the curse (getting rid of an object) is oddly delayed. There were also moments where the dialogue was stilted. With that said, the film holds together well, and its big scenes all deliver. Strong ending too.
