Lug Me to Heck.

I really wish I could get excited about Drag Me to Hell. Secretly, I'd love for Sam Raimi to return to form with a crazy horror movie, but it's been a 22 years, people. Yes, I'm going back to Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn, gang. Army of Darkness is many fine things but a horror movie is not one of them*. But it's not just that; I'm going to have to cite precedent here.

Spider-Man 3 was bad, yes, but my lack of enthusiasm for Drag Me to Hell comes with its association to Ghost House, Raimi's horror production company. Sadly, the movies Ghost House makes (and which Raimi is a producer for every single one) are horror movies. They're just bad horror movies. Let's take a look, shall we?

The Grudge. Boogeyman. The Messengers. Rise. Boogeyman 2. The Grudge 2. The Messengers 2. 13: The Fear is Real (that horrible Saw-esque reality show you've probably never heard of)

The best thing horror-related with Sam Raimi's "producer" credit on it I could find was 30 Days of Night, which was not produced by Ghost House but I suppose was watchable.

Right now Ghost House has a worse track record than Platinum Dunes (the Friday the 13thTh13teen Ghosts), if only because each of them released on vaguely watchable movie (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and House on Haunted Hill, respectively.) The only one I actually paid for was The Grudge and it was awful. Pardon me for not bothering with The Grudge 2 or, well, any of those other sequels you see there. Boogeyman and The Messengers, like The Grudge, were filled with cheap "jump" scares and tame PG13 gore. The tweens love it, but you can count me out.

Watching the ads for Drag Me to Hell, I see the same kinds of cheap "jump scares": the "fly up the nose" dream sequence sure looks like vintage Ghost House. PG13 rating? Check. Crappy looking CGI? Check. (*SPOILER ALERT*) Trailer that gives away the ending of the movie? Check. (MORE SPOILERS TO COME)

Oh, let's digress about that quickly. As someone who accidentally had the ending spoiled and who doesn't really care whether you want to be surprised by how a movie called Drag Me to Hell might end, those shots of Justin Long looking down and Alison Lohman being, well, dragged to hell? Yeah, the ending of the movie. Here, see for yourself. Unless this is part of some elaborate "fake out," the tv ads don't even bother keeping the ending a surprise.

Thanks, Ghost House and Sony marketing department! Now I really don't need to see it.

So forgive me if I'm not gnawing at the bit to see Drag Me to Hell; I've been burned by the combination of "Sam Raimi" and "horror" for the last five years or so and there's been nothing to convince me otherwise yet. I even have trepidation about an Evil Dead 4 to the point that I hope Bruce Campbell is telling the truth when he says it's never going to happen.

I'm not giving up on Sam Raimi, so to speak, but forgive me if getting exicted about another PG13 Ghost House production is too much to ask for. remake) and Dark Castle (



* I keep Army of Darkness with the Evil Dead movies for continuity's sake, but it's more like a Ray Harryhausen-esque fantasy film than a horror movie and you all know it. Name anything in that movie that's scary, I dare you.