I've got illegals in my bottom.

Being a fan of the Evil Dead franchise, I had high hopes for Sam Raimi's latest venture, Drag Me To Hell. Despite the fact that the trailer resembled The Unborn, I hoped that the film would somehow be secretly awesome and blow my mind. Yeah, didn't happen. The film was an amalgamation of terrible acting, rushed mythology, and was so unintentionally hilarious that I could have sworn it was a parody of the horror genre. I reluctantly plodded along through the film, and as the journal title suggests, it was a complete and utter waste of time.

In case you've been living under a rock, and that rock doesn't happen to have internet access, you'd have seen the Buzznet header for Raimi's flick Drag Me To Hell. Starring Alison Lohman and Justin Long, 'Hell revolves around loan officer Christine Brown, who becomes the subject of a curse after rejecting a request for a loan extension by Roberta Sparrow's leper sister - a cadaverous, bung-eyed old woman with a penchant for vomiting into peoples' mouths.

The rest of the film centres around Christine's wild goose chase to rid herself of the curse, before she's dragged to hell by a Lamia in three days time. Wikipedia tells me that a lamia is some sort of demonic goddess with a penchant for eating children, although this is never clearly explained, and I spent the majority of the film wondering if she was being possessed by evil labia. I reckon being dragged to hell by a flaming vagina wouldn't be too bad.

*SPOILERS* (highlight to check them out) *SPOILERS*

Christine thinks she gets rid of the curse, doesn't, and then accidentally curses her boyfriend as well before being dragged to hell.

THERE IS A TALKING GOAT IN THE MOVIE. A TALKING, POSSESSED GOAT.

As was the case with The Unborn, 'Hell's mythology had so much potential, but was so rushed and messy that it left the viewer confused and wasn't cohesive in the least. Raimi brings in themes of animal sacrifice, mediums, seances and possession, all of which prove fucking useless and I'm still unable to figure out why he bothered including them at all.

The film also fails completely at scaring the audience, with Raimi opting for a small amount of typical 'OMG LOOK BEHIND YOU' scares. These fall flat, as can be expected, with the film instead succeeding in utterly grossing out the viewer. Excessive amounts of mucus, vomit, bugs and what appears to be fecal matter were utilised, only serving to distract the audience as they run for the bucket or toilet bowl. I can't help but wonder if Raimi has grown out of touch over the years, or has tried to avoid a typically gory horror-pr0nz approach and instead produced something much worse.

The worst part of this film definitely lies in the acting, with Lohman and Long being a case of potentially amazing actors stuck in a terrible film. Lohman was awkward to watch as the pathetic former-fat girl, and Long's performance was so restrained that it was painful to watch him portray an uncharacteristically serious and uptight boyfriend.

Any comedy came as a result of the horrendous storyline and acting rather than Long's comedic timing, as the film tries for serious horror and ends up somewhere in the Z-grade guttertrash pile. It's worth watching purely on the basis that it's so unintentionally hilarious, but if you're not a sad, lonely, yobbo like me, there's better things you could do with your time. Like masturbating. I mean, what?

Rating: 2/5