Drag Me to Hell

(Note: This review refers to the Blu-ray version of the DVD.)

After the blockbuster success of the three "Spider-Man" movies, director Sam Raimi returns to the genre where he began: the roller-coaster horror film. It's like an EC horror comic of the 1950s come to life, an unforgiving morality tale with playfully gruesome twists and a doozy of a gallows humor. Alison Lohman plays the demure loan officer who refuses the wrong customer: a gypsy woman (Lorna Raver as an old-world nightmare of a witchy hag) who pitches a curse (and her false teeth) to the all-American girl. Raimi is less interested in scaring his audience than giving them a memorable ride through a series of torments, from a savage ambush in an underground garage by the spitting, spiteful old gypsy to a possessed fly, a furious demon and lots of effluvia gushing over our hapless would-be heroine. Raimi's less unhinged here than in "Evil Dead" films — he seems less willing to really go crazy here — but he's having too much fun playing with his Hollywood budget to let it slow things down.

The Blu-ray edition features both the theatrical PG-13 version and the unrated director's cut, plus a digital copy of the film that can be downloaded to PC, iPod or other compatible players. The 13 production diaries and the rest of the Blu-ray exclusive supplements (trailers, news and the usual community chat functions) are BD-Live exclusive. That makes sense for the interactive supplements but it leaves anyone without a BD-Live enabled player (which is a sizable percentage of the Blu-ray audience) unable to see the production featurettes that are included on the regular DVD, and that's bad engineering.