What with the coverage we have already given Drag Me To Hell in the run up to its release, it seems a little pointless to offer my official thoughts from Cannes in the usual manner, so instead you get this...
1. It's pure thorough-bred Raimi
If Spiderman was Raimi's Hollywood opus- the moment the fan-boy got big boots, Drag Me To Hell is the moment he returned to his true calling. Everything about this film screams Raimi, from the writing to the design of Mrs Ganush and the other various demonic presences. It's one for the fans who might have been turned off as the Spiderman films progressed, believing their God to be moving too far into irredeemably consumer-friendly territory. The best thing that can be said in that case is that Drag Me To Hell is what The Evil Dead Trilogy would have been (minus Bruce Campbell of course) had they been made after Spiderman, and that being the case, I now fully welcome the potential fourth edition to the series, since Raimi wont necessarily have to move so far away from the fondly-held low production quality of the originals...
2. It has the Evil Dead's gore with Hollywood money behind it
I've said it once already and I'll say it again- Drag Me To Hell is the film Raimi should have been making for the past ten years at least. As much as I admire his take on the Spiderman films, Raimi will forever be The Evil Dead creator, the guy who unashamedly beholds Bruce Campbell to be his muse and most importantly of all the man who gave us some of the best/worst movie gore in living memory. I live for the latex and fake blood of those films, and part of me trembled at the thought of it going Hollywood- but thankfully Raimi has kept true to his roots, retaining the authentic Evil Dead feel despite the additional production values that his status now pulls in. There are several full-on laugh-out-loud moments, usually surrounding Mrs Ganush's attacks on Alison Lohman's heroine, so you're never really sure whether you should be scared or falling about...
3. It's delightfully ludicrious
This being a Raimi picture it was bound to be the case, but there are some particular highlights in Drag Me To Hell: from the haunted handkerchief, through the gummy attempted bite (truly vile) to the soon to be legendary demonic possessed goat. Sheer silly perfection, but crucially still not really one for the nervous...
4. It's genuinely scary
And thankfully it doesnt really throw in unnecessary jumps to fill a thrill quota. It's a rare achievement indeed for a movie to be so comical and brash in some of its horror sequences yet still retain a thoroughly convincing creepiness throughout. The suspense might kill you, but the pay-offs will slay you.
5. It's Credit Crunch Vengeance
Come on! Alison Lohman plays a loan officer for a bank who gets cursed because she refuses to extend a loan for an old gypsy woman. What more of a timely allegory could we possibly want?! There is some perverse pleasure in imagining every banker having to go through the same ordeal- now, if we can just find a genuine gypsy with credit problems, with CCJs coming out of her romany tuckus, whose in arrears we might be able to get the ball rolling on Drag Me To Hell: The Reality Show.