Against all the craziness that any decent ghost story conjures up, there has to be the rational voice. In "Drag Me," it comes from the Mac guy, Justin Long, who I'm sure will one day have a role that will turn his Apple ad stint into nothing more than a footnote, but this won't be it.
As the very proper professor Clay Dalton, Long is torn between what he knows is reality and his increasingly delusional girlfriend's belief that she's got just a few days to fend off the devil who's nipping at her heels. Clay doesn't have what it takes to fight off demons anyway, assuming he even believed in them, but he's a good boyfriend, willing to humor Christine even when he thinks she's completely lost her mind.
In Mrs. Ganush, Raimi and Raver have created a horrific otherworldly fiend that can hold her own against the best of the Freddy Kruegers of the world. This is one woman who can roar (still, I do worry that given the slimy dentures, projectile vomiting and that really bad temper, Raver won't be doing lunch in town any time soon). Other evil forces are churned up by that angry curse and rise too; the particularly deadly dark spirit called Lamia is the one to worry about.
Though the film has echoes of Raimi's earlier and much loved "Evil Dead" series -- especially what he does with mischief-making, chill-inducing wind -- "Drag Me to Hell" should not be dismissed as yet another horror flick just for teens. The filmmakers have given us a 10-story winding staircase of psychological tension that is making very small circles near the end. Though Christine is technically the one doing the climbing, it's nearly impossible not to feel like she's dragging us right along with her, which is after all the point.
There are all manner of grisly things that Christine must deal with before it is finished, but it's really grisly-lite, nothing like the torture-porn of the "Hostel" series or the bodies-on-meat-hooks style of sadomasochism you find in "Hellraiser."
When Raimi says Lohman is in virtually every scene except the opening historical note, he's not exaggerating. In broad strokes, because you should experience the fear and loathing of the specifics for yourself, she must decide exactly how far she is willing to go to stay alive. There is one point that risks having sympathy turn to antipathy, and I'm betting that a contingent of the audience won't be able to get past it, but Lohman, with her strange blend of apple pie sweetness and business school pragmatism, is the right one for the job, making sure most of us stay on Christine's side.
