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31 Days of Horror Movies - Day 10

 

We have officially crossed double digit entries and our PG-13 showcase continues with a modern cult classic that is both hilarious and spooky! If this is your post, here is the first entry of our "31 Days of Horror" Recommendations, including our gimmick for this frighteningly fun endeavor!

 

Day 10 - Drag Me to Hell

Our second Sam Raimi entry in the list and one that pushes the PG-13 limits to its grossest, yet deliriously entertaining, limits. Raimi's Drag Me to Hell is like a carnival of fun horror movie tropes wrapped in a story about the mortgage crisis and a morality tale about the power of greed. Drag me to Hell, complete with borderline Looney Tunes antics and Raimi's trademark sense of humor, is a return to form for Raimi after spending nearly 10 years in the Marvel world with Spider-Man. What makes Raimi's film so deliriously entertaining and wildly outrageous is that he takes the horror seriously but never forgets to have fun while doing it; basically its like being in a great funhouse of horrors with the director of Army of Darkness as your tour guide. Alison Lohman as Christine rises up to the challenge and delivers a completely committed performance that fits perfectly with the wacky tone that Raimi is shooting for with the film. What other movie is going to give you a story about a Romani woman wanting a loan extension for her house and then cursing the bank loan officer that denied her said extension with a truly frightening demon? The mix between horror and comedy is present throughout Drag Me to Hell in a way that might give uninitiated to Raimi's tone complete whiplash, but if you know what you're in for then this thing is a spooktacular blast. Lorna Raver, Justin Long (of Barbarian fame), Dileep Rao, and a scene-stealing David Paymer all know perfectly well what the tone of the film should be and more than deliver in spades. Featuring genuinely horrific and suspenseful sequences that showcase Raimi's ability to create tension, Drag Me to Hell also has absurd moments of dark comedy that would make The Three Stooges proud. In other words, a worthy successor to Raimi's own 1987 transgressive classic, Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn. 


*All of the recommendations that we make can be found at the El Paso Public Library Catalog!

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