QUICKary Review: When I see a horror movie is rated PG-13, I usually roll my eyes. Drag Me To Hell is the exception: it’s entertaining, fun and it *actually* made me jump.

Drag Me To Hell is unlike any recent horror/thriller because it’s actually good. Director Sam Raimi does an excellent job of delivering an unforgiving tale that can make an audience laugh one minute, then tense up the next.

The story follows Christine Brown (Alison Lohman), a loan officer who can’t get things to go her way. The parents of her boyfriend Clay (Justin Long) don’t think she’s good enough for him. At her job she wants the Assistant Manager position, but her boss tells her she isn’t aggressive enough and he also has another employee in mind for the promotion. To gain points with her boss, Christine rejects the request of an old woman trying to get a third extension on her mortgage. Feeling humiliated, the old woman puts a curse on Christine that will send her to hell in three days.

In the three days before Christine is supposed to go to hell, she’s tortured by a demon called Lamia. Instead of using blood and gore to entertain, Sam Raimi uses a mixture of sounds and camera angles to draw you into the suspense. The creeks and screeches in Drag Me To Hell are louder than you’ll hear in any other horror movie. The closeups and canted shots give you the sense that something could happen at any moment, even if it doesn’t.

What’s better than the suspense is Raimi’s ability to conjure up good scares. Don’t get me wrong, Drag Me To Hell has its share of predictably scary moments. However, there’s also times when you’re expecting a scare, then it comes out of nowhere. I have to admit I jumped a few times, but only a bit. Granted it wasn’t enough to make me go around telling people it’s a scary movie, but it was more than I would’ve ever expected. Who knew it was possible to make a PG-13 horror flick, if even a little bit, scary?

When Drag Me To Hell isn’t trying to scare you, it’s trying to make you laugh and it does so successfully. There’s a lot of unintentionally funny moments to go with the ones that were written in the script. What’s not to like about odd catfights, talking goats and projectile bodily fluids? The parts where they weren’t trying to be funny were more entertaining than some of the planned bits, but it’s just playing into the movie’s cheesiness. What’s also cheesy is the acting, which is expected, but Alison Lohman was oddly wooden acting as Christine. It felt forced and fake, but by the end it grew on me. Plus she’s awesome for agreeing to play a character who gets put through the ringer.

Drag Me To Hell is a must-see at the movies, if not to have fun watching poor Christine get tortured because she denied an old lady a loan, then to enjoy the reaction of everyone around you. Finally a horror movie worth watching in 2009, it’s this kind of cheesy entertainment that makes going to the movies worthwhile.

LoLz Factor: There’s just so many, and I’d feel bad if I spoiled the awesome LoLz from this movie. You’ll just have to check it out for yourself!

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