Drag Me to Hell, Director: Sam Raimi, Starring: Alison Lohman, Justin Long

It’s not often that you laugh as hard as you scream at a horror movie - Antiguan audiences have raised this to an art form - but that is the hallmark of an Evil Dead director that never takes himself too seriously, allowing the viewer to come along on a frenzied, fantastic vomit-inducing (not you, the folks in the movie) ride.

A small boy falls ill after stealing something from a gypsy. The worried parents take him to a witch doctor/seer who desperately fights the forces of evil trying to the save the boy from an angry demon intent on, well, dragging him to hell.

Years later, a mild-mannered female loans officer Christine (Lohman) is sweetly asked by an old woman, looking somewhere between the Wicked Witch of the North and a wizened tree stump, for yet another extension on her mortgage. Lohman’s tough-as-nails boss isn’t very sympathetic and doesn’t think she can handle tough calls. To test her mettle he dangles a plum promotion in front of her impossibly pert nose should she do the dirty work. But, it turns out the old woman is in fact a gypsy who does not take too kindly to being refused.

What do the two events have in common you ask? Well, a cursed button, a psychic who takes American Express, a talking goat, lots of projectile fluids, inkblot spirits who make lots and lots of noise and a few other things that go bump in the night. That’s the beauty of a Sam Raimi film where nothing is as it seems. It sounds ridiculous on paper but all comes together just nicely on film.

For Raimi fans that delight in the director’s insanely funny take on all things horror-related (Oh no! It’s the evil handkerchief!), they will not be disappointed. For everyone else, the same applies. The man is a master at scaring the bejeezus out of you in one gory, putrid fluid-filled moment, then have you twisted like a pretzel, laughing in disbelief at the craziness that ensues onscreen. A particular scene when Lohman’s calls innocently for her cat brought on one of the biggest audience responses. You’ll have to see for yourself what made it so uproaringly hilarious.

Oh yes, Christine’s boyfriend Clay (Long) doesn’t have much to do, but that’s okay, just when you think you have it all figured out, Raimi throws a spanner in the works and Clay’s importance to the plot becomes all too painfully clear.

4½ popcorns out of 5