Drag Me to Hell gets an incredible 93% at Rotten Tomatoes, and I'm not entirely sure why. It's a solid, spooky movie with plenty of gross-out moments but it's not anything particularly special. My review may be a bit colored by two things, however. The first problem was that the theater had the volume turned up so high that made me fear permanent damage to my hearing. (And like all scary movies, the sudden audio crash appears fairly often.) The second problem is that it has Justin Long in it. Guess what? He plays a floppy-haired sanctimonious hipster (boyfriend to the lead character). I suppose his character has some redeeming values (he sticks by his girlfriend even when his parents thinks she's beneath his station, yawn) but still his part has no real purpose and it's Justin Long. Honestly, if he simply cut his hair short or something it might keep me from disliking him so much.

Even though the movie is PG13, it has plenty of gross out moments. Sam Raimi, director of some of the best semi-tongue-in-cheek scary movies (e.g. Evil Dead series) as well as Spiderman, gets cringe-inducing scenes without needing to resort to decapitation or cutting someone's Achilles tendon. This isn't a spoof like Evil Dead, though, it's a horror movie and I certainly wouldn't want to bring anyone younger than a teenager to it. The strongest word is in the title (or "bitch" depending on your taste), there are off-screen killings, and there is a lot of... goo and mucus shall we say.

If looking for a gory horror flick like Saw or Se7en, this will be much too tame for you. But it's pretty good and worth a matinee and certainly a rental.