Drag Me to Hell (2009)

Sam Raimi’s finest fight scene might be a loan officer versus an elderly customer in a parking garage, settled mostly with office supplies. That’s the pitch for Drag Me to Hell: a curse movie that plays like a Three Stooges short with the lights off. The trouble is the hero. We’re supposed to root for Christine, but the movie keeps letting her be selfish, and one desperate choice involving her kitten is hard to come back from. Alison Lohman makes her panic very funny. Lorna Raver turns Mrs. Ganush into a modern horror icon, a tiny woman with a rattling cough and a grudge the size of a mortgage. Raimi aims every gross-out gag at your face, and a séance involving a goat is one of the strangest scenes a major studio ever paid for. It made $90.8 million worldwide on a reported $30M. A 7.3 because it’s a scary, silly blast with a hero who’s hard to love. $12.31 says the next time anyone asks you for an extension on anything, you say yes before they finish asking.

What works: Sam Raimi’s mix of scares and slapstick is perfectly timed, and Lorna Raver makes Mrs. Ganush one of the great modern horror villains.

What doesn’t: Christine is a hard hero to root for, and the gross-out gags keep coming long after they’ve stopped being surprising.

Who it’s for: Horror fans who like their scares with a side of slapstick and don’t mind a mean ending.