Drag Me to Hell

Drag Me to Hell (2009)

Director: Sam Raimi

Cast: Alison Lohman, Justin Long, Lorna Raver, Dileep Rao, David Paymer

I'm not a big fan of Sam Raimi's movies, even though Drag Me to Hell is one of my all-time favorite horror movies. It's the sort of movie I recommend to friends and family members, even ones who don't necessarily like horror,  and when I recommend it, I usually spout out Sam Raimi's name to establish their trust that a well-regarded filmmaker is behind it.

The other night, I returned home very late after attending a 4-hour opera at the Met (I know) with little time to kill before I managed 5 hours of sleep before work the next morning. I opened my browser to Hulu, since Hulu always delivers something engaging (I could go on and on about Hulu's excellent Criterion collection). I guess Hule was helping promote the release of the new Evil Dead remake because the first suggestion on the screen was Raimi's original. 

Now, I saw the original Evil Dead in college about a thousand years ago, most likely among a big group of people, as co-eds often do. I don't remember much about it except that everyone at the time considered it "campy fun", almost like something you have to watch for the hell of it. But when I watched Evil Dead again the other night, I absolutely detested it. So over-hyped! So slow to get going and so exploitative and silly once it's on the right track. The tree raping scene is horrendous and gross, and it's neither scary nor provocative; it exists solely for the sake of existing, which is a quality of cinema I hate more than anything.  The only good thing about Evil Dead is 1) it made me ponder the nature of horror remakes and 2) it reminded me of Cabin in the Woods, which is an awesome movie. Watching the Evil Dead became so tedious that I decided to clean my kitchen before bed (I'm cool like that).

But Drag Me to Hell is a different story. I first saw Drag Me to Hell while introducing my partner to my Uncle and Aunt who live very far away in San Antonio, along with their daughter and her new husband. You'd think this would be an awkward film choice for a long-distance family reunion, but on the contrary, it was the perfect choice. There is something very family-friendly and benign about this bloody horror morality tale; shockingly, something that perhaps all of us can enjoy. 

Christina Brown (a wonderful Alison Lohman, where are you now?) lives a normal, run of the mill life as a young woman trying to create her own piece of happiness and success as a loan officer at a run-of-the-mill bank. Her male boss (Davd Paymer) and kiss-ass co-worker boss her around, and like most of us, she sucks it up in hopes that it will pay off with a big promotion and subsequent respect. She is dating a super nice guy (Justin Long, who I loved in Jeepers Creepers), but his parents are bitches, and she overhears him on the phone with his mom, who criticizes her, only adding fuel to her desire to excel at work.  

So one day this old gypsy-esque woman named Mrs. Ganush (Lorna Raver) comes in requesting an extended loan to keep her house. If she isn't granted the loan, she will have no place to live, and she pleads with Christina to grant her an extension. Christina consults with her boss, who tells her "you make the call". Christina knows the morally right thing to do is give the old woman the loan, but in a single, split-minute decision (not unlike the many we take for granted day to day) she rejects the woman, who falls to her knees begging, and ultimately gets security to kick the old hag out of the office. 

It's not like the Ganush is some benevolent granny-figure; in fact, she's a ruthless bitch who violently attacks Christina in her car, steals a button off her coat, and curses her to a demon who will torment the poor girl for days until she is dragged off to hell. In this respect, Christina is an innocent woman who just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. But that's not quite the truth either. Ultimately, it was her decision to not do the charitable, morally right thing, something she acknowledges later. But for every bad decision, we must pay a price, in one way or another.

At the heart of Drag Me to Hell is the recognition that hidden beneath our mundane lives (and her life is certainly very mundane) is the possibility of grave and eternal consequences. Christina begins experiencing horrible demonic visions which increase in severity, including a grotesque nose-bleed at work, and culminating in her being thrashed around her house like a rag doll. She consults in an non-cliched psychic figure (the sleep-expert guy from Inception, played by a slightly miscast Dileep Rao) who informs her that the nature of the curse is in the form of a super-powerful and especially evil demon called the Lamia. At one point, Christina capriciously decides to stab her beloved kitten to death as a sacrifice, anything to keep the terrifying demon at bay. 

The film's best scene involves a dangerous seance held by a highly skilled medium, who dies in the process. We learn that the Lamia will not quit until Christina is dead. Her only choice (why didn't anyone tell her this to begin with?) is to transfer the cursed button to another person, damning them to hell in her place. Unfortunately for her, this is another moral dilemma. Who should she give it to? She almost gives it to her ass-kissing co-worker, until her conscience gets the best of her. In the end, she decides to visit the old gypsy woman's grave-site , and shoves the button in her corpse's mouth. She has made her decision, and its apparent benefit is two-fold: save her own soul and damn the soul that cursed her.

In the end, this fails as well, in a most clever manner (be careful on train platforms, folks) leaving the viewer with two blatant lessons to take away from this cautionary saga. Lesson One: we can not escape the consequences of our actions. In fact we can't even repent! Nothing can save us once we have chosen the wrong path. Lesson Two: Choosing revenge, like the revenge Christina chooses to enact against the Mrs. Ganush, never pays off. In fact, it only leads to false hope. Christina would have been better off just accepting her fate in the first place. She should have just hollered "Drag me to hell!" and been done with it.

And that my friends, is how you make a good horror film. 

A

Game of Thrones Season 3, Episode 2

Theon's reekification

Theon, you're back! So soon? Thought you had somewhere (hell) to be for two more seasons? Did your agent negotiate Season 3 into your GOT contact?

I didn't mind one bit. In fact, everything about Sunday's episode was pretty good! All the Stark children made new friends, which is exactly what they needed. The Brothers without Banners are perfectly cast and exactly how I remember them from the books! Who wouldn't want to accompany a scruffy group of vigilantes to vent about the war over brown bread and soup? The best way to get our gang moving is by shooting an arrow directly at Hotpie (sorry, Hotpie). Smart move on the writers to introduce characters that will turn things around for our heroine, Arya. Also, The Hound is back! And he outed Arya! That bastard. 

It's wonderful to see Bran hanging out with kids his own age. They have so much in common, like warging and dream-swapping. Also, does anyone else think that Jojen Reed looks a lot like Tate from American Horror Story? Someone in TV land should capitalize on this.

Brothers 

Back in King's Landing, Tyrion and Shae shared a pretty touching scene regarding his not-so-discreet feelings toward her. Please don't kill Shae, Tywin!  Joffrey is smack talking to his mum again and it's so not cool. How long is Cersei gonna put up with that crap? We'll find out soon enough. 

Also, the Queen of Thorns! What a boss. Admittedly, the Tyrell's are probably my least favorite house. All the Tyrell's come off as so pandering, ineffective, and conniving. But that's the point, isn't it? At least Lady Olenna tells it like it is. Should Sansa trust her? If the series has taught us anything, it's to trust no one.

Speaking of the Tyrell's, I have a bone to pick with the casting of Ser Loras. He's a freaking Knight! Would a Knight have these arms?

Not a Knight.

Finally, Jaime Lannister manages to outwit Brienne and instigates a sword fight on a bridge, not the smartest thing to do when there's a bounty out on your head. 

Alas, they are captured. Good job, dude. Overly zealous of him? Definitely. Maybe Jamie will learn an important lesson about arrogance. I hope the next episode will follow suit of the books and bring about a shocking and disturbing turn of events for Jaime.

If you're like me, you can't wait till Sunday. Breaking Bad Season 5 (again) will just have to occupy my TV schedule until then....

Take Shelter

Take Shelter (2011)

Director: Jeff Nichols

Cast: Michael Shannon, Jessica Chastain, Shea Whigham, Kathy Baker

Jeff Nichols's Take Shelter takes place in rural Ohio, and this is one of the first films I can recall that doesn't use a Midwestern milieu to cast a dour, pedantic commentary on an underrepresented population of the U.S. Instead, the film's setting sets an opposite example. Michael Shannon's family-man/construction worker Curtis lives an idyllic life consisting of a spacious home (for us New Yorkers anyway), a strong relationship with his co-workers, including BFF Dewart (Shea Whigham), and an abundance of plans for the future alongside supportive wife Samantha (Jessica Chastain). This pristine and virtuous life is precisely what makes Curtis's crumbling mental state and subsequent actions so tragic to witness.

The film opens with the first of several dream sequences, one in which Curtis, seemingly partaking in a normal routine, looks to the sky as an ominous presence looms close, and oil begins to rain from the sky. More dream sequences follow-- the family dog attacks Curtis, apocalyptic storm clouds hover above-- all of which point toward an ominous (literal) storm of catastrophic proportions. 

The film interchanges between dreams and reality without warning, having the tangible effect of allowing the viewer to experience them as Curtis does. Namely, the effect is that of being shuffled between the dreaming world and reality so suddenly, it becomes difficult to function in the latter without the former's effect casting a shadow.  As the film progresses, Curtis's supremely upsetting dreams become nightmares, and as his nightmares get worse, they begin to seep into his reality in the form of delusions, hearing thunder roll in the sky without cloud in sight. Predictably,  he soon finds it impossible to hide his waning sanity from his family and friends. 

All these evenly paced situations would remain fascinating even if the central character was a crudely drawn "every-man" to whom external events just happen. However, Curtis is more nuanced than the script requires; he approaches his predicament with fortitude and resolves to tackle the problem any way he can, even confiding in a counselor and visiting his Schizophrenic mother in a mental hospital for insight (a brief albeit memorable role played by Kathy Baker). His determination keeps us invested.  Likewise, his wife reacts understandably to his unfortunate affliction, often venting her frustration, but untypically supports him throughout, even playing the role of Father to Curtis' Prodigal Son, immediately embracing and forgiving him after a particularly traumatic outburst of psychosis at a community event.

After seeking help and being prescribed sedatives, Curtis transitions into a sort of fugue state of tranquility, and becomes determined to construct an elaborate storm shelter. It's as if the medication had an ironic, debilitating effect by shutting off his recognition of his psychosis, thus rendering him powerless against his illness.

The film functions on two levels. On one level, it's a fantastic drama of how mental illness destroys lives, how the sufferer transitions through the shameful stages of covering it up, willing it away, accepting it, seeking help, and finally (unfortunately) giving in.  In turn, Nichols wonderfully illuminates the isolation, fear, and anger over the injustice of such impermeable forces, and one's inability to exercise control over his or her mind. On another, dramatically different level, the movie functions as a quasi horror film by subtly hinting that these forces derive from some unseen source not limited to physiological dysfunction of the mind, but of an other worldliness. This second level is fleshed out in the final act of the film, as a real storm comes to town and Curtis's shelter becomes a perfectly calculated metaphor for our inability to shield ourselves from these forces.

My favorite scene from Take Shelter is when Curtis finally admits to his wife that he has been suffering from dementia. Shannon and Chastain's beautiful performances notwithstanding (Shannon clinches his jaw and evokes apology through his eyes as he struggles to come clean to his partner), Curtis explains away all ambiguity of the film's structure with the line, "it's about the feeling" when describing the palpable impact of his dreams.  In the film's most mesmerizing scenes, Curtis's "feelings", which were brilliantly displayed in the visuals of his dream sequences, are reincarnated in his waking life. 

The final apocalyptic scene through Chastain's perspective is literally impossible on earth and defies all logic. Could this be a metaphor of her understanding her husband's condition? Highly unlikely. Thus, the only ambiguous element remaining after the final frame is whether Curtis is still dreaming and will in fact never be able to escape his nightmares, or whether he will continue to fight against them.

A

Game of Thrones: Season 3, Episode 1

Not symbolic at all.

Over the next few months the internet will be buzzing with hundreds or even thousands of posts and articles on the third season of Game of Thrones. Some of these recaps will provide predictions for the rest of the season, while others will analyze the series in a post-modern light, offering socio-historical analysis on the many relationships and political structures of the show, and it will be very boring. It seems natural that I should partake in such activities if for no other reason than the fact that after watching the first season, I became so obsessed with Martin's epic that I spent the rest of the spring and summer reading all four books in succession, after which I eagerly anticipated the fifth book and second season and now the third season and soon the sixth book and so on.

Where to begin? I adored the first season and watched every episode probably about three times. My favorite features of that season are the characterizations, the clever ties that link all the characters together, and how the narrative constantly operates for what is best for the series, not what the audience wants, like the killing of Ned Stark. When I first saw Ned on that stage, I knew that he would lie to everyone about not being a traitor in order to protect his family, and I also knew and immediately predicted that Joffrey was going to execute him anyway because it would be the most sensible and tragic plot twist, one leading to war. In that final scene, Ned betrays his honor for the first and last time, by lying in claiming that he tried to usurp the throne. He does this for his family, but by betraying his honor for family, he paid the ultimate price. This scene also functions to ensure that the viewer does not expect who will live in die from then on, a constant threat throughout both the books and series (and of utmost importance in Season 3. Hint: everyone dies). The moment in the show when the execution sword came down, I was so upset I threw a book at the wall. 

The first season also features fantastic build ups and foreshadowing to war. Ned Stark watches from the doorway as Arya takes sword-fighting classes, his countenance growing worried as a training maneuver imitates rendering her dead; Tywin Lannister graphically skins a deer while revealing to Jaime Lannister his disapproval for his position as he insists Jaime act accordingly to uphold the family name; Catelyn Stark and Robb display genuine grief and vengeance ("Then we will kill them all") after learning of Ned's death. When you watch the first season again, you pick up on subtle and almost completely cryptic maneuvering on behalf of Varys and Petyr Baelish, who present themselves as the most knowledgeable characters with several cards up their sleeves. 

After Season 1 ended, I  picked up the second book because I couldn't wait to find out what happens to all our old friends. You can imagine how excited I was for the second season after reading the second book. Unfortunately, my expectations were too high, and I ended up despising the second season. Many parts that I found important and/or entertaining were rushed in that season, including one of my favorite parts from the book, a more lengthy scene Arya where frees Jaqen H'ghar and the two other prisoners while hearing the screaming of burning animals in a barn, after which her, Gendry, and Hotpie embark on a trek to Harrenhal. Entire scenes featuring Roose Bolton are gone, as well, and is Daenerys' disorienting trip outwitting warlocks in the House of the Undying. Much of the second book is cut from the series and yet I didn't find that the show made up for what was lost with more revealing character developments or incredible shots; instead Season 2 included useless sex scenes (Renly, Ser Loras, and Margaery) and an excruciatingly boring romance between Robb Stark and a nurse Lady who has no purpose being there (although we all know the consequences of their stupid affair). The Battle of Blackwater episode was the best part of the season, but rushed, and Tyrion's injury is not nearly as scarring (literally and figuratively) as it is in the book. To make everything worse, the production value seemed to be lacking.

I was so angry with the second season I almost forgot the show all together. However, I watched the entire season last week and appreciated it more after a second viewing. All of the Stannis's scenes are imaginative and interesting, and I love the Red Woman and Davos. The often-suspenseful conversations between Arya and Tywin set up both characters as central aggressors on opposite sides of the war. North of the Wall, Q'horan Halfhand and Ygritte are both perfectly cast. 

But onto Season 3...

I didn't expect to love last night's episode as much as I did. Mance Rayder is probably one of the best characters in the entire series. Daenarys' grown-up dragons and Astapor are better than I imagined, and the entire Unsullied scene was incredible and spot-on from the book. Davos' rescue and conversation with Salladhor Saan brought new light to Stannis' rise, despite seemingly insurmountable obstacles. I love Davos! Tyrion and Tywin's confrontation and brilliant dialogue set the stage for all subsequent encounters and their ongoing father/son rivalry. Lastly, Sansa's secretive relationship with Littlefinger's is sure to elude us until the very end. 

My only beef with last night's episode is with Margaery Tyrell, who is supposed to be genuinely good in the book but comes off as conniving and manipulative in the series. I'm already tired of Cersei's jealousy, but I can't wait to see what Jaime is up to. Oh, I also I appreciated the scene when Margaery slums it in Flea Bottom, because the Red Keep was feeling pretty claustrophobic to me, and its nice to see some dimension to King's Landing. I only have one final question left: Where is Theon? (Reek, Reek, it rhymes with freak.)

Very excited for next Sunday. Let's hope that Season 3 will be the best season yet!