Sam and Ivan Raimi, screenwriting/director duo of Evil Dead franchise fame, bring us a nice little treat for 2009. Even though this is a much more modern style movie, they do not let go of what they are good at. A classic cursed object, demonic possession, 80's gore styled masterpiece. I'm honestly more surprised I waited so long to see it. Even the poster resembles an Evil Dead poster. It doesn't take me a lot to decide whether or not I want to watch something, because I truly have wasted so many hours of my life searching through garbage looking for hidden gems. I mean, any true horror fan also has. This is especially true in any 2000s and beyond horror films. This film isn't exactly a low budget, but I feel like Raimi tries his best to stay true to his style. Unfortunately, staying true to the style also means staying true to the structure of the story. Everything is sequenced. Every event happens in predicted order. It leaves very little room to be surprised by the storyline at least. We have our protagonist, Christine (Alison Lohman), who is a bank loan officer searching for a promotion. Her life is mostly predictable, quiet and mundane until she has a special visitor at the bank. A terrifying old woman visits to the bank to get a third extension on her mortgage so she doesn't lose her house. Sadly, Christine is trying to a promotion to Assistant Manager, and she wants to prove to her boss that she is able to make the difficult decisions. She denies this old decrepit, evil-eyed, and sharp clawed woman approval. The woman begs on her hands and knees and Christine still denies her. Then of course, all hell breaks loose.
There are two important things I feel in this situation. Firstly, to my general understanding it's not exactly her fault that the bank doesn't want to grant her another extension on her mortgage. Like, how could it possibly be entirely Christine's fault? It's policy everywhere, I imagine. Secondly, if you have ever seen a horror movie how on earth could you deny this terrifying woman a loan and not think you would suffer some sort of consequence? You don't deny someone who looks like that? She'll fucking kill you! She'll curse you! Duh. Hello! But poor little Christine didn't know what was coming for her obviously. After a series of terrifying events, Christine decides she wants her fortune read or something. Only to find out, of course, that she has been cursed. Shocker. Better yet, the woman cursed a button on her coat. A fucking button. So she has 3 days to decide what she's going to do. What I do like about this movie is that all the jump scares are timed almost exactly a second before you think they will happen. Usually with the build-up and soundtrack, you can almost count down to when something is going to jump in front of the screen. But this movie constantly catches you off guard. Now, it's obvious that Raimi wants to carry on with his lower budget effects, because they do not use a lot of makeup on 'ghosts/demons/etc'. Other than the old lady. She looks perfect. But all the other effects are like POP OUT EYEBALL, SPLURTING BLOOD, FLYING HANDKERCHIEF, HORROR VOMIT, BUGS! This isn't a complaint, this is something I do appreciate. Somehow with a more modern movie set, the cheesy effects still work.
One thing I don't enjoy is a lot of bad green screening. There are a lot of scenes like a graveyard entrance, or the outside of a house that are green-screened so poorly - when I feel like it's not that difficult to scout locations that simple. Also the demon in the movie "Lamia" looks an awful lot like Baphomet. Which I mean, a lot of demonic movies rip off. But I mean, it must piss off Satanists everywhere. Lamia, in Greek mythology, is actually more of a serpent-woman and less of a hooved/goat-like figure as depicted. We get a nice seance scene as all demonic possession movies should have, but I will continue to be critical for the rest of my life about them. Luckily they kept this one short and didn't over-do it on time or budget. I did enjoy this movie quite a bit. It's still no Evil Dead but it's hard to out do yourself when that's where you've started. Also, I love horror vomit. More horror vomit in every movie please.
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