Editorials > Brothers Raimi Create Drag Me to Hell

More than fifteen years ago, Sam Raimi and his brother Ivan hashed out a screenplay called The Curse. Now that project may come to theaters under the title Drag Me to Hell. Variety describes it as a supernatural thriller closer to the director's genre roots than his recent Spider-man trilogy. But what does Sam Raimi call it? "Sam calls it a 'spook-a-blast'," says producer and longtime collaborator Rob Tapert. Describing the definition of spook-a-blast, he went on, "a wild ride with all the chills and spills that Evil Dead delivered, without relying on the excessive violence of that film."

"When one has done three very expensive movies, they get used to eating caviar. Sam will have to ponder what it means to come down from the mountaintop for a moment. The appeal to Sam on Drag Me to Hell was returning to what he had once done and loved doing, which was entertaining a very specific group of fans and providing a roller coaster ride for them. He doesn't have the enormous pressure here that goes with handling a hundreds of millions of dollars franchise."

Drag Me to Hell will be the first film Raimi directs under his own production company Ghost House, which has produced a number of horror thrillers such as The Grudge, The Grudge 2, and 30 Days of Night. The film is a "morality tale about the unwitting recipient of a supernatural curse." Production will begin early next year.

You can't blame Raimi for wanting to get back to working on smaller affairs after the backlash Spider-man 3 received. That said, I wouldn't view this so much as a retreat as it is a regrouping. It'll be good for Raimi to get some perspective and get back to his roots by working on a film he wrote when he was a much younger man. A man who probably wouldn't turn Peter Parker into an emo John Travolta.

-David Morgan