Tag Archives: 2009 horror movies

Required Halloween Viewing: Drag Me To Hell (2009)

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A horror film from recent years that always seems to get lost in the shuffle for me is Sam Raimi’s 2009 triumphant return to the genre:  Drag Me To Hell.  It’s fun, a little twisted, has a few good jump scares, and there’s a possessed goat too.  How the hell could a movie with a possessed goat get lost in the shuffle???  I feel somewhat ashamed that I forget about this movie, so what better time to pull it off the shelf than on Halloween night this year.

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Drag Me To Hell, as I previously mentioned, was director Sam Raimi’s comeback horror movie that gave us all a combined feel of his Evil Dead trilogy.  Definitely tongue-in-cheek throughout, I was pretty surprised at how many times I jumped during the movie and loved how Raimi didn’t only go the slapstick route like he did in Army Of Darkness.

I liken the experience I had with Drag Me To Hell to how I felt the first time I saw The Cabin In The Woods.  Both were a breath of fresh air to the horror genre and both enjoyed moderate success as well.  So that’s it.  I’m ending my Drag Me To Hell drought this year on Halloween night and I might even get up and do a little Deadite dance as well.  My apologies to anyone around me at that time who has to witness that.

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Holy Shit Horror: ‘Are You Not The Babysitter?’ From ‘The House Of The Devil’ (2009)

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I love being startled by something unexpected in a horror movie.  It lets me know that I need to be kept on my toes and be ready for anything.  Kind of like when young Regan in The Exorcist was inappropriately banging herself with a crucifix.  Definitely a “Did that just really happen?” kind of moment.  In 2009, director Ti West gave us one of those moments in his fantastic slow-burn horror movie, The House Of The Devil.

I love this film, but it’s one that you have to be patient with.  And if you have the patience, you’ll be rewarded with scenes like the one where Megan (Greta Gerwig) is confronted by Victor Ulman (A.J. Bowen) as she tries to enjoy a cigarette while sitting in her car.  It will make you think of ducking if someone ever stops you and asks “Are you not the babysitter?”

Now there have been a lot of ‘gunshot to the head’ death scenes in horror movies over the years, but that one just might be my favorite.  Obviously you know that something is probably going to happen to Megan, but it’s the sheer suddenness of it all that puts this headshot on the top of the list for me and made me say “Holy shit!“.  Poor Megan.  She probably wishes she had stuck around and ate some more pizza instead of leaving and getting her nicotine fix. They sure do like pizza in this movie by the way.

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