ROTTEN TOMATOES: Sam Raimi Wants to Drag Me to Hell

Sam Raimi Wants to Drag Me to Hell

A short break between mega-franchises?

by Jeff Giles | December 20, 2007

Over the past few months, we've talked a lot about Sam Raimi's busy schedule as a producer, but his directorial follow-up to Spider-Man 3 has remained a mystery -- until now, that is.

Variety reports that Raimi will step behind the cameras for Drag Me to Hell, a "supernatural thriller" co-written with his brother Ivan. The report describes the film as a "morality tale about the unwitting recipient of a supernatural curse," and says financing will be handled by Ghost House, the production company Raimi started with Rob Tapert and Mandate Pictures whose previous releases have included 30 Days of Night, The Grudge, and The Grudge 2.

Drag Me to Hell, which the Raimis wrote in the early '90s after finishing Army of Darkness, will be Ghost House's first Raimi-directed release. Tapert tells Variety:

"Sam calls it a 'spook-a-blast,' 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."

But only for a moment: Variety says Raimi's next order of business "is expected" to be a little picture called The Hobbit.

Source: Variety

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(1-20 of 26 posts) | Reply

RottenRob writes:
on Dec 20 2007 06:08 AM

Can I take this opportunity to anticipate the ripping that takes place every time the name Raimi comes up and be the first person to say once again that Spider-Man 3 didn't suck as much as almost everyone says? Can I?

Alright, I'm sorry. But I LIKED SPIDER-MAN 3!

I'm sorry. But I did.

By the way, Drag Me to Hell sounds good, too.

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Tollens writes:
on Dec 20 2007 06:35 AM

Yes! Drag me to Hell sounds awesome! It's the type of movie I've been waiting to see from him since his original come back.
p.s. Sorry man...Spider man 3 did suck. Just ask yourself this, if he did a 4th installment would you want it to look like 3, or 1 and 2? I rest my case.

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tomwaitsjr writes:
on Dec 20 2007 07:03 AM

Raimi better not do the #@($#$( Hobbit unless it's an R rated Spoof of Dildo Baggins, inc.

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bethehero7404 writes:
on Dec 20 2007 08:10 AM

Raimi couldn't handle the script of Spider-man, Goblin, Sandman and Venom and he wants to take on THE HOBBIT where a league of Dwarves take Bilbo to the Mountains to find a treasure? That over 7 characters. Greeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaat. As long as there's a decent script NOT written by his brother, then I'll go. Peter Jackson needs to helm this or have very strong creative input.

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blank blank writes:
on Dec 20 2007 08:12 AM

without the excessive violence of evil dead? that was the best part! cheesy gratuitious violence!

i hope doing all those 200 mil movies doesnt mean he has gone soft on us...

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kdbarrett writes:
on Dec 20 2007 09:19 AM

RottenRob: I agree that Spider-Man 3 didn't suck as much as many say it did. Granted, it had its problems, but overall I enjoyed it. Not as much as the first two, but I did enjoy it.
Tollens: Just because it was as good as the first two doesn't mean it sucked. There's some middle ground between "not as good as" and "sucked". At least for me.

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I Am Remote writes:
on Dec 20 2007 09:35 AM

Spider-Man 3 isn't the worst movie ever, but absolutely deserves the negative attention around it because the massive amount of money and hype surrounded by the Spider-Man series. And I know people liked the first two so much, but for me, 3 was the veil dropping on the trickery of this series. Covering extremely lazy writing, ridiculous plot holes, poor performances, irritating directing and "cash-cow" adaptations of characters and storylines with special effects is evident in all three films, mostly 2 and 3, which Ivan helped write (and Raimi thought was good). These movies are bad. Seriously. But everyone drinks the Kool-Aide. So it's not surprising to me that 3 has become a huge target. It's a long time coming.

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minderbinder writes:
on Dec 20 2007 10:07 AM

While I have to agree that Spidey 3 was a mess and a big disappointment, Raimi doesn't get all the blame for it.

The reason there were so many villians was because the corporate bosses insisted on it, and Venom specifically was an addition that happened fairly late in the process. Sure, the script should have been better, but there was a LOT of corporate meddling that kept Raimi from making what he had originally planned.

That said, there are many many little problems with the movie that could have been easily fixed with a little more rewriting. Raimi definitely dropped the ball on some things but other things were forced on him.

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scarh791 writes:
on Dec 20 2007 10:35 AM

Is anyone else disappointed that Evil Dead 4 is not his next film? I could have sworn he and Bruce said it would be.

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quietus28 writes:
on Dec 20 2007 11:31 AM

So much for those hopes of a decent Hobbit adaptation. Unless Raimi finds someone else to write it. And direct it.

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harrismonkey writes:
on Dec 20 2007 12:23 PM

Spider man 2 was great (I think everyone agrees), but am I the only one who really didn't care much for 1? Honestly I thought 3 was better than 1- but far from perfect.

The hobbit- he could maybe pull it off, but only jackson can be jackson. It won't be the same.

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DON OF THE D.E.D writes:
on Dec 20 2007 12:25 PM

You guys might not want put the blame on Raimi, but usually when you have something great and you follow it with complete garbage , people tend to blame everyone who was involved in the project, it's human nature. Speaking of human nature, I believe that Raimi should stick to his guns and do stuff like Evil dead and Army of Darkness, they were filled with cheese and great acting, oh and that guy Bruce Campbell too!

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badjokephil writes:
on Dec 20 2007 12:32 PM

Jezz, guys, I know I'm going to get hated for this but... BRUCE IS TOO OLD to play Ash again unless he plays Old Ash. (Like Bubba Ho-Tep). Please let Raimi do new stuff - anything called Drag Me To Hell is worth anticipating.

Okay, I'll tee off on Spidey 3: better action than Spidey 2 and the relationship stuff with MJ was much more interesting, but someone should have stepped in and told Sam that the Venom symbiote does not give you the power to play the FREAKIN PIANO!!

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quietus28 writes:
on Dec 20 2007 12:38 PM

In reply to this comment (#1379087)
I agree with you, Don. I thought the only Spider-man worth anything was #2. I thought the action in #1 was boring and the villain lame, and #3 is just too terrible to even begin.

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quietus28 writes:
on Dec 20 2007 12:39 PM

In reply to this comment (#1379096)
Sorry, i meant harrismonkey, not Don.

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walkingdead09 writes:
on Dec 20 2007 01:15 PM

I'd like to comment on this, as I have a spider-man tattoo on my back and basically have been obsessed with the character since I saw it, and follow everything from merch to the comic book.Hell I have a spider man shower curtian tooth brush, shower mat, trash can and i drink from a spider-man cup, I'm probably borderline gay for spiderman, so for me it's a no brainer if they put the spidey logo on a peice of **** i would like it, and i only tell you this to set up what i am going to say, b/c it pains me to say this as a fan. I saw the first spider man back to back 4 times in a row, not that this means, but Spider-Man three was awful and that's come from a fan.

Point in case when he wears the black suit he is supposed to be border line evil, meaning he is supposed to have an inner struggle between good and evil, he is more or less fighting with himself, in fact there is a great scene in the cartoon and comic in which he holds a bad guy over the ledge and is going to let the guy fall to his death, and debates it.

Now lets talk about the movie, when he was evil, he had an EMO hair cut and danced and women gave him dirty looks, when he gave them the wink and the gun. Not to the mention the opening scene with harry osborn the camera work is so bad i thought i was going to have a siezure. I could list others such as Eddie Brock was in his mid thirties and bigger b/c he works out to destory spider-man instead we got a skinny douche bag in topher grace(not a shot at his acting eddie brock was not cast right) Lest we not forget the sandman falls into a government testing site and the scientist says, "that must have been a bird" and they are testing at like 3 in the morning with no security, just bad bad bad. Bad writing insulting to the fullest. It's a bad movie, spider-man one was okay, two was great three was a bummer. That being said, i think Rami is good stuff and enjoy his movies, and the camera work he does.

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Mackey23 writes:
on Dec 20 2007 01:22 PM

...Oh Spider-Man 3 was awful. If you thought it was a good film and a successful way to end the trilogy, you are just plain wrong. I was absolutely appalled at how Raimi and Co. constructed the villains, Kirsten Dunst(who I HATE)SINGS numerous times, and I think we all remember Peter Parker DANCING like some EMO punk at a Fall Out Boy concert. SM3 is a prime example of a director totally dropping the ball while standing on a ridiculous sized budget. That movie was so bad that Raimi has completely lost all credibility with me, and many others.

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thesimulacra writes:
on Dec 20 2007 01:49 PM

walkingdead this one's for you: =D

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2002/05/06

There's really no point in going on about how "bad" Spider-Man 3 was or wasn't. It's not in the running to be put in the next space capsule as evidence to aliens of our species major accomplishments, it's not running for president, it's just another action movie which just so happens to be based on a popular comic book character. Like most people I was annoyed by the non sequitur singing and dancing scenes, and I don't think it was as good as Spidey 1 or 2. However going so far as to tell other people how to feel about the movie, or claiming that now Raimi has lost all credibility is just way over the top. He's still responsible for, let's see... Evil Dead, Evil Dead 2, Army of Darkness, Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2. So he botched the movie a little bit... big deal. Look at it this way - it could've been another Krull movie.

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Phell writes:
on Dec 20 2007 04:53 PM

Spider Man 3 was completely wretched, but I wouldn't want Raimi to touch the Hobbit even if he had never made SM3. Raimi gets progressively worse the more budget he has to work with. Spiderman 2 was a fluke, and really, that was just because it was better than we expected it would be, and even then, only ahead of it's cheesy core by a wafer thin margin. Taken with SM 1 & 3, we can see how he kind of got away with something in SM2, and SM2 is not what I'd hang my hat on to tout Raimi for this picture.

I'd be the first in line to see "Army of Darkness 2 (Evil Dead 4 ?) made for 25 million. An Uberbudget Hobbit a la Raimi will be a trainwreck. Let's just hope Weta can polish up whatever turd he ends up making, because it seems inevitable.

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wacko3205 writes:
on Dec 21 2007 06:00 AM

People kill me with all the Sam Raimi hate. Raimi's got a hell of a lot going for him as a director & has proven in the past to be able to handle a large cast & crew.

The Quick & the Dead is a good example as any...that & A Simple Plan.

Fantastic movies.

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