Are You Sure They're Rated PG!?

Yea, I've finally managed to catch the movie I've been dying to watch. Although halfway through I felt a tinge of regret, I was glad I sat through this brilliant, funny and scary-like-hell movie.

Yep, I was intrigued, then frightened, then fell in love with Drag Me To Hell.

I give the movie:





Talk about extremes. Drag Me To Hell was touted as scary and funny, but I didn't expect it to be that scary and that funny. But oh well, who's complaining? Perhaps just some of us cowering in our seats during the movie. But that's the whole fun of it, isn't it? You get to have a near-heart attack, and then you get treated to some medicine called laughter.

Some of you might be surprise that Sam Raimi (the genius that brought us those genre-defining Spiderman movies) directed this. But what's more surprising is that Sam Raimi started off doing these genre-defining horror/comedy films (The Evil Dead Trilogy), which were what made him famous in the first place.

Drag kick-started with an unsuccessful but shocking exorcism from the past, which laid the path for what was to come. In the present, our female protagonist's rejection of an old gypsy's appeal for an extension of her housing loan unleashed a curse upon herself. She is given 3 days - after which she would be dragged to hell for her misdeed.

Would an animal sacrifice appease the demon? Would an exorcism work? Can she get away from all the torment? Well, let's just say, Hell has no mercy. And the audience, as well, are in the mercy of this visionary director, who piles up the scares and gore (along with the laughs) with a well-crafted and suspenseful score.

And when I said this movie is not for the weak-of-heart, I do mean it. Don't be deceived by the PG rating (as of my next movie review below, but more on that later). Guys are bound to be pushed to the edge of their seats, notwithstanding the fact that we're trying to cover our eyes with our hands.

Although we do wish to escape from the theatre, the story is so intriguing everyone sits through it, all the way to the Hell-raising finale.

FINAL SAY: Utterly satisfying and wonderfully crafted spook/laugh flick. Not for the faint-hearted, though. But still, highly recommended.
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And next, the mind-numbingly painful Land of the Lost.
I give the movie:





The movie ad in The Straits Times reads: "Not for those without a sense of humour." If having a sense of humour means being incoherent, tasteless, and a bit retarded, then Land of the Lost is the movie for you!

Anyway, not being too mean, but this film is NOT a fun family film. Families who bring along their kids expecting something like last year's exciting Journey to the Centre of the Earth will be totally thrown off track, and till the end of this mess of a show, they still won't know what hit them.

An egoistic scientist (Will Farrell) manages to travel into a parallel dimention whereby the past collides with the future, which gives you a mixture of dinosaurs and ice cream parlours all rolled into one scene. And then there're those ugly, unfunny lizard-men. And a pervertic ape man who becomes the group's best friend. Don't get it? The movie doesn't care. Just watch it for slapstick after slapstick of crass humour.

How this movie was packaged to look like a family film but instead is laden with head-scratching sexual-references and managed to pass off with a PG rating is beyond my guess.

FINAL SAY: Intentionally tacky and unapologetically unserious, do not say you've not been warned, kids.
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Okay, so those were the two movies I watched in one day. One great, and the other one an utter waste of time and money.

Next post shall be mom's birthday and Yeewen's 21st.

Take care, peeps!