'Drag Me' to the Set

A director returns to horror, an actress switches to screaming, and the goat is ready for his close-up on the set of Sam Raimi's 'Drag Me to Hell'

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By James Rocchi
Special to MSN Movies

On a sweltering day last June, I was part of a group of film journalists who stepped off the sun-scorched paths of the Fox lot in West Los Angeles and into the comforting darkness of a soundstage where Universal Pictures was shooting one of this summer's most anticipated horror films. Inside, a meticulously crafted set created the illusion of a moldering mansion owned by a psychic and seer. Actors gathered around a table to portray a last-chance mystic ritual performed to banish an angry sprit. A director who went from being a cheap, fast cult success to succeeding as a big-budget-blockbuster-building mogul guided the camera through spins and gyrations. An Oscar-nominated actress prepared to fight dark forces. A rising starlet whipped her head over her shoulder as the camera's gaze zoomed in on her.

And a goat waited, patiently, hitting its mark and only occasionally needing to be coaxed into position by its trainer.

It's the goat -- or, rather, goats, as from where I'm standing I can see not just the goat, but also his astonishingly convincing animatronic double -- that tells me "Drag Me to Hell" is a Sam Raimi film. The goat represents Raimi's trademark note of goofy good humor, his splash of strange silliness in the supernatural. Raimi made his name with gutsy, gory horror flicks like "The Evil Dead" and "Army of Darkness." Now, after a near-decade spent with Spider-Man, Raimi's back shooting a wild, whip-quick horror-comedy again, as Alison Lohman's eager-to-be-promoted bank teller proves she's management material by refusing an elderly customer an extension on her loan, and the customer retaliates with a supernatural, soul-destroying, unstoppable curse.

It's a long-standing piece of trivia that Raimi wears a suit to the set every day, in the mold of Alfred Hitchcock, so I made sure I put on an appropriate suit-and-tie combo for our visit. When Raimi came over to meet us, though, he was wearing a T-shirt and blazer, unshaven, relaxed and happy. Looking me up and down, he laughs: "I see one member of the press dressed appropriately." I can't tell if he's mocking me or complimenting me. But since he's the man who made "Army of Darkness" (and, with the "Spider-Man" films, enough money to bailout GM), I let it ride.

Instead, I ask Raimi about how the plot of "Drag Me to Hell" revolves around the loan and Lohman's anxiety about being promoted: "Do you find that horror works better when it's grafted in something real, like money? When it's not just a thing that goes bump in the night, but the bill that comes due in the morning?" Raimi throws a double take at my line of thought: "I'll say the fancy talk, not you!" Laughing, Raimi explains: "No, I don't have any think thoughts about it, honestly, like that. I don't know what works best in horror, but in this case, though, my brother [co-writer Ivan Raimi] and I wanted to write a story about a woman who, like in a lot of morality tales, has a choice to do good or evil, makes a sinful decision, and ends up paying the price for it -- or not, if she can escape."

And yet, I keep asking, there's got to be something under the scares and jolts, and "Drag Me to Hell" seems to have a lot more in common thematically with Raimi's underappreciated noir morality tale "A Simple Plan" than "The Evil Dead" or "Army of Darkness." He agrees that there's a little subtext going on beneath the gloss and gore of "Drag Me to Hell."

But he's also quick to deny he's out for anything more than thrills and spills: "I don't know that the 'Evil Dead' movies even have a theme, actually. ['Drag Me to Hell'] is a little more complex in some ways than the 'Evil Dead' movies, but the 'Evil Dead' movies were suspense and scares and gross-outs and trying to be fun and funny. This is trying to do the same thing, but we're also trying to base how it kicks off in a way that's ... I don't want to say 'a little more real-world' [than the 'Evil Dead' films], because, at the time, believe it or not, I was trying to make the beginning of those movies 'real.' All I can say is this is a PG-13 picture, so it's a little less assaultive than the 'Evil Dead' movies, which were unrated films. But I think I don't actually have any grander design, or thematic ideas, when making ['Drag Me to Hell'] versus the 'Evil Dead' movies. I'm really just after the same thing: Make a horror movie that people go to, that they laugh at, they think is suspenseful, they get excited about the action or excited by monster sequences, they get scared and go, 'Oh, gross!' and have those types of funhouse reactions. So it's a lower-brow goal that I really enjoy working at on this level, and for me it's a great weight off my shoulders."

When Lohman can step away from the tricky business of looking scared, she fills in the assembled press on her character: "I play Christine Brown. She's a loan officer, and she has to make this very fateful decision at her bank. This very elderly woman comes in and she wants an extension on her loan, and her house is foreclosing on her. In any normal situation I'd have given her the extension, but I want to get this promotion from my manager, and I choose not to give it to her, and she puts this curse on me. And so the whole rest of the movie I have to get rid of this evil spirit. For instance, we have a séance ..." Which is, of course, what we're filming today, as Raimi advises his actors on the level of supernatural activity they should respond to, whether it's a low creak or an all-out onslaught of supernatural forces he just refers to as a "freight train!" before the actors leap and lurch in its grip.

With the mortgage crisis unraveling in the news at the time, I note that you could say in some ways that "Drag Me to Hell," with its punished, haunted bank employee, is the feel-good movie of the year, and Lohman laughs. She's very much the presence you remember from her more dramatic films, but, when she's not looking behind her at the advancing camera with terror in her eyes for take after take, she seems relaxed and happy. I ask her about the difference between the broad action in "Drag Me to Hell" and her other work. Did she feel like she had to learn anything new, or unlearn certain instincts? Between the spinning camera, the two goats and the mood lighting, you can't help but think that this is a very different set than, say, "White Oleander" or "Where the Truth Lies."

Lohman shrugs it off: "What I really liked about the script and Sam's process is that it's not just a horror film, even though it is in that genre. It's primarily just a story of this regular, normal girl who's very happy in her life and is experiencing some really crazy things that are happening to her. But I like that it's based in the intricacies of these characters and I think that alone could be really good for the film. And then also, I love that (Raimi) brings a sense of humor to it, so it's not just a horror film. It has all these different elements and it's very layered."

But not, we hope, too many layers. Special effects master Greg Nicotero assures us there'll be plenty of gore and grisliness in "Drag Me to Hell," with a minimum of CGI. "[Raimi] said, 'Listen, this is back to traditional stuff ... I want to use animatronics and puppets and dummy heads. None of that CG stuff. Get that crazy crap out of here! This is going to be practical stuff!'" Nicotero's impression of Raimi is spot-on, and full of affection. "We were designing rotted corpses and demon makeup and possession makeup," the "practical stuff" Raimi wants. I asked Nicotero if computer-generated effects stalled research and development in the field of practical effects, and he was quick to suggest that wasn't the case at all: "If you talk to J.J. Abrams ['Star Trek'], or Christopher Nolan ['The Dark Knight'] or Sam you can see they want puppets and they want practical stuff you can interact with. ... In this instance Sam wanted to stick with the traditional prosthetics, like puppets."

Of course, the superbly crafted set doesn't hurt the realism either, and I asked actress Adriana Barraza, who plays the medium and seer Shaun San Dena, if stepping into a set this gorgeous helps her get into character. Through an interpreter, she agrees: "Yes, all the wardrobe, and every crew member, is a little part of this process. But for me, the most important thing is the construction inside. My own method is my fantasy ... My fantasy is my imagination because it's my imagination's child, and it allows me to play a lot." She's clearly having fun, and after her Oscar-nominated work as the tormented nanny in "Babel," casting out spirits probably seems like a holiday. I asked her if she's having fun, and the smile on her face requires no translation. "I am a really, really great reader of horror novels and horror movies, and they are my favorites. And to be able to be with Sam?" She's beaming, speaking so fast the translator can't keep up. "And since I was a child I saw many, many, many horror movies. I don't know -- maybe it's because I'm Mexican, because Latin American people grow up with many legends and many, many things, we grow up with [stories of bad spirits]. And to grow up and be able to imagine it and do things? It's really a lot of fun."

Just as excited is actor Dileep Rao, who plays Nehru-jacket-wearing fortune teller Rham Jas, the man who connects Lohman with Barraza's psychic heavy hitter. Rao explains how he collaborated with the production staff on everything from his character's costume to his accent. I note that it sounds to me like he got to make a lot of things up, and he smiles: "Yeah! The key thing about this is that there's a tremendous amount of collaboration, you get to make a lot of this up -- but it has to pass Sam, you know? He gives it the sniff test and either it's good or it isn't. And he's such a good collaborator, but he's also such a great leader in the way that you can sort of trust him to tell you when it is or isn't going to work. So I have a great deal of thanks for him for doing that. Yeah, we got to come up with a lot of the background and it makes it richer, you know? It makes it a much stronger character."

And when he's not guiding his actors through a burst of otherworldly energy or explaining to them what the demonically possessed livestock will be doing in the upcoming scene, Raimi's firm in stressing that "Drag Me to Hell" is a PG-13 picture with plenty of scares, but no gore; meanness, sure, but no brutality: "This is more of a more fun [movie]. I think like that, fun horror, and maybe I couldn't claim honestly that I'm going for the throat because there have been so many intense horror movies. And I wouldn't like to make that claim, I don't think it would be true. It's PG-13, I'm going for, like, somewhere in here." Raimi laughs as he indicates his torso, so I can't help myself, and ask him: "You're going for the pancreas?" Still laughing, Raimi agrees: "Yes!"

Are you excited for "Drag Me to Hell"? Write us at heymsn@microsoft.com

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James Rocchi's writings on film have appeared at Cinematical.com, Netflix.com, SFGate.com and in Mother Jones magazine.