Sam’s new horror film for 2009
Drag Me to Hell, a new horror picture opening in 2009 from Ghost House, was almost directed by someone else before Sam Raimi opted to take the helm himself.
“There was no [fourth] Spider-Man script ready, so there was a dramatic movie I intended on making,” Raimi tells us during a frenzied press line at the San Diego Comic-Con. “It was a really fine script based on a play.” That project was ultimately placed on hold. Raimi felt the script needed some very minor tweaking, but it could not be realistically completed with a WGA strike looming. “I then remembered there was a screenplay I had written with my brother, Ivan, that we had been trying to make with another director. We were unable to get the financing we needed – or I would have had to have made serious cuts to the script to bring it down to a agreeable budget level. Once we realized we were not going to make it with another director, we looked at this and I decided to give it a shot to do it myself.”
For his protagonist, Raimi turned to Alison Lohman to play Christine Brown, a young woman afflicted with a curse she can’t shake. “She’s from Missouri, and she’s now living in L.A. – has a great boyfriend, a great life,” Lohman explains. “She’s the shy, meek, quiet side. She meets this older woman at the bank who wants to get an extension on her loan. To get a promotion and impress the boss, I deny her that extension and from then on this woman puts this curse on me. She becomes this fighter and takes on this spirit that wants to kill her.” To get her in a heightened state of fear, Lohman says Raimi would “sometimes bang pots and pans to shock the actors. I would also watch a lot of horror movies to get myself in the mood since I don’t get scared that easily. It’s hard for me.”
Having wrapped less than a month ago, Raimi is now in post-production. He tells us the score will be provided by genre vet and Spider-Man 3 composer Christopher Young. “He’s so underrated and incredible.”
Keep it here for a full Drag Me to Hell set visit as we near the film’s May 29, 2009 release date!
Source: Ryan Rotten
