Sam Raimi masterminds a belated horror comeback. By CALEB STARRENBURG.

AT A TIME when the horror genre has been sullied by insipid ultra-violence (there were at last count five Saw sequels with another on the way) and soulless Japanese-Korean-Spanish (take your pick) remakes, Drag Me to Hell leaps of the screen like a precordial thump (that’s a carefully-aimed blow to a cardiac-arrest victim’s sternum to restart their heart).

Following commercial and critical success with the Spiderman franchise, Sam Raimi – director of The Evil Dead trilogy – returns to his first love, and in doing so gives the new arbiters of horror a lesson in filmmaking. The director is peerless in his ability to ratchet up the scare factor then explode it with camp-tastic humour, a feat he uses to full affect here.

Drag Me to Hell revels in its own lowbrow plot (co-written by Raimi’s older brother Ivan). Christine (Alison Lohman) is a kind hearted loan officer at a Californian bank. Eager to score a promotion she denies a mortgage extension to a lecherous gypsy with yellowed fingernails and glowering eyes. The aggrieved crone retaliates by placing a curse on Christine that threatens to drag her quite literally to hell. Despite its thinly veiled recession-era moralising, this is a film with a single-minded devotion to making you jump, then making you laugh.

The pic’s early set-piece in an underground carpark – in which projectile dentures and fountains of sputum meet combative stationary products – sets the tone for Drag Me to Hell. Only Raimi could make a chaotic tussle with a senior citizen so ridiculously entertaining. Later, in a scene involving an adorable kitten, the director demonstrates the mere suggestion of ghastly deeds can me more evocative than graphic sadism. His horror may make you squirm, but it’s never mean spirited.

If the idling vehicle of the opening carpark sequence brings to mind Steven Spielberg’s Duel, it’s because Drag Me to Hell is full of hat-tips to influential genre films – from the Jacques Tourneur classic Night of the Demon to John Carpenter’s Christine, this is a cinephile’s wet dream.

Lohman is a revelation in the role of archetype horror-heroine. We know she will go from saccharine-sweet to self-assured battler (with costume changes to match), the fun is watching her get there. Ellen Page was originally slated to appear in the film, but had to drop out. It’s hard to imagine her taking the old-woman phlegm punishment that’s dished out with such good grace. Lohman also displays great comic timing, particularly in a memorable meeting with her boyfriend’s (Justin Long) parents. And while the supporting cast perform ably – including Dileep Rao as the delightfully cynical mystic Rham Jas – they’re mostly there as scenery for Lohman to (not just figuratively) bounce off. And bounce she does. Frightening and funny in equal measure, Drag me to Hell might just be the medicine jaded horror fans have been waiting for.