Drag Me to Hell is the title of the new horror film by Sam Raimi who we know better as the director of the billion-dollar Spider-Man franchise. Here Raimi returns to his spoofy, cartoony horror roots of Evil Dead. The last time he walked this way was the scene in Spider-Man 2 where Doc Oc and his self-conscious limbs first gain consciousness in the OT and wreak bloody mayhem.

The best thing about sitting through Raimi's horror film is its unpretentiousness of not being run-of-the-mill. Drag Me to Hell eschews everything regularised in recent horror films. What we see now are films based on masked men with social and psychological problems haunting young women, or cutting them down in secluded locations. This or the draped-in-white begrudged sauntering lasses with long uneven black hair falling vertically down which Hollywood has imported from Japanese/Korean cinema.

Drag Me to Hell starts out a few years earlier than expected — at the gates of a vintage house where a family brings its son infected by the curse of a demon who drags people to hell. Cut to a few years later and Christine Brown (Alison Lohman), an amiable loan officer in a low-profile bank whose ambitions run as far as the next cubicle — the vacant office of assistant manager.

Christine's rival for the same office is the upstart and shining Stu Rubin (Reggie Lee), who's also a master of playing underhand tricks both in front of and behind Manager David Paymer. Christine's love interest is the equally everyday Clay Dalton (a likable Justin Long), who might be the guy every girl over 30 looks out for. And then comes the old Mrs Ganush, a salt-pepper haired old woman with the attire and accent of a gypsy, who pleas to Christine for an extension on her mortgage loan.

When Christine, in a moment of selfishness and corporate cunning (she does have an eye for the assistant manager's chair), rejects the old woman's loan, the sweet-natured woman turns misty-eyed (she only has one eye, her other one is a milky-eyed defect), drops down on her knees and turns anxious, resulting in a panicked call for security.

In the next scene the sweet Mrs Ganush turns into an old hag who lays in wait for Christine in her car, overpowers her and spews a curse on her in which a fabled goat-like demon drags people to hell. Post-attack she starts getting frequent house calls from the demon. When Christine visits her in-laws is one of the best scenes of the film and by the third or fourth attack Christine becomes Bruce Campbell (from the Evil Dead franchise) and begins combating the demonic avatars. For instance, when the dead Mrs Ganush attacks Christine in the store house, a strangled Christine cuts the rope of a suspended weight with her ice-skates' blades, which plop out the hag's eyes in a scene straight out of Looney Tunes.

The film's humorous departure from the norm is a typical Tales from the Crypt fodder. Good because Raimi has fun unfolding the screenplay with one side-splitting horror act jumping over the next, and is skilled to make even the most clichéd horror scenes credible.

Produced by Rob Tapert and Grant Curtis. Sam Raimi directs from the script by him and Ivan Raimi. Bob Murawski edits Peter Deming's cinematography and the musical score is by Christopher Young. Starring Alison Lohman, Justin Long, Lorna Raver, Dileep Rao, Adriana Barraza and David Paymer, Drag Me to Hell is a Ghost House Production released by Universal Pictures. It is rated PG-13, featuring slugfests, body ooze, fake dentures and flying eyeballs. Nothing young people can't digest.