pumpktoberfest #17 - oh hell no!

film: drag me to hell
beer: weyerbacher imperial pumpkin ale

happy friday! happy october! HAPPY PUMPKTOBERFEST EVERYONE! after the overwhelming success of last year's pumpktoberfest revelry, where we showcased my top fifteen horror films alongside fifteen pumpkin beers, this year we're back with a whole new round of horror films, none of which i've seen before & a (mostly) brand new round of pumpkin beers! can you feel the PUMPKTOBERFEST EXCITEMENT? i sure as hell can. without further ado, let's get to it!

for my first film of the pumpktoberfest season, i watched pseudo-horror legend sam raimi's drag me to hell. raimi's best known for directing the evil dead films, but drag me to hell is his next film after directing the (BARF) spiderman films. it stars alison lohman as a loan officer named christine & features justin long as her boyfriend, david paymer (a dude who i swear i've seen in something but can't figure out what in his filmography it is) as her boss, dileep rao as a fortune teller & lorna raver as a creepy gypsy lady.

the film opens with a story-building scene from the past where a mexican family arrives at a house with a sick boy. they bring him into the house & after a spirit shoots around the house tormenting the boy, it throws all his family members around & tosses the boy off a balcony. he gets up & you think he's fine, but nope! a hand reaches through the floor & drags the boy to hell. once he's gone, one of his family members utters to the spirit, "we will meet again." foreshadowing!

the basic plot: christine (lohman) is a loan officer who's up for an open assistant manager position at a bank. one day a creepy old gypsy lady comes into the bank asking for an extension on her home loan but christine, in an attempt to impress her boss, turns the old lady down. in response, the old lady attacks her before being dragged out of the bank. that night, as christine's leaving the bank, the old lady attacks her again in the parking garage & after a HILARIOUS struggle rips a button off christine's jacket, puts a curse on it & gives it back to her. from that point on, christine's pretty much screwed.

shadowy spirits & voices start following her so one night she decides to visit a fortune teller & see if he can tell her what's going on. he gets spooked & supposes that she's cursed. eventually, after stuff gets crazier for christine & she starts seeing visions of the creepy old lady, the fortune teller confirms that she's cursed by a spirit that will torment her for three days before dragging her to hell. as a remedy, he suggests that she sacrifice an animal. her reply? what might be the best line of the film--"no way. i'm a vegetarian. i volunteer at the puppy shelter for christ sake." conflict! only after the spirit continues pestering her does she get over it & stab her kitty to death with a knife. when that doesn't work & the spirit persists, the fortune teller ups the ante & tells her she must pay a woman $10K to do a seance. the spirit's shenanigans are escalating, so of course she goes for it. does it work? i'm not going to spoil it for you, homes.

i haven't seen any of sam raimi's evil dead films, but i do know that his films are famous for high quantities of hilarious, gross out, borderline b-movie horror. drag me to hell is no exception. we're talking a bounty of projectile fluids, unorthodox weapons & corny lines. alison lohman is a cutie in the lead, lorna raver kicks ass as the creepy gypsy lady & justin long is uber sweet as the boyfriend. i'm not much of a justin long fan though. he's not as deplorable as zach braff, but still...luckily, his sweetness comes back to bite him in the ass in this film, which sort of makes it all okay. overall, it's one of the most fun horror movies i've seen in a while & after seeing it, i guess i'll have to watch the evil dead films. i hear they're ten times better.

whilst i watched the film, i had myself a bottle of weyerbacher imperial pumpkin ale, made by a brewer based in easton, pa who celebrated their 15th anniversary this year. i've had a few of their beers & reported on their old heathen imperial stout back in april of last year. overall, i've enjoyed what i've had. their imperial pumpkin ale is an august to november seasonal brew that their website refers to as both "a bold monument for the king of the pumpkins" & "the mother of all pumpkin ales." i guess what they're saying is that they're offering the pumpkin king a mother to appease him. based on his appearance on the front label, he looks like he could use a lady in his life, so that's cool.

the first thing i noticed when i opened the bottle was the smell. it's brewed with four spices (cinnamon, nutmeg, cardamom & cloves) that give off one heck of a spiced scent. it has a dark amber color to it & when poured into a glass it only had a very slight head that quickly faded. the beer supposedly has a ton of pumpkin in it, but it's sort of hard to tell with the spice explosion that accompanies it. that's not necessarily a bad thing though. it's a balance that works & i have to say it's one of the most flavorful pumpkin beers i've tried. in a world where many pumpkin beers are bland or horribly overspiced, i'll definitely be going back for more this pumpktoberfest season.