The 1990s were a pretty weak time for movies based on both video games and superhero comics. On the video game side, there were Super Mario Bros., Street Fighter and a couple of Mortal Kombat films. And on the superhero front, Batman acted out the law of diminishing returns. And that was about it. (I'm going to pretend Steel didn't exist.)

And then in the 2000s, CG visual effects caught up to the amazing superpowered spectacles that comics and games had led us to expect. In 2000, Bryan Singer, well-regarded director of The Usual Suspects, directed X-Men, which was a huge success. And the floodgates of superhero movies opened. Meanwhile, we got movies based on Tomb Raider, Final Fantasy, Resident Evil, and a ton of others.

But superhero movies have vastly outgrossed video-game movies, according to Box Office Mojo: $7.2 billion to $900 million. (And to be fair, the site lists 77 superhero films, and only 28 video-game films.) Not only that, but directors like Singer, Christopher Nolan, Sam Raimi, Jon Favreau and Ang Lee have been willing to venture into superhero films. By contrast, the most well-known video-game directors are people like Paul W.S. Anderson, and... Uwe Boll.

Why is this? There seem to be a few reasons. For one thing, many of the most successful video games haven't yet made the leap to movies. Neill Blomkamp's Halo film could have been the X-Men of video-game movies, but it fell apart. Ditto for Gore Verbinski's BioShock movie, which seems to have stalled out due to budgetary concerns.

And it's possible that translating video games to movies requires a higher level of CG mastery than translating comic books — the CG renditions of superhero comics just have to live up to our memories of 2-D pen-and-ink drawings. A live-action CG rendition of a video game, meanwhile, has to look cooler than the already impressive computer graphics most games serve up these days.

But also, movie adaptations of video-game films have generally employed the same kinds of story logic you used to see in the Joel Schumacher Batman films. Like, really — the Doom film, which featured evil alien parasites whose tongues could tell if you were genetically evil or not. Let me just repeat that: They had tongues that could genetically scan you and figure out if you were evil. No superhero movie in the past decade has shown that level of disrespect for the audience or the material. Sure, the Tomb Raider and Resident Evil films were a lot better — but even the mediocre superhero films showed a certain commitment to telling a semi-coherent story. Most comic-book heroes have decades of stories in the bank, however contradictory and full of holes, and the films have gotten slightly better about drawing on them.

But maybe the crux of it is that superhero films learned the difference between respect for the format, and respect for the characters. In some superhero films earlier in the decade, you saw some half-assed attempts at making "comic book panels" and captions on the screen — this was especially heinous in Ang Lee's Hulk. But as the decade went on, superhero films learned that the format wasn't what made these worlds awesome. Meanwhile, even as video games became more cinematic, the movies based on them haven't been able to distinguish between paying homage to video-game action, versus translating it to the different format.

But the other thing that becomes apparent, after you look at all of the superhero and video-game films of the past decade, is that the overall level of quality of both has been pretty bad. For every X-Men 2, Spider-Man or The Dark Knight, there are plenty of films like X-Men 3, Wolverine, Catwoman, Daredevil, and so on. Uwe Boll would have to work overtime and weekends to make a film half as bad as Catwoman. Superhero movies have won, in part, due to sheer quantity — if you generate a large enough mountain of crap, some good stuff will rise out of it. But also, a movie doesn't have to be good to make ten squillion quatloos.

But one thing's for sure: The House That Bryan Singer Built won't stand forever. Something's going to come along and knock superhero movies off their perch, establishing a new Hollywood feeding frenzy. Will it be video-game films? Maybe, if the ten video game movies that are in the pipeline actually get made, and achieve Dark Knight/Iron Man levels of success. It really only takes one movie to make half a billion dollars to turn on the firehose of copycats and sequels.

And even though Avatar isn't based on a video game, it's enough like a video game that if it has a strong enough second and third weekend, you could see the gears (of war) turning in the studio execs' heads. Avatar could turn out to be the movie that supercharged the video-game movie genre, since its strengths can so easily translate to recreating Dead Space or Bioshock. And of course if Tron Legacy does gangbusters next year, it could also provide a shot in the arm.

But right now, the up-and-coming genre seems to be toy movies instead. The two Transformers movies did superhero numbers, and appealed to a similar sense of nostalgia and escapism to superheroes. And there are tons and tons of toys out there waiting for their moment on the big screen — and unlike video-game companies, toy companies don't have any concerns about making sure the movies do justice to their existing stories. A toy movie doesn't have to tie in with existing continuity or jibe with the stories that have already told. A toy movie has one purpose only: To sell toys.

And that means toy movies can be dumber, and yet also more spectacular, than superhero films and video-game films combined. Just look at the Transformers films — they're so overstuffed and bloated with nonsense, they can barely move, but they have the power to spew crap for miles in all directions. And now there are films based on Monopoly, Battleship, Viewmaster, Stretch Armstrong, Battle Bots, and countless others on the way. Actual directors, like Ridley Scott (Monopoly) and Peter Berg (Battleship), are signing on to these projects.

Toy movies could well win out in the next decade, because the key to success will be casting the widest net for nostalgia among adults aged 18-49. Everybody feels vaguely nostalgic for Monopoly or Battleship — and it's just a matter of time before we get Steven Spielberg's Sorry! or David Lynch's Yahtzee. It's like the perfect combination: Everybody feels nostalgic, but nobody will complain that they got it wrong. How on Earth do you get a Yahtzee movie wrong?

It already seems like we're maxed out on superhero films, when Warner Bros. puts the kibosh on Superman and Wonder Woman movies and a Green Lantern film starring "it" boy Ryan Reynolds struggles to get made. If Marvel follows through on its plans to put out four movies a year, we could discover just how many superheroic origins the movie-going audience can stand. So maybe we'll see more of a blend of action/nostalgia pics, with films based on comics, toys, video games and other sources. Or maybe toy movies will just crush every other film genre, until there's nothing but massive CG recreations of your old plastic playthings, as far as the eye can see.

IESB is reporting that production on Spider-Man 4 (known internally as SPIDER-M4N) halted indefinitely last Thursday and won't start up again until Raimi and the Sony Picture executives come to some agreements. It seems that the script remains unfinished because the parties can't come to an agreement on the villain.

According to someone working on the production, Raimi is campaigning for the Vulture as the fourth movie's villain, while Sony doesn't think the Vulture will sell tickets. Perhaps this explains some of the conflicting villain rumors we've been hearing. Word is there's a lot of anger coming from the production camp, but filming can't move forward until decisions are made and the script is fleshed out.

Update: MTV talked to a studio rep who is denying IESB's report, saying the only shutdown going on is a planned shutdown for the holidays. The rep goes on to say that, while the script is still being worked on, it's standard pre-principal photography tinkering.

SPIDER-MAN 4 Production on Indefinite Hold [IESB]

Movieline is reporting that if all negotiations go as planned, John Malkovich will be playing the bald and pissed off Vulture in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 4. All right, fine, another bad guy in the mix. But wait they're not done yet. According to the site, Anne Hathaway is not in negotiations to be the Black Cat, as we'd previously heard. Instead it's much, much worse.

The 27-year-old actress is currently the top choice for Felicia Hardy, who'd been long-rumored as one of the new characters in this installment. (Other names bandied about for the role included Julia Stiles, Rachel McAdams, and Romola Garai.) However, unlike in the comic books, this Felicia Hardy doesn't transform into the Black Cat. Instead, Raimi's Felicia will become a brand-new superpowered figure called the Vulturess.

Well, I think it's safe to say "no thanks," to that idea. While we like the idea of getting Anne Hathaway in a comic book movie, turning the Felicia Hardy character into the Vulture's distaff counterpart is a sacrifice we're just not willing to take. But take solace in this fact, it's still merely a rumor at this point. And the rumors for this film have been spreading like untamed symbiotes.

FilmJunk reports that a story in Uruguayan newspaper El Pais says that Alvarez has signed on to direct a $30-40 million movie that may or may not be based on Panic Attack, to be produced by Raimi. According to the story, Raimi would "shield" Alvarez from business concerns, allowing him to concentrate on the movie, a la Jackson and Blomkamp on D9. Is this the new model for young filmmakers breaking into the industry, or Raimi wanting to see if D9's success is repeatable?

Sam Raimi Signs Panic Attack! Director for Sci-Fi Feature Film Debut [FilmJunk]

Nikki Finke, who actually has pretty reliable sources, is playing the "I know who the Black Cat is" game. First it was Rachel McAdams, then Romola Garai, and earlier this week Julia Stiles was thrown into the mix. But now Finke is claiming that Anne Hathaway has been approached for a role in Spider-Man 4.

While Sony Pictures insists no decisions have been made, sources tell me that the producers have approached Anne Hathaway to star in the film.

At least it's a step forward from reports of "auditioning". But maybe we can start a rumor next that Kristen Bell is up for the role? Because she would be actually, you know, good as Black Cat?

Note: This is not intended to be an exhaustive list, just a rundown of the eras in horror comedy. Feel free to suggest titles, or whole epochs, that we may have missed out.

The 1920s stage plays

In the 1920s, playwrights decided to spice up their stage plays by adding more horror elements, creating silly haunted-house and monster stories like The Bat, The Cat & The Canary and The Gorilla. Some of these, like Canary, got adapted to silent movies. The 1925 Lon Chaney film The Monster also features a comic-relief character, but isn't really a full-fledged comedy.

Abbott And Costello And Laurel And Hardy And So On

In many ways, the 1930s and 1940s were the heyday of the "clean" horror comedy, which featured monsters without any real gore or violence. Laurel And Hardy did A Live Ghost in 1934, the haunted-house movie The Laurel-Hardy Murder Case in 1930 and A-Haunting We Will Go in 1942. The Three Stooges also dabbled in horror-comedy with short films like 1943's Spooks!. And then going into the 1940s, Abbott and Costello, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, and Bob Hope, among others, brought the genre to new prominence. There's also the hilariously titled Zombies On Broadway. Let's put on a show!

1960s Anarchy

The 1960s saw a slew of trippy novels, movies and TV shows in which horror elements often jostled with comedic ones — several of Peter Sellers' 1960s comedies often veer into horror at odd moments. At the same time, monster sitcoms like The Munsters and The Addams Family ruled television with their zany portrayals of monsters who were just like us — almost. This was also the era that gave the start of the long-running Scooby Doo cartoons, and a slew of cute/funny images of monsters, from the Frankenberry cereal to the Count on Sesame Street.

Self-Aware Campiness

Susan Sontag published her famous essay on "camp" in 1964, but the 1970s really backed up the camp truck to our door, and dumped a load of glitter on our front steps. Horror comedy was no exception, with Vincent Price starring in two mega-campy Dr. Phibes movies, and other over-the-top horror films like Please Don't Eat My Mother and Attack Of The Killer Tomatoes taking over cinemas. Most of all, Rocky Horror Picture Show became a defining movie for a whole ripped-fishnets-sporting generation.

The self-aware horror spoof genre took off way more in the early 1980s, with movies like Creepshow mocking the genre's cliches. And in general, the horror-comedy movie genre really came into its own in the 1980s, diversifying into a bunch of thriving sub-genres.

Ghostbusters, Gremlins and more

1984 saw the release of both Ghostbusters and Gremlins, sparking a new onslaught of cute/scary monsters and ghosts, including four (!) Critters movies. I'd also put 1986's Little Shop Of Horrors and Haunted Honeymoon into this category: wide-eyed protagonists coming face-to-tentacle with weird, slimy or fluffy-but-nasty creatures. According to Box Office Mojo, both Ghostbusters films and the first Gremlins occupy three out of the top four best-selling horror comedy slots of all time.

Troma comedies in the 1980s and beyond

Troma deserves its own category, for its sheer volume of output if for no other reason. Although it's best known for the Toxic Avenger films and Surf Nazis Must Die, there are just so many weird, over-the-top and just plain wrong Troma films out there, you could fill a bookshelf with the DVDs. And really, Troma is just the tip of the iceberg of a slew of direct-to-VHS and direct-to-DVD movies that we've seen in the past 20 years ago, with a ton of cult auteurs pushing the boundary between scary and funny.

1980s Werewolf/Vampire Humor

Teen Wolf (1985), An American Werewolf In London (1981), Fright Night (1985), Mr. Vampire (1985), Once Bitten (1985), Vamp (1986) and Love At First Bite (1979) were just some of the cocaine-fueled laughs at Universal monsters. Here's a photo of Grace Jones at a vampire strip club, from Vamp.

Body Horror/Comedy

The Reanimator films and Brian Yuzna's Society, among others, take the David Cronenberg trope of the human body being transformed into something gooey, icky or disturbingly awful, and they find the silliness and subversive humor that lurks just behind that, with gore, decapitated limbs still moving and lots of oozing goop all providing opportunities for slapstick and discomfort. The 1980s were also the heydey of Frank Hennenlotter's over-the-top violence and bodily destruction, in films like Basket Case. I'd also stick Peter Jackson's Dead/Alive into this category. In many ways, this genre has been the gift that keeps on giving, as evidenced by the awesomeness of 2006's Slither.

The Rise Of Sam Raimi

Classic Sam Raimi films deserve their own category, especially the Evil Dead films and Army Of Darkness. Bruce Campbell in his prime, rocking the chainsaw hand, against the legions of dead. Good times.

Christopher Moore

No discussion of horror-comedy would be complete without mentioning the 1990s and 2000s novels of Christopher Moore, especially his vampire classics Bloodsucking Fiends: A Love Story, You Suck: A Love Story, and Bite Me: A Love Story, plus his zombie Christmas tale The Stupidest Angel: A Heartwarming Tale Of Christmas Horror.

Creature Features

Tremors (1990), Arachnophobia (1990), Lake Placid (1999) and Eight-Legged Freaks (2002) were just some of the slew of tongue-in-cheek monster-rampage films that came out in the 1990s and early 2000s. My fave is probably Lake Placid, just for the amazingly deadpan performances by Bill Paxton and Betty White, among others.

Buffy Etc.

Joss Whedon's Buffy empire, including a movie and two television series, pretty much deserves its own category, and it came along with a slew of other TV shows and books featuring (frequently female) heroines facing tongue-in-cheek magical/horrific threats, including Charmed and Xena: Warrior Princess.

The Chucky and Leprechaun Films

I have no idea where those fit in, so I'm putting them here. These are like the silly counterparts to the already quite silly Jason Voorhees and Freddie Krueger films. Chucky is a weird doll that comes to life and attacks people (I guess — I've only read a comic-book adaptation) and there have been a million films about a silly leprechaun going around disemboweling people and controlling their minds. And rapping. And dancing.

Horror Spoofs

The Scream films in the late 1990s jumpstarted the slasher-movie genre with their knowing humor and sly horror-movie references. And then with the release of Scary Movie in 2000, the floodgates opened. There have been a ton of horror spoofs, many of them with the word "Movie" at the end of their titles. Plus the upcoming Transylmania, which exactly one person is excited about. (And we know where you live.)

Zombie Rom-Coms

Shaun Of The Dead, Planet Terror, Jennifer's Body and Zombieland all, to some extent, use the reanimated dead as a backdrop for character-focused comedies. (Okay, so the rom-com thing in the subhed is stretching it slightly — they don't all feature love stories, exactly. But some of them do.) Zombie comedies that are less character-focused include the Nazi epic Dead Snow, the zombie slave masterpiece Fido, the zombie sheep masterpiece Black Sheep and the incredibly nasty Zombie Strippers. Plus Bruce La Bruce's Otto, Or Up With The Dead People. Oh, and there's also last year's Poultrygeist: Night Of The Chicken Dead. No, really. There's also Jon Heder's webseries Woke Up Dead.

Meanwhile, in the world of books, many people see Max Brooks' Zombie Survival Guide as humorous, rather than as the indispensible handbook it is. There have also been a decent number of funny zombie books, including Breathers: A Zombie Lament by S.G. Browne, the mash-up Pride And Prejudice And Zombies, and several others.

Not entirely sure how it fits in, but horror spoof John Dies At The End, by Cracked.com editor Jason Pargin (under a pseudonym) is selling like hotcakes on Amazon.

Sources include Wikipedia, BoxOfficeMojo, IMDB, Scared Silly and the book Laughing Screaming: Modern Hollywood Horror & Comedy by William Paul.

Additional reporting by Mary Ratliff.

Last night, at a screening for his new movie Trick 'r Treat, Baker confirmed that he would be returning to the franchise as Empire State University's Curt Connors — and perhaps the Lizard as well? When his Trick 'r Treat co-star Michael Dougherty teased that Baker's role in the fourth movie would consist of him hanging around in the background, to which Baker replied (perhaps jokingly) that he'd basically be doing just that. Dougherty lamented it would be a "cocktease for another year."

When asked about Spider-Man 4's possible villains, Sam Raimi mentioned that he's a fan of the Lizard. But it's possible that he'll hold off on the Lizard until the fifth and sixth films, which will reportedly follow a single storyline.

Dylan Baker Confirmed For Spider-Man 4 [UGO Movie Blog]

Talking to MTV, Raimi confirmed what Campbell himself had told Access Hollywood last month:

I promised him we would write something because I really love putting him in the pictures... I promised him a good, meaty role.

Don't go assuming that this means that those Mysterio (or, for those enjoying the "All of Campbell's earlier cameos are the same person" idea, the Chameleon) rumors are true, though, because Raimi also admitted, "I don't even know what [the role] is yet." We're pulling for an unlikely time travel twist that will show Campbell as an older Peter Parker, just because we'd love to see he and Maguire try and ape each other for ninety minutes.

Sam Raimi Confirms Bruce Campbell Will Have 'Meaty Role' In 'Spider-Man 4' [MTV Splash Page]

In an interview with print magazine DVD & Blu-ray Review, Raimi said,

I think having so many villains detracted from the experience. I would agree with the criticism... I think [with Drag Me To Hell] I've learned about the importance of getting to the point and the importance of having limitations, and I'm hoping to take that into a production where I'm actually allowed to explore with more of the tools to pull it off with a little more splendor. I hope I don't lose that edge that I've just found. That would be my approach to Spider-Man 4: to get back to the basics.

If this means one villain per movie (and, hopefully, less alien entities pretending to be clothes), then we're entirely on board with this new, leaner and meaner Spider-Man being promised.

Sam Raimi promises Spider-Man 4 will 'get back to basics' [Coventry Telegraph]

Talking to MTV, Raimi said,

We're hoping that it's the first week in March... The production is starting to come together. I've got a production designer who is starting to design the sets and the environments that the picture will take place in. We just brought aboard Scott Stokdyk as one of the two visual effects supervisors, and I worked with him on all three 'Spider-Man' pictures.

Even with all this activity, though, it's too early to start playing the "Guess The Bad-Guy" game. Future Venom director Gary Ross is still working on the script and, according to Raimi, there's been no decision about who'll fill the villainous outfits yet:

None of the casting has really taken place, but we're starting to think about that now.

Spider-Man 4 has been scheduled for release May 6th 2011.

Sam Raimi Hopes To Start Shooting 'Spider-Man 4' In March 2010 [MTV Splash Page]

Hollywood Reporter states that the plot, "centers on a remote town terrorized by a Yeti, the mythological creature native to the mountains of the Himalayas." Raimi is set to produce while screenwriter Tom De Ville is pounding out the script that came from director Corin Hardy's original pitch.

We're excited about the rise of Yeti horror — the simple image of blood on snow and white fur can go a long way in the hands of a horror auteur like Raimi.

After yesterday's list of sequels that don't suck — and I still cling to RoboCop 2, although maybe I should watch it again — people asked for a list of threequels that do suck. Which seemed kind of pointless, because that would be the same as a complete list of threequels. Search For Spock? Sucked. Return Of The Jedi? Blew. Spider-Man 3? Superman III? RoboCop 3? X-Men 3? It's making my head pound just to list them. Alien³?

In the non-"this movie is melting my pituitary gland" category, there's... Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade. Which isn't science fiction, and for my money isn't quite as good as Raiders. But it's way better than Temple Of Doom. There are also some movies with numbers higher than three that were decent, like Star Treks IV and VI.

So why are so many "threequels" so horrifyingly bad? Here are some possible explanations.

There's no ready-made formula.

Talking to Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman about Transformers 2 drove something home for me: there's a standard formula for the second movie in the series, just like there is for the first. In the first movie, the young hero discovers his (usually his) heroic destiny and learns from a father figure, who frequently dies or transcends somehow. In the second movie, the hero rejects his heroic mission and tries to return to a normal life — just like Superman in Superman II, Spidey in Spider-Man II and Sam in Transformers 2. Even in Star Trek II, you could argue that Kirk is questioning whether he's too old to keep adventuring.

But what happens in the third movie? Uhh... The hero gets a new hairstyle? There are more bad guys than before? What? There's no road map.

Studio interference.

Sam Raimi blames Sony for the disaster that was Spider-Man 3, and I sort of believe him. Once a movie series becomes cash-cowy enough for the studio to want to do a third go-around, I guess the suits get a bit antsy. They start insisting on shoe-horning Venom into a movie where he and his giant alien tongue just don't belong. Or they demand random rewrites of a perfectly good script, or weird stunt casting. (Hello, Richard Pryor!) The same execs who might have been willing to let a film-maker have a long leash the first couple times start tugging at that leash more, and choking the director and writers, because there's more at stake.

Just google the phrases "third movie" and "studio interference", and you'll see what I mean. Terminator 3, Alien3, X-Men 3... all blamed on studio bigshots stepping in and meddling.

Creative attrition.

Sam Raimi's presence on Spider-Man 3 was, in itself, an aberration. Normally, after directing two awesome movies in a series, someone like Raimi would have stepped out to do a serious Nazi epic or cop drama, leaving Spider-Man in the hands of Brett Ratner or Joel Schumacher. I'm actually not the world's biggest fan of Tim Burton's first two Bat-films, but compared to the Schumacher films that followed, Batman and Batman Returns look like Citizen Kane and Citizen Kane's Big Score. (Now I'm picturing Citizen Kane In Africa — sorry, in-joke.)

For some reason, very few writers and directors are willing to stick around for a third ride on the blockbuster-mobile, even if they're up for a second.

Creative exhaustion.

And even if any of the original creative team do come along, it's entirely possible to get a bit burned out after spending years of your life working on one saga. (It's probably a different matter if you're filming a trilogy all in one go, like Lord Of The Rings.) As much as any studio nonsense, I'm willing to bet that Sam Raimi's Spider-fatigue was a big reason for Spider-Man 3's problems. Raimi needed to go work on a smaller, less mainstream project, like Drag Me To Hell. (And here's hoping that his return to low-budget horror has cleansed his palate a bit, so he can come back to Peter Parker with a fresh eye.

And finally, there's always...

Problems in the source material.

A lot of these big movie series are based on comic books, television shows and older movies, which started out with a clear premise and a simple format: a guy dresses up as a bat and fights crime with the aid of fantastical tech. A guy gets bitten by a spider and gains fantastica powers, which he uses to fight crime. Etc. etc. So if your first movie is based on the early issues of the comic, or the early episodes of the TV show, you're golden. But the longer the source material goes on, the more convoluted and confusing it gets. The guy who dresses as a bat teams up with a circus acrobat and a girl librarian, plus he's got an imp from another dimension following him around, and so on. The more simple and pure the concept starts out, the more confusing and ridiculous it gets. So if a movie series tries to stick to the original, it'll run into similar problems the longer it goes on.

That's one huge problem with X-Men 3, for example — the need to include cameos from dozens of random X-people who were big in the 1980s and 1990s. Ditto with Venom in Spider-Man 3, and Robin and Batgirl in the Schumacher Bat-scursions. It doesn't really excuse those films' wretchness, but it's really true that the longer a serial goes on, the more baggage it tends to accrue. Movie-makers have be very careful to avoid shouldering that baggage as well.

Way back when the mere idea for a new Star Trek film couldn't find a home, director Sam Raimi was offered the movie, and he declined. We have no idea why he passed, but I'm really curious just how colorful and weird a Raimi Star Trek would be. I'm willing to bet the bridge alone would have been entirely different.

And in other Star Trek news, rumors have been circulating that JJ Abrams wants Jack Black to play the rapscallion Harcourt Fenton Mudd in his second Trek movie.

Abrams refuted the rumor over at AICN writing:

"Yes, talking to Jack Black about doing something — but not Mudd." Abrams and revealed that, "Bryan, Damon, Alex and Bob and I have not had MEETING ONE about a sequel."

While we like Jack Black here and there, we're awfully relieved — because we just don't think he could have pulled it off.

Before emo Spidey, Raimi created the Evil Dead trilogy, as well as Darkman. Whatever you may think of Spider-Man 3, you can't deny that Raimi has cred as a B-movie maker of the highest order. And with Drag Me To Hell, Raimi proves he can still deliver the down-and-dirty with the best of 'em.

The story is pretty simple. Christine (a great, deadpan Alison Lohman) is a loan officer at a bank who wants desperately to get an assistant manager position and escape her hick past as a farm girl. She's dating Clay, a yuppie psychology professor from a rich family in Los Angeles, and this only heightens her anxiety. She wants to be classy enough to impress him and his family, who think he should date lawyers instead of farm girls. Meanwhile, Christine's boss is threatening to promote a man over her - a man they hired only weeks before - because he's able to "crunch the numbers" and "make the tough decisions." So when Christine has to decide whether to give an old woman a third extension on her mortgage payments, she's determined to make the "tough decision" to show her boss she's manager material.

When she denies the woman the loan extension (impressing her boss), it turns out she's messed with the wrong poverty-stricken old lady. She's invoked the wrath of a powerful gypsy who places a nasty curse on her, invoking the goat god Lamia, who wants to snack on our nice white girl's soul instead of leaving her to a future of marrying up and screwing over impoverished immigrants. Thus begins the fun.

As a helpful fortune teller explains to Christine, the Lamia will torment her for three days and then drag her to hell. We watch with increasing anxiety and glee as Christine is beaten up by scary goat-shaped shadows (great Evil Dead-esque effects), barfs up flies, and becomes so distraught that her promotion is threatened. Of course she fights back, becoming tougher and more mean-spirited as Lamia amps up the abuse. There's a great seance scene, involving a hilarious effect with a goat, and a lot of the plot developments may be silly but will still leave you feeling uncomfortable and crawly.

What makes this a brilliant B-movie, instead of merely a SyFy monster-of-the-week, is that it ably touches on real social anxieties. Christine's fears about her job, and being judged for her trashy class background, feel very real despite the cartoony setting. Like all good horror, Drag Me To Hell takes real-life fears, dresses them up in blood-soaked costumes, and sets them running.

It also expresses some anxieties that I'm fairly sure the filmmakers were completely ignorant about. The old immigrant lady who brings down the curse, Mrs. Ganush, is basically a broad racist stereotype. She's called a gypsy, which is a slur for an actual ethnic group called the Roma, who suffer a great deal of discrimination in Europe - in particular, discrimination from landlords among other things. Mrs. Ganush is represented as essentially evil, and as somebody who really doesn't deserve that loan extension (when we see her house, we find that it's in a state of horrible disrepair and is overrun with filthy relatives).

I think this kind of representation is possible only because many Americans don't realize that the Roma are a real people - they think of "gypsies" as fairy people, enchanted beings who don't really exist. Given that the movie is set in Los Angeles, a city packed with immigrants, Mrs. Ganush therefore becomes a kind of stand-in for all immigrants whose religious traditions and language are incomprehensible to the white farm girl. In Drag Me To Hell, immigrants consort with monsters and that is that. Sure, there are a few immigrant characters who try to fight Lamia too, but only after Christine sells all her jewelry to pay them to help her.

Ultimately my point here is that Drag Me To Hell is smart enough to invoke real social anxieties in a coherent (if not always progressive) way. At the same time, it's scary and fun enough that you can choose to watch the entire film without ever having the urge to call bell hooks to come in and give Raimi a slapdown. And in the end, you'll have to decide for yourself whether the movie really thinks that Christine is an innocent victim or deserves what she's gotten.

In fact, Drag Me To Hell perfectly fits the definition of a good summer movie. It's fast and loud, dragging you all over the place in a way that will make you laugh and scream. And when it's over, you'll still be left thinking about economic horror. The movie opens tomorrow. Get your ass out to see it!

In an interview with ComingSoon/SuperheroHype, the director talked about the criticism and how he's dealing with it in the fourth installment to the web-slinging franchise:

Was making a fourth "Spider-Man" film an easy call for you to make? And were you and Tobey Maguire in lockstep on the decision, both eager to do it together?

I only wanted to do it with Tobey because my interest is in living the character with Tobey in a deeper way than we ever have lived it before. There comes with the familiarity a knowledge of a lot of the basics. I think it's really going to allow us to delve deeply into him as a human being, which is really why I'm into it this time.

"Spider-Man 3" received its share of criticism even though it was successful at the box office. Are you taking that into consideration when you're developing the fourth film?

Do I take the criticism into consideration? Yeah, absolutely. All filmmakers want their films to be liked. I shouldn't say that, but I definitely want my films to be liked by the audience. I don't make an artistic type of picture that I can say to myself "Even if this crowd doesn't like it, it stands as a work of art and will be appreciated years later or has meaning without the audience." I simply am an entertainer and I make films for audience appreciation. When they don't like it, I don't have a leg to stand on. If a critic doesn't like it, it's like "Oh, he hates me," or it's bad, they don't like it. Every time I get a bad criticism, I just try not to dwell on it but it's very upsetting. You really want to please people.

True, you can't please everyone. You can also edit stuff out that doesn't work with the feel of the character. But it sounds like the director has a good head on his shoulders for the next film. Truth be told I loved the first two and will see the next with hopes that it will be a return to the superhero renaissance he helped stimulate. Best of luck Raimi - we're ready for a re-do.

Read the rest of the interview at Comingsoon.net.

We've reported earlier than Sony was looking to make the next two Spider-Man movies at the same time, Lord of The Rings-style, but talking to Ain't It Cool News, Raimi sounded as if he wasn't even sure he was working on the fourth installment of the Marvel franchise:

No one's talked to me about making part 5 at this moment. Right now I'm hoping to make part 4... For me it's just making the next Spider-Man picture, that's all I know right now. [I]t's a never-ending process. Basically we are talking about the story right now, shortly artists will come on and I'll start giving them shots to draw. We are supposed to start talking to a production designer soon, so it will just keep getting larger and larger.

It's not all bad news, though; Raimi did admit that there will be an Evil Dead 4... at some point in time:

Evil Dead 4 is all about blood and gore and Evil Dead movies and I really like the Evil Dead movies and I really want to make another Evil Dead movie sometime. I don't want to say when, because everyone keeps getting mad at me...

Sam Raimi and Quint discuss DRAG ME TO HELL, SPIDER-MAN 4 and EVIL DEAD 4! [Ain't It Cool]

So Raimi told Empire that he didn't have creative control over the third Spider-Man movie, and that Venom and other elements weren't exactly his decision. But do you care? Let's see:

FakingThroughLife: "Yeah, being forced to include Venom doesn't explain the rest of the movie - such as signing and dancing and emo-Parker. God awful movie when compared to the first two."

edosan: "I don't buy it. It was still a lousy movie from beginning to end, and you'd think the director could have helped with that."

OW-Holmes: "That movie was truly awful. I couldn't stop laughing when Peter accidentally hit MJ. Everyone in the theater looked at me funny, but I think they were just jealous that they didn't get the joke."

Evlsushi: "Even if he hated Venom, what sense does it make to produce a shitty movie? Take Venom, tweak him, and make a great, somewhat original story. Like the brilliant X3. Just kidding. But seriously, Raimi didn't even try to make the Venom story work. Or "spooky panel of Studio Execs" as he would have us believe. Yes, studios are controlling, but he was coming off of a critically acclaimed sequel, so that excuse sounds fishy."

LouisHaeru: "'Wow, the fanboys sure hated Spiderman 3, I guess I'll just join the flock and pretend I hated it, too!' C'mon, Raimi, it surely wasn't the best of the Spiderman flicks (probably the worst, but not by much), but seriously? Stick to your guns. Lame."

Kell06: "All through the movie release, Sam Raimi was talking about how happy he was with the movie, how good it was, etc etc. I strongly disliked a lot of the movie, but either way, what a cop-out. To try and have it both ways like that, pretending to support it to ensure plenty of publicity, then to cover his ass after the critical and fan slag-off - talk about a lack of integrity from someone who I thought stood on his own two feet."

What's the world coming to when a man can't publicly disown a shitty movie by pretending that someone else put him up to it? Sure, I'll grant you that he didn't go all the way and claim that the movie was actually directed by his evil twin, Flim-Flam Raimi - Like you wouldn't want to see an interview where he tried that one - but, come on. He's just admitting that it wasn't the greatest of movies and trying to wash his hands of the whole affair before embarking on a sequel to it. We've all been there.

It has to be said, though; I'm with the fans of the campy dance numbers:

Spideyrex: "Hey I liked them! It was silly and fun. People forget that Peter Parker is still a dorky little kid, that was his version of being bad-ass. Yes it was embarrassing to watch, but that was the point."

kelz: "I think people took it too seriously and didn't understand that it was a dorky kid's attempt to look cool. I found it funny and campy."

Quilt: "It really was the only part of the movie where I genuinely enjoying myself. It was just so stupid and ridiculous."

FrankSinister: "I still stand by Raimi despite the eye-raping awfulness of Spiderman 3. Its obvious that it was a warning to Sony to keep their retarded mouths shut when telling him what to put in his movies. 'Oh yeah? You're gonna tell me what to do? How about I single-handedly decimate your largest franchise and USE YOUR OWN MONEY TO DO IT?' Well played Sam. Stand your ground."

Well, wait a minute. I'm not sure I buy this whole "He meant to make something crappy" theory... That's like saying that Enterprise was subpar to make people excited for the new Star Trek movie (says the boy watching reruns on HDNet and kind of enjoying them)... But at least with him agreeing that the third one wasn't any good means that the fourth one will be better, right? Unless we end up with the clone saga...

Raimi told Empire magazine that it was the studio that took his voice out of the picture:

They really gave me a tremendous amount of control on the first two films, actually. But then there were different opinions on the third film and I didn't really have creative control, so to speak.

The main sticking point? Including Venom in the third movie, which was largely a studio decision, with Sony hoping to spawn a massive spin-off movie. But as we all saw, that didn't really work out for everyone.

Still, Raimi did allow this to happen, so we have to question your decision-making faculties. Even the production assistant fetching the donuts during this scene must have thought this was a terrible idea:

Raimi has high hopes for the next Spider-Man movie:

"The best way for me to move forward on films," Raimi continued, "is that I've got to be the singular voice that makes the creative choices on the film."

Here's the Hoyts synopsis, which should obviously be taken with several massive grains of salt:

Peter Parker now faces a more greater threat. After a man is accidentally killed in an electrical power outage; a mass murderer has bonded with a symbiote. Thus wreaking havoc as Peter faces this red rampage, as well as an electrifying madman.

It sounds like the film could feature Carnage, the other symbiote-bonded maniac, plus Electro, the "electrifying madman." Of course, it seems kind of random that the movie's first synopsis would turn up on an Australian movie-theater-chain website, including such amazing grammar as "a more greater threat."

Of course, MTV already speculated that Carnage could be in the movie, based on an off-hand remark which Raimi made, plus very thin (and apparently untrue) rumors about Mickey Rourke being up for a role. [Mania]