Sam Raimi is back. Forget the guy in red and blue tights, forget long-winded speeches of what it takes to be a hero and forget those warm-hearted feel good moments. The creepy ghouls, the crazy characters and the insane pacing of Evil Dead makes a return to form for Raimi and his co-writer brother Ivan Raimi in DRAG ME TO HELL, a long-gestating project the duo first conceived during writing sessions for DARKMAN in the late '80s. It may not be EVIL DEAD 4, but it is the return to horror Raimi fans have been waiting for.

Bloody-Disgusting got to drop by the set of DRAG ME last summer to observe some shooting and talk to Raimi, the cast and crew. The visit occurred on the Fox lot towards the latter portion of the shoot (Day 51) during filming of a climactic seance sequence at the house of the character Shaun San Dena (Adrianna Barraza). Alison Lohman plays the lead character Christine, a kind-hearted bank loan officer who must make the tough decision of denying a loan extension to an elderly woman named Mrs. Ganush (Lorna Raver). The woman puts the curse of the Lamia on Christine, which quickly turns the girl's happy existence into a living hell. She winds up being tormented by an evil spirit that tries anything and everything to push her right over the edge and drag her into the depths of hell itself.

During the seance scene shooting on our visit, Christine has reached a point of desperation and is willing to try just about anything to rid herself of the evil force once and for all. "In any normal situation I would have given her the extension," Lohman explains of Christine's motivation. "But I want to get this promotion from my manager and I choose not to give it to her and she puts a curse on me. The curse is Mrs. G takes something that is mine and has to gift it to me. She takes this button off my coat and says some kind of gypsy something."

At first Christine shrugs off the strange happenings and makes excuses to justify chaos. But as the intensity of the curse escalates she soon must accept what's happening and figure out how to deal with it. "I don't know if I would say she does or doesn't believe in the beginning," says Lohman. "It's definitely real, it's happening to her. In the beginning, her boyfriend Clay (Justin Long), who is a Professor of psychology, convinces her that it is just a figment of her imagination and she has post-traumatic stress disorder. She tries to believe that but she knows it's Mrs. Ganush."

Dileep Rao plays the part of Rham Jas, a seer who tries to help Christine explain what's happening. "I kind of help Christine's character find out what has happened to her in the process of the film," says Rao. "I guide her through the discovery of what she can do to counteract that."

Rao went from AVATAR straight to DRAG ME, which might seem like a quieter production after the mega-expensive James Cameron project. But Rao says DRAG ME was often just as detailed and complicated: "This is not a simple scene," he says with a smile. "This is like the most epically complicated scene. This is sort of like [AVATAR]. We have to take these little pieces and do that like that over and over again. [Raimi] adds color to each dot and when its done we step back and see it in the end."

"There's a bunch of people and candelabras and spooky wind blowing," adds Special Effects Supervisor Greg Nicotero. "Then you watch the way that [Raimi] shoots it and the fact that he'll put the camera on one person and then travel all the way at then person and then he'll zoom in and he'll go to the next person and [do the same thing]."

The impressive San Dena house setting of the day's shoot is elaborate to say the least. Part HAUNTED MANSION and part Mrs. Haversham, long drapes of gold and blue hang from ceiling to floor. Intricate details including aged books, cobwebs and old trinkets highlight the spooky house interior decorated by portraits of icons and Spanish-influenced architecture. In the story, San Dena's late husband brought workmen from his home of Cordova, Spain to build the house. For the exterior shots, the production used the Doheny Mansion near USC.

The impressive sets are the work of Production Designer Steve Saklad, who previously worked with Raimi as Art Director on SPIDER-MAN 2 and THE QUICK AND THE DEAD. "This set took nine weeks to build from zero to fully dressed," says Saklad. "75 carpenters, painters and riggers [were] working all at the same time. This took more than half of the construction and set decorating budget."

Saklad and researchers first built a model of the San Dena house and tweaked the look as the production neared and elements of the cast and script were being tweaked. "Shaun San Dena was originally Turkish and then Bulgarian," says Saklad. "When we cast her, she became Argentinean."

The climactic seance scene is arguably the most important scene in DRAG ME TO HELL and the look of the San Dena house and believability was crucial to pulling off the scene. "If we got this right, then we had a movie," laughs Saklad.

Adrianna Barraza says the sets are definitely helpful as she gets into the character of Shaun San Dena. "All the wardrobe and all this stuff is a little part of this process," says San Dena. "For me, the most important thing is the construction inside. My own method is my fantasy."

Within these walls the wild seance scene is being pulled together. There are goats (two real and one robotic), people flying on wirework and, well, demons, of course. As the shoot carries on within a closed set, we watch some dialogue scenes between Lohman and Barraza at the start of the seance. But the true chaos of the scene is yet to unfold.

"This one is a little more complex than the Evil Dead movies," director Sam Raimi tells press. "This is trying to do the same thing, but we're also trying to base how it kicks off. This a PG-13 picture, so this is a little less assaultive than the Evil Dead movies. But I don't have any grander design or thematic ideas in making this film vs. Evil Dead. It's got a lot of fun stuff in it."

Click here for PART TWO of our DRAG ME TO HELL Set Visit where Sam Raimi discusses the project's origins and all the fun he's been having returning to his horror roots.

Drag Me to Hell hits theaters May 29 from Universal Pictures.