‘Drag’ Review: Lizzy Caplan in Gory Tongue-in-Cheek Horror Flick

In writer-directors Raviv Ullman’s and Greg Yagolnitzer’s twisted feature debut, Drag, Lizzy Caplan has her body tested in ways that didn’t even happen on Masters of Sex, the transgressive Showtime series that propelled her into the spotlight ten years ago.

Contorting herself in a manner that would make Buster Keaton proud, the actress has her back broken several times, her nose busted at least once, and a piece of porcelain thrust into her cheek. She doesn’t get dragged across concrete like Vince Vaughn in that crazy movie, which Drag recalls in its more outlandish moments. But she does get dragged across a floorboard with a nail sticking out of it, slicing open her torso and yielding an impressive flow of blood. And that’s only in the first ten minutes.

It’s worth mentioning these gross-out details because they’re pretty much the highlights of an otherwise flimsy genre exercise that plays, at times, like a short stretched to feature length. Drag is less a regular movie than a showcase of brutal tongue-in-cheek hijinks, which Ullman and Yagolnitzer stage with a certain amount of skill. The team tosses in a few big twists (some of them predictable) to keep the chaos coming, but without real characters or believable situations, the blood eventually runs thin.

Caplan plays big sister to actress-producer Lucy DeVito, who takes much less of a beating here than her co-star, even if she doesn’t come out of the film unscathed, either. She’s very much the responsible sibling, helping her elder sis get out of one jam after another when the latter impulsively decides to rob the home of a mystery man (played by a refreshingly creepy John Stamos) for reasons divulged later on.

The first third of Drag is one long, sometimes fun and sometimes tiring duet between Caplan and DeVito, who can’t stop kvetching as they try to escape from the death trap before its owner eventually shows up. With Caplan’s character all-but immobile after slipping in a bathtub, DeVito has to literally do the heavy lifting — or rather, the dragging — to get her half-paralyzed sister back out the front door.

The directors find creative ways to toss one bogey after another at the two, doubling down on the gore and making use of whatever comes in handy, whether it’s a piece of avant-garde pottery, a roll of duct tape or the many ways Caplan can express intense physical pain solely with her mouth and eyes. But the premise eventually loses steam, only regaining some momentum when Stamos shows up and the plot takes a not-so-unexpected turn after his character invites a date (Christine Ko) over for late-night drinks.

It’s impossible to divulge what happens next without spoiling the rest of Drag, which is very much a movie centered around its two or three major surprises. Let’s just say Don’t Breathe comes to mind, and that Caplan’s unlikely burglar certainly picked the wrong home to break into.

If their first feature ultimately lacks depth or even a credible premise, Ullman and Yagolnitzer make up for it with some strong sight gags and a heavy dose of dark humor. They put their cast through the wringer, to the point that Drag starts to feel like a live-action version of The Itchy & Scratchy Show, with everyone getting battered, bruised and sliced up. Even the obligatory frying pan is used in one late scene, hammering home the idea that what we’re watching is not that far from a cartoon.

The film’s over-the-top grotesqueries can sometimes feel off-putting — is it really that entertaining to watch women get beaten up for 90 minutes? — though they’re handled with such flamboyance that we never take them too seriously.

Kudos go to production designer Neil Patel for making the garish home furnishings a major part of the story, while the makeup team does wonders with Caplan’s growing assortment of wounds, transforming the actress’ face into a beautiful work of body horror.