May 14 (Bloomberg) -- Sam Raimi is about to turn the U.S. housing collapse into a real horror show.

Raimi, director of the “Spider-Man” movies, and Universal Pictures are releasing “Drag Me to Hell” on May 29, a film about an ambitious loan officer who tries to impress her boss by denying a mortgage extension for a one-eyed old lady facing eviction, according to the film’s Web site.

The old woman puts a curse on the loan officer, played by Alison Lohman, condemning her to “a living nightmare” at the hands of demons seeking to drag her to the underworld where she will “burn in hell for eternity,” the site says. First, though, come three days of flames, floods, flies, cadavers and hanging upside down.

The Cannes Film Festival hosts a midnight screening of “Drag Me to Hell” this month amid public rage at home lenders that led to U.S. hearings about their role in the housing collapse. The industry opposed letting bankruptcy courts modify mortgages to help about 1 million Americans keep their homes. Foreclosure filings set a record in April, according to RealtyTrac Inc.

“How did it get this far?” said Grant Stern, mortgage broker and president of Morningside Mortgage Corp. in Bay Harbor Islands, Florida, who was laughing as he viewed the movie trailer online. “We’re not that bad.”

‘Pitchforks in the Street’

Populist anger at the financial industry became “borderline pitchforks in the street,” said research director Jeff Davis at Howe Barnes Hoefer & Arnett in February. Employees at American International Group Inc. received death threats and Jamie Dimon, chief executive officer of JPMorgan Chase & Co., called on government officials in March to stop the “vilification” of corporate America.

Raimi’s representatives at Creative Artists Agency didn’t return calls and e-mails seeking comment. “Spiderman 3” took in $891 million, according to a July 2008 estimate by UBS AG. Universal Pictures is owned by NBC Universal Inc., a unit of Fairfield, Connecticut-based General Electric Co.

GE Capital, the company’s finance arm, exited the U.S. subprime mortgage business in 2007, three years after entering the market with the purchase of WMC Mortgage from Apollo Management LP.

Since the housing bubble burst two years ago, home lenders slashed staff by 44 percent to about 280,000, according to data compiled by the Mortgage Bankers Association trade group.

“Mortgage lenders have faced a lot of scrutiny, as well they should have,” said John Mechem, spokesman for the Washington-based MBA. “We’ve played a significant part in the recent economic problems, but there is blame to go around.”

Begging for a Break

Lohman’s character, Christine Brown, is torn between showing her boss she can make tough decisions and her instinct to give a break to the old woman, who falls to her knees begging for a third extension, the Web site says.

While there are individuals who aren’t ethical, they’re not representative of the whole home lending business, said Angelo Cusinato, president of Resource Plus Mortgage Corp., a mortgage firm in Inverness, Illinois.

“Just like every baseball player didn’t do steroids, you can’t paint our business with a broad brush,” said Cusinato, whose firm has arranged almost $2 billion in home loans, according to its Web site.

As for being condemned to hell, he said, “there are certainly a couple of lenders I would like to give a first-class ticket to.”

To contact the reporters on this story: Cordell Eddings in New York at ceddings@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: May 14, 2009 14:32 EDT