Drag Me to Hell

Soon it will be you who comes begging to leave. Someone has cursed hell is the lumbian the most feared of all demons. For the first three days, the spirit torments its victims. After that, it will come to take you. Take me away. It's coming for me. It's your killer host. My name is Parker, your resident horror fanatic. I'm Caroline. Oh, well, look who it is. Back for more. I loved our time together one-on-one so much that I told Caroline and Ian to get out of here because I just needed some alone time with you to discuss one of my faves. Welcome to What's your favorite scary movie? What's your favorite scary movie is a horror film podcast where we're on a journey to find our favorite scary movie one at a time.

Whether you hate them or love them, join us and discover yours. Spoilers ahead, so plan your movie screening every weekend before the episode release. Hello and welcome again to a solo episode. Just me and you together again. I've been looking forward to it all month. And today I'm very excited, a very special one, because we're talking about a movie that is very close to my heart, my soul, Drag Me to Hell. Drag Me to Hell came out in 2009 and was written and directed by Sam Raimi. You might recognize that name because he also wrote and directed the original Evil Dead trilogy, which is a horror classic that is known and loved, and he Sam Raimi kind of had a break from horror as he directed the Toby McGuire Spider-Man movies, and Drag Me to Hell was his big fat return to horror, and people were over the moon.

Now, Raimi had actually written Drag Me to Hell before making the Spider-Man movies, but he didn't expect for the superhero franchise to turn into such a long-winded endeavor. He even offered it to other directors like Edgar Wright, but eventually came back to it when he wanted to make something smaller and lower budget post-Spider. It was also co-written by Ivan Raimi, who's Sam Raimi's older brother. Ivan is a doctor, and he also co-wrote Army of Darkness and Spider-Man 3 with Sam. Drag Me to Hell stars Allison Lohman as Christine Brown. Christine Brown! She was in Big Fish from 2003, Beowulf from 2007, and Gamer from 2009. It also stars Justin Long as her boy Clay. He was in Jeepers Creepers from 2001 and Tusk from 2014, and tons of other non-horror things you've probably seen.

Finally, Drag Me to Hell stars the magnificent Lorna Raver as Sylvia Ganush. She was primarily a stage actress and also the queen of guest starring on TV shows. And this is no shade, but she was in single episodes of a ton of TV shows like 90210, Felicity, Allie McBeale, Star Trek, Gilmore Girls Charm, Desperate Housewife, CSI, Niptuck, Bones, One Tree Hill, Grey's Anatomy, and a few more. So wow, you've probably seen her in one of your fave TV shows. Now on Rotten Tomatoes, Drag Me to Hell has a 92% critic score, and then a slightly lower 62% audience score. The critics consensus says Sam Raimi returns to top form with Drag Me to Hell, a frightening, hilarious, delightfully campy thrill ride.

Now I've told you that Drag Me to Hell is special to me, and that's because, and don't let this ruin any of my horror cred, but when I was a kid, my parents were a little bit strict with the movies that they would let me watch. And in 2009, I was 13 slash 14 years old, and it was actually the very first horror film that I saw in the movie theaters. I'd seen a couple of horror movies before this at home, but like I said, my parents weren't very excited to let me watch a lot of scary stuff, even though I always wanted to. So I convinced my dad, and the two of us went to the theaters to see Drag Me to Hell, and I was jumping and screaming and having a good time, and my dad is the most stoic movie watcher and was just unflinching the whole time, which makes you feel real stupid when you're jumping out of your chair next to him.

I loved Drag Me to Hell so much that when it came out on DVD, I was stoked and I got all of my friends to ha together to have a big Drag Me to Hell screening party. Now, all these years later, I've seen Drag Me to Hell countless times. Watching it this time, I even found that I could say most of the lines along with the movie. And watching it, um, it's been a few years and it was quite a comforting and cozy experience getting to revisit something that I loved so much when I was younger. Now, Drag Me to Hell begins in Pasadena, California in the year 1969. Nice! A small family brings their haunted child to the mystical Sean Sandina, who is played here by Flor de Maria Chihuahua.

I'm sorry about that name pronunciation there, and later by Adriana Barraza. It seems the boy made the grave error of stealing a necklace at a gypsy market and was then cursed by the seller. Sean gears up for a cleansing ritual, which is cut extremely short by an invisible force bitch slapping all the adults and pulling the boy into a fiery pit. Amidst the child's screams, Sean vows to defeat the spirit someday. She wants the new assistant manager job, but her boss doesn't think she has the balls to make tough decisions, unlike the douched or new guy, Stu. I'm perfectly capable of making the tough decisions. Ready to show off her mercilessness, Christine denies a mortgage extension for the crusty, flimmy old hag, Mrs.

Ganish, even after she begs on hands and knees. Humiliated, the old woman does what anyone would and waits inside a creepy parking garage for Christine to get off work, then assaults her, steals a button off her coat, and curses her. Same girl. I love a petty bitch. Christine's loving, coin collecting nerd boy Clay, picks her up and takes her to dinner, after which she has the overwhelming desire to visit a psychic. Despite her psychology professor Clay's protests, she forks over$60 for a reading from Rom Joss portrayed by Dalip Rao. Oh no. It looks like somebody's been cursed. After a restless night, including some implied fucking, after Clay invites her to a weekend getaway, Christine heads back to work ready for a new day.

Psyche! She spews snot blood out of her nose all over her boss and is humiliated. Well, obviously she should just go and get Mrs. Ganish to forgive her. Psyche! She's dead. You used to be a real fat girl, didn't you? This is where Christine gets some real facts under her belt. She has been cursed by the Lamia, a demonic entity that will haunt her for three days before dragging her soul to hell for eternity. Rom has a plan though. Sacrifice her adorable kitten. Which Christine does, and phew! She's glad that's over. Unfortunately, Christine discovers it is indeed not over when she bursts into hysterics during dinner meeting Clay's parents, and these rich assholes are not pleased.

I think I better go. But never fear, Rom has a new plan. A$10,000 seance. Easy. Christine scrambles for the money, but her noble BF Clay takes the bill. Sean Sandina is back and ready for her final showdown with the Lamia, but things get wacky with CGI ghosts, a cursing goat, and a guy coughing up Christine's dead cat. You blackhearted Phew. Glad it's all over. Unfortunately, Sean only managed to banish the Lamia from the sands and not Christine's life. Oh, and uh Sean dies too. Thankfully, Rom has another new plan. Give someone else the button and curse them to hell. Easy. Should it be a cute elderly couple? No. Too cute. Should it be pathetic coworker stew?

No. Too pathetic. Ugh. Obviously, it should be Mrs. Ganish herself. Christine digs the rotting bitch up, and in a pretty rad battle between herself, a hanky, the weather, and a big metal cross, she manages to get rid of the button. She gets home just in time to shower it all off and head out for her weekend getaway with Clay. Hell yeah! A voicemail says she got the promotion at work. She might as well go buy herself a new coat. Clay, is that a ring? Oh my god! I love a happy ending. First Christine finally admits after an hour and a half of denial. I could have given Mrs. Ganish another extension on her loan, but I didn't.

It was my decision. It was wrong of me. Morals. Clay asks if she has seen one of his nerdy coins. She must have taken that. Instead of her old cursed button, Christine falls in shock onto the train tracks, is pulled into a fiery pit, and the film closes on Clay's weeping face. Chef's kiss. Beautiful. Now every time I forced someone to watch this movie with me, which force I should never have to force because this movie rules. But every time I've watched this film with someone else, they always in the scene when Christine and Clay, you know, screech to a halt in their car and she drops all of her envelopes and picks one up, mistakenly getting the envelope with the coin instead of the button.

Everyone I watch it with is like, ugh, of course she got the wrong envelope. But maybe I'm just a big fat stupid head. The first time I saw this movie, I thought it did a perfect job of tricking me and putting Christine through enough between the time she picks up the wrong envelope and the end of the movie that I'd totally forgotten about it and was big fat shocked to find out that she was indeed being dragged to hell. Because Christine, I think, is a wonderful character because the movie, first of all, is very efficient. Uh, a ton happens in a short amount of time, and that's because there are really no other subplots or you know, side characters outside of Christine, and we're with her on her journey the whole time.

So you really get to know her and you get to see these little facets of her life outside of the haunting. You get to see her kind of work life, you get to see her relationship with Clay and the struggle she's having with his asshole parents, you get to see some of her money problems and some of her insecurities about her past life. And I think that Christine is a really complex and great character, one that's very sympathetic, that you would expect to survive a horror movie at the end, especially when we look at our traditions of final girls and things like that. I was truly taken by that twist, but uh no one else seems to be as fooled as I was.

Also, when I first saw this, I was scared out of my brains. I remember uh the scene when Christina's at home and the Lamia attacks her while she's alone and it's clomping up her stairs like a shadow, and she opens her flip foam to call Clay, and she looks at the flip foam, and Mrs. Ganush kind of jumps at the screen. I nearly peed myself. I thought that was the scariest thing. First time I've ever like yelled aloud at a horror movie. I loved it. But this movie is not a straight, straight up horror. It's a horror comedy. And I, if you've listened to the podcast for long, you know that I love a horror comedy.

Scream is my favorite movie of all time. But I would say that my love of horror comedy kind of sways towards the darker. I'm not a huge fan of the super slapstick, over-the-top comedies like Scary Movie. Uh, that's not really my breed of horror comedy. I like these ones like Drag Me to Hell, like Scream, where all of the comedy is kind of pulled out of the horror itself. You know, in Drag Me to Hell, there are eyeballs splattering on Christine's face. There's vomit being thrown at her. There's all this ridiculous stuff that is so funny when you kind of get over that it would be a horrifying experience. That's the same kind of discussion I've had with Caroline and Ian about your necks, or that I had with Cody about Reanimator, where as soon as you see past the horror of the situation, it's really a funny thing that's happening.

And that's my kind of horror movie, and I think that is pulled off so incredibly well in this movie, and not so well in other movies. I think of um famously I do not like the movie Us. I was very vocal in our review of Us about how much I hated it. And a big part of that to me was you had moments of horror and moments of comedy, and sometimes the comedy would straight up halt the tension or the suspense or the motion, momentum of the horror just to make a joke, and then it would try and start back up, but it's too late it already lost it. And I don't think that Drag Me to Hell ever does that.

It finds an incredible way of making us laugh while still at the edge of our seats, hearts running a mile a minute, all at the same time. I also find it interesting that for anyone who's familiar with Sam Raimi's work, like I am now, having seen the Evil Dead films, uh, but when I first saw this movie, I had not seen the Evil Dead trilogy. And obviously this was before the remake came out, which has a very different vibe than the original uh Evil Dead trilogy, which is a lot more humorous um and satirical, like Drag Me to Hell. And in fact, there have been some great articles about how Drag Me to Hell is in the same universe as Evil Dead, even down to Mrs.

Ganush having the same car that Ash drives in Evil Dead. Um, there are some really interesting things that I won't get into here because they have spoilers for Evil Dead, and obviously I would love to discuss Evil Dead in future episodes, so I don't want to ruin that. If you're familiar with Sam Raimi's kind of breed of work, then I think Evil uh Drag Me to Hell is a really incredible addition to his canon and one that, you know, is PG-13, and Sam Raimi said it was intentionally made PG-13 because he wanted to have an appeal to a wider audience. He said when he was a teen, he liked going to the movies and seeing a horror movie.

So he wanted to make a movie that everyone could go see without sparing any of the fun or the gore or the drama or the terror. And I think that that's a really successful thing that Drag Me to Hell does. And if you're like me and I saw Drag Me to Hell without having seen The Evil Dead, I think it's a really incredible entry into his other work if you're looking in reverse, where you can kind of be trained of what to expect as a younger teen. And then when I, you know, got older and I was looking through horror because I figured out I loved it so much, went back and watched The Evil Dead, it was like, wow, this is really a larger universe of this like horror comedy, gross out, um, over-the-top ghost story uh that Sam Raimi has crafted really expertly.

And I also think that the Lamia is really a perfect addition to the spirits of the Necronomicon that are from the Evil Dead, and I could truly see them existing together really cohesively. Whereas if you look at the remake of Evil Dead, that's more of a harsher shift from the tone and spirit of the original Evil Dead movie. Even though I know that a lot of people have wanted a sequel to the 2013 Evil Dead, me included, and I would love to see um Ash and Mia team up, that would be great. And it was even rumored that Bruce Campbell was planned to have a cameo in Drag Me to Hell as Ash, but unfortunately that never happened, so I guess we will never truly know.

I also think that Drag Me to Hell has some similarities to a couple of other movies that I'm a fan of. I think that it has a very compelling similarity to The Conjuring, especially the beginning of the movie with this uh 1960s slash 70s uh California Mexican Latin Americana vibe that's going on. I think that that feels very similar to the Conjuring, even down to the straight facts of the three-day haunting is very similar to the Conjuring and how it's laid out by Ed and Lorraine and how it's laid out by Ram Jos. I mean, I think that Drag Me to Hell and the Conjuring were not the first movies to have CGI ghosts and color grading, but I do think that there's some surprising similarities that I've never really noticed or seen pointed out before between these two films, and I wonder if there's any connection.

And then the other similarity that is more of a personal one that I was really feeling this time when I watched it is one of my favorite rom-coms is Never Been Kissed, starring Drew Barrymore, and it's about a young, quiet lady who needs to break out of her shell and do something that she fears in order to get the big job at work. I can't grab those bombs. Now, diving in a little deeper into the the depths, the meat of the movie, Sam Raimi has said many times that this is a movie about morality. He says it's about a good person who sins and then has to pay the price for those sins. If you've listened to the Faculty of Horror podcast, they have an episode comparing Black Swan and Drag Me to Hell and speaking about eating disorders, which I'll brush on later.

The thing that they say about this topic is that they think that is such an understatement because Christina's really being forced to make this decision, uh being forced out of character by the world around her, by the men that she works with, her trying to step up in the world. And I think that that's really true, especially when you look at the larger situation of Christine coming from such a small town background that she's trying to lose, desperately trying to get away from. She wants to be a big shot at her office, she wants to find success for herself, and she's going to do whatever it takes to get that. And I think that's a really relatable character arc, and one that I'm so frustrated a lot of times when watching TV shows or movies where you have a good character who all they have to do is make a tough decision and just look out for themselves, which is really what life is about.

And a lot of horror movies, the downfall is, is in the end, it's about survival, and you've got to look out for you first. You've got to put your mask on before putting the mask on the children around you, you know. The idea that Christine was able to make this hard decision because she wanted to be the person of her dreams and wanted to achieve things, and I think that that is a really great and relatable turn for her character, but then. It's kind of um undone at the end when she says, I could have given her the extension and I chose not to, and I shouldn't have done that. It was a bad thing to do.

I hate that it's kind of framed that way because ultimately, you know, Mrs. Ganush had been given two extensions on that mortgage, and Mrs. Ganush needed to be looking out for herself and doing what was right for her. You know, if she's just allowed to walk all over Christine, then you know, where is the justice in that? And obviously, I don't want you to think I'm a monster, but speaking from personal experience, I just want to point out that there is a big difference between being kind and allowing yourself to be taken advantage of. So I think that it's a really complex issue, and like I said a second ago, Christine has a past that she's trying to escape.

We find out that she's from a farm and she has an accent that she's trying to get rid of, and that her mom is an alcoholic, and she's ashamed of these things, and she wants to, you know, kind of move up in the world and date someone like Clay and get a big shot job. But Clay's parents are really against that and have this prejudice against her because of her socioeconomic class. It's hard to watch Christine being held back by her boss because there's a man that he perceives as being more assertive than her, and being held back by Clay's parents because they see her as like a poor girl from the farm. And it really is a story about like this American dream thing that I bring up so much in our podcast that she wants this upward mobility to be able to be who she's always wanted to be.

And ultimately throughout the movie, we see her overcome all of these things, I think, in an incredible way, which makes the finale where there's the twist where she's dragged to hell, even more heartbreaking. Especially because, you know, her boyfriend Clay is so sweet and actually a great character too, so sympathetic because he's there for her at all turns. He doesn't let her outburst at dinner with her parents deter him. He pays the$10,000, which he's able to pay and she's not, um, because he loves her. And it's really heartbreaking then to see him as well. And like I said earlier, there aren't very many side plots outside of Christine's journey. But I think it's smart the way that the movie assumes the side plots, or that we'll be able to assume the side plots.

You know, we see this side plot of Clay and his parents happening alongside the movie. We see Sean Sandina, you know, battling the Lamia outside, and we have to kind of imagine in our heads what has happened to them outside of the time that we're with them. And I love that the movie's able to do that so successfully and so richly. You know, I can really imagine what those struggles were like. So, like I said, I think it's a really interesting way that the Raimys have raised this question of what effect does a bad decision have on your character? You know, guilt, and linking that in with trying to be someone who makes the tough decisions is what leads her to this issue.

You know, presumably that it's a break of her character, um, and she needs to be who she really is. Uh, I think it's a complex issue. Like I said, I think that it's a little more multifaceted than that straight up line that the movie's giving. The other thing that I think is really interesting is Clay is a prof uh psychology professor. He's very factual. He wants to get to the basics and um to the truth. And Ram Joss, the psychic, is very much about the supernatural and the emotional and the I can't think of the other word for it. But they have this kind of face-off the first time that Christine goes in for her reading, and I think it makes a really interesting contrast between comfort and hope and reality.

And we've talked a lot of times on this podcast about the roles of religion and you know, what is this psychic reading that she's going into, except an extension of religion, because Christine is looking for hope and looking for something to believe in. In the end, it's left kind of ambiguous. Would Christine have been safe if she had successfully given the button to Mrs. Ganish? We don't really know. I mean, ultimately it looks like the supernatural wins because we see her dragged to hell. I think there's a really interesting question in here about what is more important in life. Is it to see the facts of the reality, and maybe if we're looking further into the extension of religion, death is death, and what are we going to do in the time that we have on earth, or this kind of larger extension of hope and believing that our time on earth not only affects what happens afterwards, but that there is hope of something bigger and better happening to us after we leave the earth?

And I think Christine is dealing with that as well in that she's given three days to live, and there's kind of a a tough decision she has to make about how to live them. You know, she eats the ice cream because, you know, fuck it, she's only got three days left, she might as well eat the ice cream. Does she need to spend the three days trying to save herself or trying to enjoy herself? Ultimately, it seems like she picked trying to save ourselves herself because, like I said, survival is the main human drive, it would seem. If you've watched Westworld. Lastly, I said that the Faculty of Horror podcast had an episode about comparing Black Swan and Drag Me to Hell because there are a lot of theories going around the internet that Drag Me to Hell is actually a metaphor for eating disorders.

There's a combination of Christine looking longingly at the food in the windows and all of the throat trauma that happens in this movie, with things trying to go down her mouth, or Mrs. Ganish pushing her fists into her mouth, uh, or all of the vomiting that happens in the movies, all the way down to people saying that Mrs. Ganish's gross nails and teeth could be metaphors for the symptoms of an eating disorder. I think that there's some really compelling evidence here in the faculty of who even points out the combination of Christine's character and how she wants to be in control and be the perfect girl, which can be a psychological symptom of eating disorders. Uh, it's not something that resonates with me personally, and I'm not going to touch on it much more.

I just wanted to point it out because I do think it's compelling, and I would recommend going and listening to that episode, or doing a little Googling of your own to find this theory if that's something that you want to hear more about. There are not really many memorable murders, but I think the most memorable moment of dragging to hell is either when Christina's haunted in her home by the Lamia and she's up in her bedroom, and like I said earlier, when Mrs. Ganish yells out on her flip phone screen, and then Christina's you know lifted up into the ceiling and thrown around her room. I thought that was terrifying when I was a kid. And even I gave my copy of the DVD to my sister and had her watch it, and she said that her friends and her started crying in this scene and had to turn it off because they were so scared.

So I think that has to be the most memorable number one. And the second would be this seance, which I love, where they're all chanting. We welcome the dead into our soul, Sean Sandina is chanting, and then all this madness with the goat is just hilarious. So I would say those are the two most memorable moments of Drag Me to Hell. On a scary scale, one to five, I would give Drag Me to Hell a solid three. I think there are a lot of really fun jumps, I think there's a lot of really good suspense and terror in here, things that'll keep you with your fingers over your eyeballs if it's your first time watching. Uh, and I think that the ending is so tragic, and even if you don't like the movie, so affecting that it has to get a three out of me.

Would I give Drag Me to Hell a smash or a slash? It has to be a smash, the hardest smash of my life, because I love Drag Me to Hell so much. I think it's a masterpiece, I think it's underappreciated, and I love it so much. Finally, what's my favorite scary movie? This is a tough one. It's currently Reanimator, but I think Reanimator has been dethroned. My new favorite scary movie has to be Drag Me to Hell. Thank you guys so much for listening. I had such a fun time on our little podcast date together. I hope you will head on over to Apple Podcasts and leave us a rating and a review. Then join us again next time when Julianne will be back to review The House of the Devil.

I'm so excited about that. That movie slaps, and I'm so excited to jump into it with her next week. My name is Parker Hare, and you can find me on Instagram, Twitter, Letterboxd, and the slasher app at Parker Del Rey, and you can find what's your favorite scary movie on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram at ScarymoviePod, where we post continual updates about what's going on with the podcast. Uh, you can follow us on Patreon for extra episodes. We have Hush and Stage Fright this month, which I'm very excited about. So head on over there for just five dollars. Patreon.com slash scary movie pod, get some rad bonus content. You can also send us an email with any feedback at scary moviepod at gmail.com and find our website at scary moviepod dot com.

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