"Drag Me To Hell" (2009)

Christine (Alison Lohman) is an eager loan officer, dreaming of a promotion at her bank. When a mysterious old woman is denied an extension on her loan repayments she places a curse on Christine, who then spends three days being terrorized by a demon. Directed by Sam Raimi.

For the opening (or “prologue” if you will) I’m happy to inform you that I did get a fright… But after a minute I was like, “ok, what the f*** am I watching?” I guess because it was happening to a little boy made it more horrifying. Plus the music didn’t help come the credits…! What I liked about it though was it got you pretty much from the get-go. I love horror movies that do that.  And in general it kept this up right the way through. The tension was built quite adequately.

The scene with the old woman appearing in the car park scared the crap out of me. (excuse my phrasing) I was watching this film in the dark (for once!) so that made the big fright moment worse I think. More fun though! The tension was cruel! I felt very repulsed when I realised she actually had a staple in her head after Christine hit her with a stapler in a fit to break free.

The scene with the fortune telling was another one that scared sh** out of me. My god this film is brilliant to build the tension and actually deliver. There the fortune teller was reading Christine’s fortune and this massive face just appears on the screen. I nearly died. I loved it! I mean…that’s the way to do things. I did find it clichéd that it should be the girl wanting her fortune told and the guy disapproving quite openly, thinking it a load of (to quote the TV Show Friends) “boo-hockey”. But you can’t win all the battles!

In the next scene Clay is dropping her home and I was like “I wouldn’t leave her alone…” and then I noticed the cat in her arms and all I could think of throughout the scene was how something awful was going to happen to the cat. Because it always does‼ But I’m relieved to inform you that while the life was nearly frightened out of me the cat did get away! 

- FOR A FEW SCENES. 

Because then she went and she killed the cat‼! I swear that was nearly the most traumatic part of the film for me, (ok, maybe that's being a little dramatic, but I nearly cried.) There is a place called stop. I would have just turned it off in an act of defiance if I hadn’t gone so far into the film and I wanted to know how it would end. But how could she kill the cat??? This is just one of those things that doesn’t agree with me at all. I can’t cope with animals getting hurt like this and for me, this was just crossing a line. Granted, she felt guilty, and she only did it because she felt she absolutely had to….But that is entirely beside the point. The poor cat. No.

The music was creepy. It was like the track “Night of The Electric Insects” from The Exorcist Soundtrack, mixed with the score from the Italian film I’m Not Scared. Creepy and made all the scenes feel worse. (In a good way, of course)

I found this film used a lot of Alfred Hitchcock’s technique of implying a certain notion through intercut shots. For example, Christine wants to be the Manager’s Assistant, but rather than directly telling us this through dialogue, the director, Sam Raimi, merely showed us a shot of Christine’s longing face, then an intercut shot to the empty opposite desk in the office, back to Christine’s face, back to the title on the desk “Managing Assistant” then back to Christine’s face. And without directly saying anything, we know exactly what she is thinking, what her goal is. It’s quite clever really. Sam Raimi used this technique a number of times throughout this film.

I think that there was no particular need for the outcome. I think it was just a little bit unnecessary. I’m not going to say anymore on that for those who haven’t seen it and wish to see it. As a horror film, it does its job well. The plot is a little far-fetched at times…But what’s great about this are the characters. Christine possess relatable and realistic qualities which are good to have in the film’s heroine. As well as this, the old woman’s appearance is agreeably creepy, and the fright moments are piled on by the bucket load which is the best part of any horror film in my opinion.

Final conclusion? A thumbs up for anyone into this genre!

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