Drag Me to Hell

"Even nice people can go to hell..."

Drag Me to Hell (2009) is Sam Raimi's long-awaited return to the horror genre. The movie stars Alison Lohman as Christine Brown, a loan officer who forecloses on an old Gypsy woman's home for the sake of a promotion. Big mistake...

Features a lot of Sam Raimi's signature styles. Chances are, if you like the Evil Dead series, you'll like this film (or you'll hate it because it has actual funding.)

This film includes examples of:

 * Actor Allusion: Nearly every electronic device in the movie is an Apple, especially those used by "I'm a Mac" Justin Long.
 * Anvil On Head
 * And I Must Scream: Twice.
 * Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Played straight for nearly the entire film,
 * Big Bad: The Lamia.
 * Bloody Hilarious: The nosebleed scene. "Did I get any in my mouth?"
 * Break the Cutie: Which eventually leads to
 * Camp: It's Sam Raimi. The 'scary' scenes had as much chance of making you either scream, puke, or laugh.
 * Can't Get Away With Nuthin': Christine, an untypically nice horror heroine is cursed just because she did one mean thing in her life. And even then, what she did wasn't that mean. She was just doing her job.
 * Can You Hear Me Now: When the Lamia attacks, Christine attempts to call Clay. Of course, since this is a supernatural demon we're talking about, it doesn't work; the Lamia drains the battery power in 5 seconds, then has an image of Mrs. Ganush jumping at Christine appear on the screen.
 * Chekhov's Gun:.
 * Convection Schmonvection: Averted. Oh, so very very averted.
 * Cool Car: Sam Raimi includes his 1973 Oldsmobile in all his movies. Here it is the Gypsy woman's.
 * Cosmic Plaything: Poor Christine.
 * Cruel Twist Ending: Indeed.
 * Dating What Daddy Hates: Gender-flipped. Clay's mother doesn't approve of Christine due to her being of a different class.
 * Deadly Fireworks Display:
 * Demonic Possession: When the possesses.
 * Despair Event Horizon:
 * Disproportionate Retribution:
 * Foreclose my house after repeated warnings? Fail to convince your supervisor to give me another chance? Force me to move in with my loving daughter? I'll condemn you to hell...
 * To twist the knife, said daughter actually telling Christine she deserves it. Does the daughter not know how bank extensions work? Someone was gonna tell her no sooner or later. Heck, Ganush wasn't even mad about that, it was the fact that she tried to beg Christine for the extension, you know, something she did willingly.
 * The poor 10 year old kid who was condemned to hell for just stealing a gypsy necklace, which was quickly returned to them by the kid's parents, no less.
 * Diabolus Ex Machina:
 * Downer Ending: And how!
 * Dragged Off to Hell: It's right there in the name.
 * Easy Road to Hell: Apparently, being sent to hell is so easy that a single curse can do it regardless of how good you've lived your life or what you've done.
 * Exactly What It Says On the Tin - The movie is called Drag Me to Hell. Guess what the curse does?
 * Eye Scream - Staple to the eye! Fork to the eye! And let's not forget the anvil scene.
 * Facial Horror:
 * Fauxtivational Poster - The Hang in There cat poster in Christine's bedroom.
 * Fire and Brimstone Hell -
 * Fortune Teller - Rham Jas.
 * The Fun in Funeral: Mrs. Ganush's funeral has a festive atmosphere that would probably be more welcome at a birthday party.
 * Gypsy Curse
 * Hair of Gold
 * Hell - It's where the curse drags you.
 * High-Pressure Blood - A high pressure nosebleed.
 * Hope Spot - An absolutely merciless one.
 * Infant Immortality - Averted in the prologue.
 * Inter Class Romance: Christine is clearly from humbler roots than wealthy Clay and the whole plot is caused in part because she wants a promotion to measure up to his family.
 * It Got Worse: Does it ever.
 * Jerkass: Stu, and arguably Clay's mother.
 * Karma Houdini - Averted with Sylvia Ganush. She dies almost immediately after cursing Christine and has her corpse exhumed and gypsy-handled. And since odds are that she killed the boy in the intro and, there's really only one place she's going to end up. Hint, it's not Heaven.
 * Large Ham: The Lamia absolutely devours the scenery when it's summoned at the seance.
 * Morally Bankrupt Banker: Averted with Christine, played straight with her competitor.
 * Obnoxious In-Laws: Well, more like Boyfriend's Obnoxious Mother.
 * Oh Crap:
 * Oops I Dropped the Keys: Christine does this in the car.
 * Ontological Inertia - The curse set upon Christine by the old woman is still in effect.
 * Orifice Invasion - The fly that ends up going into one of Christine's nostrils while she is sleeping, audily buzzes around inside her nasal cavity for several seconds, then crawls out her other nostril. And she doesn't wake up!
 * Redemption in The Rain - When Christine finally . Subverted in that.
 * Rifftrax - Want to know how to suck all the horror and tension out of a scary movie, then replace it with laughter? Get Mike, Kevin and Bill on the job.
 * Justin Long is one of only a handful of actors to be a Rifftrax repeat offender; he was also in Crossroads (the Britney Spears one).
 * Roma
 * Rule of Three - Ganush pulling out Christine's hair. Verges on Running Gag.
 * There's also the fact that the Lamia
 * Running Gag: If something gross and scary turns up on screen, rest assured it's going to end up in Christine's mouth. Thank god she never finds a flasher.
 * Sadly Mythtaken - So off, it must be intentional. Lamiae are Greek, female, (usually) half-serpent demons that either eat children or young men in the vein of succubi. The Lamia in the movie is a goat (the fortune-teller used an illustration of Baphomet while explaining everything to Christine). They must've been keeping the real Lamia in mind, because during its first visit to Christine its silhouette is first a shapely woman, which then changes into a goat.
 * Scare Chord - Loads of it.
 * Shaky POV Cam
 * Shoot the Dog - More like.
 * Shoot the Shaggy Dog - See Downer Ending.
 * Shout Out - Two big ones.
 * Evil Dead - When the
 * A further Evil Dead shout-out occurs in Clay's description of the cottage he plans to take Christine to for the weekend - "Lots of trees, private..."
 * The Anvil On Head - Eye Scream bit is a direct callback to Evil Dead II, which has almost the exact same effect in different circumstances.
 * Rule of Three - Evil Dead II has a blood fountain in the basement, Army of Darkness has one in the pit, this has one
 * The cat scene is a direct visual callback to "YOU LOVED HER!" from the original.
 * Night of the Demon/Curse Of The Demon - Sam Raimi knew they were basically doing a retread of this classic British horror movie, right down to the manner of the  manifestations and the train station ending. Though, to be fair, that film didn't have a Downer Ending. If it weren't for the change of characters and location, it might as well have been a Remake.
 * This Is for Emphasis, Bitch! - "Choke on it, bitch!"
 * Through the Eyes of Madness: This is one possible interpretation of the film.
 * Trailers Always Spoil - The trailers feature a part of the last scene of the film. It may not necessarily be seen as a major spoiler. Many viewers may see it as snippet from a final showdown or something, as opposed to the last thing that happens.
 * Voice of the Legion: The Lamia speaks like this whenever it possesses someone.
 * What Do You Mean It's Not Heinous?: Cursed to be dragged into hell and told she deserves it just because she wouldn't give a third extension.
 * Yank the Dog's Chain: Christine actually gets two of these in the film. The first is after the ritual where it seems they successfully got the Lamia off her back. . So she's given the button in an envelope and told to give it away to another poor sap to save herself. After a few considerations   After much struggle, it seems she finally pulled it off and everything all peachy. Good things are happening to her and her BF and she are set for a romantic getaway. However while waiting on the train platform.   And well...the rest is history.