Drag Me to Hell (2009)

“You’d be surprised what you’re willing to do when the Lamia comes for you.” – Rham Jas

Sometimes I surprise myself. Probably, more often than you’d think. When Steve proposed that Drag Me to Hell be upgraded to Blu-ray, I was convinced that it had already been covered in an earlier Shocktober, but no. So here it is, in all its gory glory. In fact, I was so surprised, that I bumped a prime candidate off the list to make room for this one, it’s that good. (As to what it replaced, you’ll just have to wait until Shocktober 2024 to find out. Remind me then, and I might tell you.)

A great double bill with this one would be Tom Holland’s adaptation of Stephen King’s Thinner. Both fit in to the sub-genre of what happens when you fall foul of a gypsy curse, and both are pretty harsh lessons in what can happen when you cross old folks. Hey, those people can mess you up in ways you can’t even imagine, and they won’t live long enough to suffer the consequences of their vengeance, so tread warily.

As soon as he was done with his Spider-Man trilogy, director Sam Raimi decided to return to his horror roots and co-wrote this with his brother Ivan Raimi, then took the helm as director. In returning to his comfort zone, he also re-embraced the eyeball popping gore, the tense pacing and the over the top, almost slapstick fight sequences that were a hallmark of his Evil Dead trilogy. All within the confines of a tight storyline with no padding. The opportunities to let off steam from the horror come during the excesses that can only be intended to raise a laugh before the pressure is on again.

The central character is Christine Brown (Alison Lohman). She’s ordinary. She’s not a bad person, but, like any of us, she encounters a situation that she could’ve handled better. She’s faced with one of life’s judgement calls. Whether she does the right thing for the wrong reason, or the wrong thing for the right reason – her life will never be the same, that’s for sure. Not to mention considerably shortened. Christine is a loan officer at a Los Angeles bank, and has her eye on a promotion. She wants that assistant branch manager job. But then, so does co-worker Stu Rubin (played to slimy, butt kissing perfection by Reggie Lee) and Stu doesn’t mind manipulating his way into the boss’s good books by just about any means necessary. The bank manager is playing this out to his best advantage, and why not? Both employees practically engaged in gladiatorial combat for his favour and he’s reaping all the benefit.

Christine is told that to get the advantage, she needs to show that she can take the tough decisions. Armed with this bit of sage advice, she meets her next customer, Sylvia Ganush (Lorna Raver). Mrs Ganush is by any measure a grotesque crone, thanks to the make-up effects of KNB, practically a caricature of an old gypsy woman from Universal’s silent/early sound era. Gnarled, twig-like fingers, ending in yellowing nails. One blind eye, hair that looks dead, dentures that, well, aren’t clean (and which she has a habit of removing) and a harsh, raspy voice. Mrs Ganush has come to ask for a third extension on her mortgage as she’s behind on her payments, but money come soon, yes?

Seeing her opportunity to gain an edge in her war with Stu for promotion, she declines the old woman’s request. Even when Mrs Ganush pleads on her knees because she’s going to be homeless, evicted from her house, Christine steadfastly refuses. Ganush becomes angry, accusing Christine of shaming her, before being escorted out by two security officers.

Normally, I guess that would be that. Except Ganush is far, far from finished. She lies in wait in Christine’s car in the multi storey car park and there’s a pitched fight between them. I’d like to say struggle, but damn – these women go all out, to the point that Ganush’s dentures are damaged, becoming like fangs as a result. (Seeing them with stringy phlegm trailing turned even MY horror hardened stomach. I’m not ashamed to admit that.)

As a result, Ganush tears a button from Christine’s coat and curses it before throwing it back to her. Only Christine doesn’t know she’s been cursed until she visits a psychic, Rham Jas (Dileep Rao) who tells her a dark spirit is stalking her, and she finds she has only three days. After three days of unspeakable torment, the Lamia will literally drag her to hell, as she is in possession of the cursed button.

Now the torments, they’re both physical, as in violent slaps, and being thrown around her home, and hallucinations of seeing Mrs Ganush, whom she discovers is now deceased. At work, she bleeds profusely from her nose and mouth, during a dinner with her boyfriend’s upwardly mobile and uptight parents, her hallucinations include seeing Ganush’s milky eye, peering at her from inside her slice of cake.

In desperation, Christine tries a blood sacrifice of her kitten, which doesn’t work but Jas suggests a ceremony to summon the Lamia and transfer the demon into a goat. When that fails, Jas suggests seals the button in an envelope and passing it to someone else. (I mean, really, they could’ve spared a kitten, a goat AND a mystic and her assistant had he suggested that first.)

She fails to hand it off, even to Stu – and I thought that’s would’ve been easy – due to her conscience. So, in the end, she decides to just go and dig up Mrs Ganush and bury the button with her. (Again, shouldn’t that’ve been part of the first idea?)

The following day, everything is rosy. Stu’s been fired, the promotion’s hers and she’s heading off for a weekend trip with her boyfriend and is excitedly waiting for him at the railway station.

Until he shows up and hands her an envelope he found, containing the button she had lost. Backing away, she falls on to the tracks directly into the path of an oncoming train. But it never hits her. The ground opens up and the Lamia’s hands drag her to hell just before it arrives.

That’s a nice twist ending to a surprisingly effective and original horror movie.