Drag Me to Hell
Encyclopedia
Drag Me to Hell is a 2009 American horror film
, directed by Sam Raimi
, with a screenplay
by Sam and Ivan Raimi
. The plot focuses on loan officer Christine Brown (Alison Lohman
), who tries to impress her boss by refusing to extend a loan to a gypsy woman by the name of Mrs. Ganush (Lorna Raver
). In retaliation, Ganush places a curse
on Christine that, after three days of escalating torment, will plunge her into the depths of Hell
to burn for eternity.
Raimi wrote Drag Me to Hell with his brother, Ivan, prior to working on the Spider-Man films. The film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival
and was released to wide critical acclaim. It was also a box office success, making $90.8 million worldwide on a $30 million budget. Drag Me to Hell won the award for Best Horror Film
at the 2009 Scream Awards
and the 2010 Saturn Awards.
, a couple seeks the aid of the medium
Shaun San Dena (Flor de Maria Chahua) because their son claims to see and hear monsters. San Dena aids the family by carrying out a séance
, but they are attacked by an unseen force that pulls the boy into Hell.
In 2009 in Los Angeles
, California
, bank loan officer Christine Brown (Alison Lohman
) hopes to be promoted to assistant manager over her co-worker Stu Rubin (Reggie Lee
). Her boss, Jim Jacks (David Paymer
), advises her to demonstrate that she can make tough decisions to get a promotion. Christine is visited by an elderly woman, Sylvia Ganush (Lorna Raver
), who asks for an extension on her mortgage payment. Christine decides to deny Ganush an extension to prove herself to her boss. Ganush begs Christine not to repossess her house, but Christine refuses and calls for security to take Ganush away. Jim compliments Christine on how she handled the situation.
In the bank parking garage, Ganush attacks Christine in her car, rips a button off Christine's coat and uses it to place a curse
on her. Later, Christine and her boyfriend Clay Dalton (Justin Long
) meet the fortune teller Rham Jas (Dileep Rao
), who tells Christine that she is being haunted by a spirit. At her home, Christine is attacked by the spirit and has nightmares about Ganush. At work the next day, Christine snaps at one of her co-workers and has a projectile nosebleed that soaks her boss in blood. Christine then goes to talk to Ganush at her granddaughter's home, only to find that she died the previous night and a memorial service is being held. Christine returns to Rham Jas, who explains that she is being haunted by a powerful demon called the Lamia
(portrayed in the movie as a Baphomet
-like daemon) that will torment her for three days before taking her to Hell. He suggests a sacrifice to appease the demon. The next day, the Lamia returns and thrashes Christine in her bedroom. Desperate to stop the attacks, Christine sacrifices her pet kitten. At a dinner party with Clay and his parents, she is again tormented by the Lamia, which frightens the Daltons.
Christine returns to Rham Jas for further help. He says that Shaun San Dena will risk her life to stop the demon for a fee of $10,000. Further supernatural attacks on Christine lead Clay to pay the fee. San Dena prepares a séance
to trap the Lamia's spirit in a goat and kill it to vanquish the spirit. San Dena allows the Lamia to inhabit her body. Rham Jas tries to persuade it not to steal Christine's soul, but it refuses and vows never to stop until Christine dies. Christine then places San Dena's hand on the goat, causing the spirit to enter its body. San Dena's assistant, Milos, attempts to kill the goat, but is instead bitten by the goat and in turn becomes possessed, attacking the members of the séance. San Dena banishes the Lamia from the séance, but dies in the process. Rham Jas seals the cursed button in an envelope and then tells her that the only way to get rid of the curse is to give the accursed item to someone as a gift, thereby passing the curse on to that person.
After being driven home by Clay, Christine attempts to find a recipient for the curse. She decides to give the envelope to Stu, in revenge for his stealing her work and presenting it as his own, but changes her mind. With guidance from Rham Jas, Christine learns that she can give it to Ganush, even though she is dead. Christine drives to the cemetery where she is buried and digs up her grave. In a torrential downpour, Christine jams the envelope in Ganush's mouth.
The next day, Christine goes to meet Clay at Los Angeles Union Station
, from where they plan to depart for a weekend in Santa Barbara
. Clay, planning to propose, reveals to Christine that he found the envelope containing the cursed button in his car. Christine then realizes she mixed up her envelope with another that she gave to Clay when she accidentally dropped it. Horrified, Christine backs away falling onto the tracks. As a train barrels towards her, fiery hands burst from the ground under the tracks. Clay can only watch in horror as Christine is dragged down into the fiery abyss of Hell. The movie ends with a horrified Clay holding Christine's cursed button.
and his brother Ivan Raimi
. The film went into production under the name The Curse. Sam and Ivan Raimi wrote the script as a morality tale, desiring to write a story about a character who wants to be a good person, but makes a sinful choice out of greed for her own betterment and pays the price for it. Sam and Ivan tried to make the character of Christine the main focal point in the film, and tried to have Christine in almost all the scenes in the film. Elements of the film's story are drawn from the British horror film
Night of the Demon
such as the similar-shaped demons and the three day curse theme in the film. The most significant parallel is that both stories involve the passing of a cursed object, which has to be passed to someone else, or its possessor will be devoured by one or more demons. Raimi wanted the film to be, unlike his past horror films, rated PG-13 and not strictly driven by gore, stating, "I didn't want to do exactly the same thing I had done before."
After finishing the script, Raimi desired to make the picture after the first draft of the script was completed, but other projects such as the Spider-Man film series became a nearly decade-long endeavor, pushing opportunities to continue work on Drag Me to Hell to late 2007. After the previous three Spider-Man films, Raimi came back to the script of Drag Me to Hell, wanting to make a simpler and lower-budget film. In 2007, Sam Raimi's friend and producer
Rob Tapert of Ghost House Pictures had the company sign on to finance the film. Universal Studios
agreed to distribute domestically.
was originally cast for the main role of Christine, but dropped out of the project due to SAG strike-related scheduling issues. The main role eventually went to Lohman, who didn't enjoy horror film
s, but enjoyed doing the stunts during filming. Stage actress Lorna Raver
auditioned for the role of Mrs. Ganush. Raver was not aware of the specific nature of her character until being cast, stating that all she had read was "about a little old lady coming into the bank because they're closing down her house. It was only later that I saw the whole script and said, 'Oh my!'" To prepare for this role, Raver met with a Hungarian dialect coach and asked to have portions of the script translated into Hungarian. Raimi would later ask Raver to use some of the Hungarian words in the scenes of Ganush's attacking Christine. Dileep Rao
, who plays Rham Jas, made producer Grant Curtis
mildly hesitant in casting him, stating that during his audition "he was a little bit younger than he read in the script. But as we were looking at his reading, Sam said, 'There's no minimum age requirement on wisdom.' Dileep has that wisdom and presence on screen, and that’s what made him right. Once he got on camera, he brought that shoulder for Alison to lean on." Many of the actors playing secondary characters in Drag Me to Hell have appeared previously in Raimi's films, including Joanne Baron, Tom Carey, Molly Cheek
, Aimee Miles, John Paxton
, Ted Raimi
, Bill E. Rogers, Chelcie Ross
, and Octavia Spencer
.
and you come to rely on a lot of people doing things for you and a lot of help, but it’s refreshing and wonderful to be reminded that, as with most filmmakers, the best way to do it is yourself, with a tight team doing the main jobs."
Production for Drag Me to Hell began on location in Tarzana, California. The production team included Director of Photography Peter Deming
(Evil Dead 2, Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery
), production designer Steve Saklad (Juno
), and Visual Effects supervisor Bruce Jones. The film was produced by Grant Curtis
and Rob Tapert. Tapert and Raimi are longtime collaborators, having attended college together in Michigan.
, who has collaborated with Sam Raimi on several films including the Spider-Man
series, The Gift, and Army of Darkness
.
Raimi has said of working with Murawski on Drag Me to Hell, "He’d come (down to the set) to see how things were going and to let me know if he’d just cut something that wasn’t working the way he’d wanted it to, or to suggest a pick-up shot I should get for a piece he felt we needed in a sequence I hadn’t realized I needed. He’s very detail-oriented... So we’re very close collaborators."
Raimi finds editing with Murawski to be "relaxing," adding, "I love it. For me, it’s so relaxing, unlike pre-production, which is fraught with anxiety and fear about how we’re going to do things, and production, which is so rushed and a sleepless time and you’re just racing to finish every shot and worrying about focus and so on. So post is soothing and I can watch the film come together, so it’s a time of discovery for me as Bob and I fit all the pieces together. I see new possibilities in post, as Bob puts the film together, sometimes in a way I never imagined..."
The film was edited by Murawski on an Avid computer system in a West Los Angeles facility. The color grading was completed at Company 3 with colorist Stephen Nakamura. Nakamura used a "da Vinci Resolve." It was CO3’s first start-to-finish feature in 4K resolution.
"For us, post is a very creative time where it’s not just about this factory producing the blueprinted product. It’s really a very creative, experimental time where we try and take everything that’s been written and then shot to the next level," said Raimi.
The final sound mix was completed at The Dub Stage in Burbank with mixers Marti Humphrey and Chris Jacobson.
, puppets, prosthetics and computer-generated imagery
. Bruce Jones was the Visual Effects Supervisor on the film. Of Jones, Raimi commented, "He brought a great can-do approach to the film... He’s got a great team of artists and technicians with him, and he’s got great instincts.”
There were hundreds of visual effects in the film, and different effects houses were utilized. According to Raimi, the Bay Area's Tippett Studio was a big player. "We also had work done by Amalgamated Pixels, Ghost VFX, KNB Effects, Home Digital, Cinesoup and IE Effects," said Raimi. According to Raimi, “Bob (Murawski) and I kept adding visual effects as post proceeded. In this film, the supernatural, the unseen, is almost another character, so sequences were developed — even in post — that would suggest the presence of the supernatural, and we kept on adding. The same with the sound effects, so it was a very ongoing, very live process in post."
Director of Photography, Peter Deming tried to use realistic lighting in the film. Said Deming, "Normally, you'd put all corrected bulbs in, but we went with what was there, including the shots in the street. We used the streetlight look and mixed that with interior lighting. There were a lot of odd color sources that we chose to leave the way they would be naturally. It’s a heightened sense of realism." One of the earliest projects the special effects teams did was the scene in which Mrs. Ganush attacks Christine in her car. To film the action, which included close-ups of Christine jamming her foot on the pedal, hitting the brake, and shifting gears, the team created a puzzle car which allowed the front engine compartment and back trunk — as well as all four sides and doors — to come away from the car. The roof came off in two directions.
festival on March 15, 2009. The film debuted in its full form at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival
, where it was shown out of competition on May 21 as a midnight screening.
rated the film as "Certified Fresh," with 92% of critics giving the film a positive review, based upon a sample of 216 reviews. At Metacritic
, which assigns a normalized
rating out of 100 reviews from mainstream critics, the film has received an average
score of 83 out of 100, based on 32 reviews, signifying "universal acclaim."
Positive critical reception of the movie generally praised the film's scary but humorous and campy tone. Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly
gave the film an A rating, stating that "Raimi has made the most crazy, fun, and terrifying horror movie in years." Betsy Sharkey of the Los Angeles Times
praised the film, stating that it "should not be dismissed as yet another horror flick just for teens. The filmmakers have given us a 10-story winding staircase of psychological tension that is making very small circles near the end." Michael Phillips
of the Chicago Tribune
described the film as a "hellaciously effective B-movie [that] comes with a handy moral tucked inside its scares, laughs and Raimi's specialty, the scare/laugh hybrid." Roger Ebert
of the Chicago Sun Times wrote a positive review, stating the film "is a sometimes funny and often startling horror movie. That is what it wants to be, and that is what it is." In a positive review, Variety
said of the film: "Scant and barren of subtext, the pic is single-mindedly devoted to pushing the audience's buttons... Still, there's no denying it delivers far more than competing PG-13 thrillers."
Bloody Disgusting
gave the film four and a half stars out of five, with the review calling it "quite simply the most PERFECT horror film I've seen in a long, long while... [It's] a blast and moved quickly from start to finish [and] is well on its way to becoming an immediate classic." The film was then ranked thirteenth in Bloody Disgusting's list of the 'Top 20 Horror Films of the Decade'.
Kyle Smith
of the New York Post
thought it was cheesy, with too many "gross-outs", Rex Reed
of the New York Observer
thought that the plot wasn't believable enough, and Peter Howell of The Toronto Star disliked Lohman's performance and thought it was "just not very funny". The movie was nominated for "Choice Movie: Horror/Thriller" at the 2009 Teen Choice Awards
, which the film lost to Friday the 13th
(2009). At the 2009 Scream Awards
show, Drag Me to Hell won the awards for Best Horror Movie and Best Scream-play
.
Reviews have also received the movie as a comedy horror in a more classic Raimi
vein. Vic Holtreman of Screenrant claims the film is a long-awaited movie that combines both genres as Army of Darkness
had done. Noemi Minaya-Mende of Spinnaker Online likens the movie to "traditional dark comedy horror". A reviewer at UGO Networks says that the movie is very much more a comedy than horror and that this is in keeping with Raimi
not having produced a "true horror" since he started.
. Young has worked with director Sam Raimi previously on his films The Gift and Spider-Man 3
. The soundtrack was released on August 18, 2009. Sam Raimi stated that emphasis was on using the soundtrack to create a world that didn’t exist, a world of the "supernatural."
Horror film
Horror films seek to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's most primal fears. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer through the means of macabre and the supernatural, thus frequently overlapping with the fantasy and science fiction genres...
, directed by Sam Raimi
Sam Raimi
Samuel Marshall "Sam" Raimi is an American film director, producer, actor and writer. He is best known for directing cult horror films like the Evil Dead series, Darkman and Drag Me to Hell, as well as the blockbuster Spider-Man films and the producer of the successful TV series Hercules: The...
, with a screenplay
Screenplay
A screenplay or script is a written work that is made especially for a film or television program. Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of writing. In them, the movement, actions, expression, and dialogues of the characters are also narrated...
by Sam and Ivan Raimi
Ivan Raimi
Ivan M. Raimi is an American screenwriter and doctor of osteopathic medicine.-Career:Ivan, the third of five children, was born in Royal Oak, Michigan, the son of Celia Barbara , who owned lingerie shops, and Leonard Ronald Raimi, who owned home furnishing stores. Ivan was raised in Conservative...
. The plot focuses on loan officer Christine Brown (Alison Lohman
Alison Lohman
Alison Marion Lohman is an American actress. She has had lead roles in the films White Oleander, Where the Truth Lies, Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, Flicka and Drag Me to Hell as well as smaller parts in Matchstick Men, Big Fish, Gamer, and Beowulf...
), who tries to impress her boss by refusing to extend a loan to a gypsy woman by the name of Mrs. Ganush (Lorna Raver
Lorna Raver
Lorna Raver is an American actress who has appeared in numerous plays, films, and television series. She is sometimes credited as Lorna Raver Johnson....
). In retaliation, Ganush places a curse
Curse
A curse is any expressed wish that some form of adversity or misfortune will befall or attach to some other entity—one or more persons, a place, or an object...
on Christine that, after three days of escalating torment, will plunge her into the depths of Hell
Hell
In many religious traditions, a hell is a place of suffering and punishment in the afterlife. Religions with a linear divine history often depict hells as endless. Religions with a cyclic history often depict a hell as an intermediary period between incarnations...
to burn for eternity.
Raimi wrote Drag Me to Hell with his brother, Ivan, prior to working on the Spider-Man films. The film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival
Cannes Film Festival
The Cannes International Film Festival , is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films of all genres including documentaries from around the world. Founded in 1946, it is among the world's most prestigious and publicized film festivals...
and was released to wide critical acclaim. It was also a box office success, making $90.8 million worldwide on a $30 million budget. Drag Me to Hell won the award for Best Horror Film
Saturn Award for Best Horror Film
The following are a list of Saturn Award winners for Best Horror Film:-References:...
at the 2009 Scream Awards
Scream Awards
The Scream Awards is an award show dedicated to the horror, sci-fi, and fantasy genres of feature films. Originally only having Scream Queen and Heroic Performance awards for actors, the personnel awards have expanded to include actors and actresses of all three recognized genres. In addition,...
and the 2010 Saturn Awards.
Plot
In 1969 in Pasadena, CaliforniaPasadena, California
Pasadena is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. Although famous for hosting the annual Rose Bowl football game and Tournament of Roses Parade, Pasadena is the home to many scientific and cultural institutions, including the California Institute of Technology , the Jet...
, a couple seeks the aid of the medium
Mediumship
Mediumship is described as a form of communication with spirits. It is a practice in religious beliefs such as Spiritualism, Spiritism, Espiritismo, Candomblé, Voodoo and Umbanda.- Concept :...
Shaun San Dena (Flor de Maria Chahua) because their son claims to see and hear monsters. San Dena aids the family by carrying out a séance
Séance
A séance is an attempt to communicate with spirits. The word "séance" comes from the French word for "seat," "session" or "sitting," from the Old French "seoir," "to sit." In French, the word's meaning is quite general: one may, for example, speak of "une séance de cinéma"...
, but they are attacked by an unseen force that pulls the boy into Hell.
In 2009 in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
, bank loan officer Christine Brown (Alison Lohman
Alison Lohman
Alison Marion Lohman is an American actress. She has had lead roles in the films White Oleander, Where the Truth Lies, Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, Flicka and Drag Me to Hell as well as smaller parts in Matchstick Men, Big Fish, Gamer, and Beowulf...
) hopes to be promoted to assistant manager over her co-worker Stu Rubin (Reggie Lee
Reggie Lee (actor)
Reggie Lee is an American actor who played William Kim on the show Prison Break and also appeared as Tai Huang in two Pirates of the Caribbean films, as well as The Fast and the Furious...
). Her boss, Jim Jacks (David Paymer
David Paymer
David Paymer is an American actor and television director, seen in such films as Quiz Show, Searching for Bobby Fischer, City Slickers, Crazy People, State and Main, Payback, Get Shorty, Carpool, The American President, Ocean's Thirteen, and Drag Me to Hell...
), advises her to demonstrate that she can make tough decisions to get a promotion. Christine is visited by an elderly woman, Sylvia Ganush (Lorna Raver
Lorna Raver
Lorna Raver is an American actress who has appeared in numerous plays, films, and television series. She is sometimes credited as Lorna Raver Johnson....
), who asks for an extension on her mortgage payment. Christine decides to deny Ganush an extension to prove herself to her boss. Ganush begs Christine not to repossess her house, but Christine refuses and calls for security to take Ganush away. Jim compliments Christine on how she handled the situation.
In the bank parking garage, Ganush attacks Christine in her car, rips a button off Christine's coat and uses it to place a curse
Curse
A curse is any expressed wish that some form of adversity or misfortune will befall or attach to some other entity—one or more persons, a place, or an object...
on her. Later, Christine and her boyfriend Clay Dalton (Justin Long
Justin Long
Justin Jacob Long is an American film and television actor. He is best known for his roles in the Hollywood films Galaxy Quest, Jeepers Creepers, Dodgeball, Live Free or Die Hard, He's Just Not That into You, Drag Me to Hell, and Youth in Revolt, and his personification of a Mac in Apple's "Get a...
) meet the fortune teller Rham Jas (Dileep Rao
Dileep Rao
Dileep A. Rao is an American actor who has appeared in feature films and television series. He starred in Sam Raimi's horror film Drag Me to Hell , James Cameron's science fiction film Avatar , and Christopher Nolan's thriller Inception .-Life and career:Rao was born in Los Angeles, California to...
), who tells Christine that she is being haunted by a spirit. At her home, Christine is attacked by the spirit and has nightmares about Ganush. At work the next day, Christine snaps at one of her co-workers and has a projectile nosebleed that soaks her boss in blood. Christine then goes to talk to Ganush at her granddaughter's home, only to find that she died the previous night and a memorial service is being held. Christine returns to Rham Jas, who explains that she is being haunted by a powerful demon called the Lamia
Lamia (mythology)
In ancient Greek mythology, Lamia was a beautiful queen of Libya who became a child-eating daemon. Aristophanes claimed her name derived from the Greek word for gullet , referring to her habit of devouring children....
(portrayed in the movie as a Baphomet
Baphomet
Baphomet is an imagined pagan deity , revived in the 19th century as a figure of occultism and Satanism. It appeared as a term for a pagan idol in trial transcripts of the Inquisition of the Knights Templar in the early 14th century...
-like daemon) that will torment her for three days before taking her to Hell. He suggests a sacrifice to appease the demon. The next day, the Lamia returns and thrashes Christine in her bedroom. Desperate to stop the attacks, Christine sacrifices her pet kitten. At a dinner party with Clay and his parents, she is again tormented by the Lamia, which frightens the Daltons.
Christine returns to Rham Jas for further help. He says that Shaun San Dena will risk her life to stop the demon for a fee of $10,000. Further supernatural attacks on Christine lead Clay to pay the fee. San Dena prepares a séance
Séance
A séance is an attempt to communicate with spirits. The word "séance" comes from the French word for "seat," "session" or "sitting," from the Old French "seoir," "to sit." In French, the word's meaning is quite general: one may, for example, speak of "une séance de cinéma"...
to trap the Lamia's spirit in a goat and kill it to vanquish the spirit. San Dena allows the Lamia to inhabit her body. Rham Jas tries to persuade it not to steal Christine's soul, but it refuses and vows never to stop until Christine dies. Christine then places San Dena's hand on the goat, causing the spirit to enter its body. San Dena's assistant, Milos, attempts to kill the goat, but is instead bitten by the goat and in turn becomes possessed, attacking the members of the séance. San Dena banishes the Lamia from the séance, but dies in the process. Rham Jas seals the cursed button in an envelope and then tells her that the only way to get rid of the curse is to give the accursed item to someone as a gift, thereby passing the curse on to that person.
After being driven home by Clay, Christine attempts to find a recipient for the curse. She decides to give the envelope to Stu, in revenge for his stealing her work and presenting it as his own, but changes her mind. With guidance from Rham Jas, Christine learns that she can give it to Ganush, even though she is dead. Christine drives to the cemetery where she is buried and digs up her grave. In a torrential downpour, Christine jams the envelope in Ganush's mouth.
The next day, Christine goes to meet Clay at Los Angeles Union Station
Union Station (Los Angeles)
Los Angeles Union Station is the main railway station in Los Angeles, California. The station has rail services by Amtrak and Amtrak California and Metrolink; light rail/subways are the Metro Rail Red Line, Purple Line, Gold Line. Bus rapid transport runs on the Silver Line...
, from where they plan to depart for a weekend in Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara, California
Santa Barbara is the county seat of Santa Barbara County, California, United States. Situated on an east-west trending section of coastline, the longest such section on the West Coast of the United States, the city lies between the steeply-rising Santa Ynez Mountains and the Pacific Ocean...
. Clay, planning to propose, reveals to Christine that he found the envelope containing the cursed button in his car. Christine then realizes she mixed up her envelope with another that she gave to Clay when she accidentally dropped it. Horrified, Christine backs away falling onto the tracks. As a train barrels towards her, fiery hands burst from the ground under the tracks. Clay can only watch in horror as Christine is dragged down into the fiery abyss of Hell. The movie ends with a horrified Clay holding Christine's cursed button.
Cast
- Alison LohmanAlison LohmanAlison Marion Lohman is an American actress. She has had lead roles in the films White Oleander, Where the Truth Lies, Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, Flicka and Drag Me to Hell as well as smaller parts in Matchstick Men, Big Fish, Gamer, and Beowulf...
as Christine Brown: A young mild-mannered bank employee who desires the position of assistant manager. After turning down Sylvia Ganush's request for a third extension on her mortgage, she is cursed by her and attacked by a demon called the Lamia. - Justin LongJustin LongJustin Jacob Long is an American film and television actor. He is best known for his roles in the Hollywood films Galaxy Quest, Jeepers Creepers, Dodgeball, Live Free or Die Hard, He's Just Not That into You, Drag Me to Hell, and Youth in Revolt, and his personification of a Mac in Apple's "Get a...
as Professor Clayton "Clay" Dalton: Christine's boyfriend who is a college professor born to a wealthy family. Clayton is skeptical about Rham Jas's help and the existence of the demon. - Lorna RaverLorna RaverLorna Raver is an American actress who has appeared in numerous plays, films, and television series. She is sometimes credited as Lorna Raver Johnson....
as Mrs. Sylvia Ganush: An elderly woman who attacks Christine Brown and places a curse on her. Ganush dies the day after the attack, but her spirit constantly haunts Christine throughout the film. - David PaymerDavid PaymerDavid Paymer is an American actor and television director, seen in such films as Quiz Show, Searching for Bobby Fischer, City Slickers, Crazy People, State and Main, Payback, Get Shorty, Carpool, The American President, Ocean's Thirteen, and Drag Me to Hell...
as Mr. Jim Jacks: Christine's concerned boss who is considering whether Christine or Stu Rubin deserves the job of assistant manager at the bank. - Dileep RaoDileep RaoDileep A. Rao is an American actor who has appeared in feature films and television series. He starred in Sam Raimi's horror film Drag Me to Hell , James Cameron's science fiction film Avatar , and Christopher Nolan's thriller Inception .-Life and career:Rao was born in Los Angeles, California to...
as Rham Jas: A young psychic who informs Christine that she is cursed. Rham Jas later introduces Christine to Shaun San Dena who has a seance with her. - Reggie LeeReggie Lee (actor)Reggie Lee is an American actor who played William Kim on the show Prison Break and also appeared as Tai Huang in two Pirates of the Caribbean films, as well as The Fast and the Furious...
as Stu Rubin: Stu Rubin is a conniving employee of the bank Christine works at. Stu tries to make Christine look bad at work in order to get the promotion. - Adriana BarrazaAdriana BarrazaAdriana Barraza is a Mexican film and television actress and director. She has also been nominated for a Golden Globe, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, a Broadcast Film Critics Association and an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She is also a veteran actress of Televisa telenovelas...
as Shaun San Dena: A psychic who has a seance to draw out the Lamia to kill it for Christine. In the first scene set years in the past, Shaun San Dena is portrayed by Flor de Maria Chahua. - Chelcie RossChelcie RossChelcie Claude Ross is an American character actor. He served in Vietnam as an officer in the United States Air Force, and earned an MFA from the Dallas Theater Center.-Filmography:*Skokie *On the Right Track...
as Leonard Dalton: Clayton's father who does not approve of Clayton dating Christine. - Molly CheekMolly CheekMolly Cheek is an American actress who played the mother of main character Jim Levenstein in the 1999 film American Pie. She also played Garry's best friend on the television show It's Garry Shandling's Show....
as Trudy Dalton: Clayton's mother who also does not approve of Clayton dating Christine due to her peasantPeasantA peasant is an agricultural worker who generally tend to be poor and homeless-Etymology:The word is derived from 15th century French païsant meaning one from the pays, or countryside, ultimately from the Latin pagus, or outlying administrative district.- Position in society :Peasants typically...
origin and bizarre behavior (which was caused by the Lamia). - Bojana NovakovicBojana NovakovicBojana Novakovic is a Serbian Australian actress who works in Australia and the United States.-Early and personal life:Novakovic was born in 1981 in Serbia. She moved to Australia in 1988, at the age of seven. Novakovic was initially interested in becoming a social worker or doctor, but after a...
as Ilenka Ganush: Sylvia Ganush's cynical granddaughter. She lets Christine into her home when she asks to meet the elderly Ganush. - Art Kimbro as the voice of the Lamia: A powerful demon that is summoned after Ganush curses Christine. Its task is to torment Christine for three days before literally dragging her into Hell to burn for eternity.
Background
The original story for Drag Me to Hell was written ten years before the film went into production and was written by Sam RaimiSam Raimi
Samuel Marshall "Sam" Raimi is an American film director, producer, actor and writer. He is best known for directing cult horror films like the Evil Dead series, Darkman and Drag Me to Hell, as well as the blockbuster Spider-Man films and the producer of the successful TV series Hercules: The...
and his brother Ivan Raimi
Ivan Raimi
Ivan M. Raimi is an American screenwriter and doctor of osteopathic medicine.-Career:Ivan, the third of five children, was born in Royal Oak, Michigan, the son of Celia Barbara , who owned lingerie shops, and Leonard Ronald Raimi, who owned home furnishing stores. Ivan was raised in Conservative...
. The film went into production under the name The Curse. Sam and Ivan Raimi wrote the script as a morality tale, desiring to write a story about a character who wants to be a good person, but makes a sinful choice out of greed for her own betterment and pays the price for it. Sam and Ivan tried to make the character of Christine the main focal point in the film, and tried to have Christine in almost all the scenes in the film. Elements of the film's story are drawn from the British horror film
Horror film
Horror films seek to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's most primal fears. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer through the means of macabre and the supernatural, thus frequently overlapping with the fantasy and science fiction genres...
Night of the Demon
Night of the Demon
Night of the Demon is a 1957 British horror film directed by Jacques Tourneur, starring Dana Andrews, Peggy Cummins and Niall MacGinnis. An adaptation of the M. R...
such as the similar-shaped demons and the three day curse theme in the film. The most significant parallel is that both stories involve the passing of a cursed object, which has to be passed to someone else, or its possessor will be devoured by one or more demons. Raimi wanted the film to be, unlike his past horror films, rated PG-13 and not strictly driven by gore, stating, "I didn't want to do exactly the same thing I had done before."
After finishing the script, Raimi desired to make the picture after the first draft of the script was completed, but other projects such as the Spider-Man film series became a nearly decade-long endeavor, pushing opportunities to continue work on Drag Me to Hell to late 2007. After the previous three Spider-Man films, Raimi came back to the script of Drag Me to Hell, wanting to make a simpler and lower-budget film. In 2007, Sam Raimi's friend and producer
Film producer
A film producer oversees and delivers a film project to all relevant parties while preserving the integrity, voice and vision of the film. They will also often take on some financial risk by using their own money, especially during the pre-production period, before a film is fully financed.The...
Rob Tapert of Ghost House Pictures had the company sign on to finance the film. Universal Studios
Universal Studios
Universal Pictures , a subsidiary of NBCUniversal, is one of the six major movie studios....
agreed to distribute domestically.
Casting
After completing the script and having the project greenlit, Sam Raimi started casting the film. Ellen PageEllen Page
Ellen Philpotts-Page , known professionally as Ellen Page, is a Canadian actress. Page received both Golden Globe and Academy Award nominations for Best Actress for her role as the title character in the film Juno...
was originally cast for the main role of Christine, but dropped out of the project due to SAG strike-related scheduling issues. The main role eventually went to Lohman, who didn't enjoy horror film
Horror film
Horror films seek to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's most primal fears. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer through the means of macabre and the supernatural, thus frequently overlapping with the fantasy and science fiction genres...
s, but enjoyed doing the stunts during filming. Stage actress Lorna Raver
Lorna Raver
Lorna Raver is an American actress who has appeared in numerous plays, films, and television series. She is sometimes credited as Lorna Raver Johnson....
auditioned for the role of Mrs. Ganush. Raver was not aware of the specific nature of her character until being cast, stating that all she had read was "about a little old lady coming into the bank because they're closing down her house. It was only later that I saw the whole script and said, 'Oh my!'" To prepare for this role, Raver met with a Hungarian dialect coach and asked to have portions of the script translated into Hungarian. Raimi would later ask Raver to use some of the Hungarian words in the scenes of Ganush's attacking Christine. Dileep Rao
Dileep Rao
Dileep A. Rao is an American actor who has appeared in feature films and television series. He starred in Sam Raimi's horror film Drag Me to Hell , James Cameron's science fiction film Avatar , and Christopher Nolan's thriller Inception .-Life and career:Rao was born in Los Angeles, California to...
, who plays Rham Jas, made producer Grant Curtis
Grant Curtis
Grant Curtis is a film producer, who has worked with director Sam Raimi on The Gift, Drag Me To Hell and the Spider-Man films. He grew up in the rural Missouri town of Warrensburg. Curtis received a Masters Degree in Mass Communication in 1997 from the University of Central Missouri , formerly CMSU...
mildly hesitant in casting him, stating that during his audition "he was a little bit younger than he read in the script. But as we were looking at his reading, Sam said, 'There's no minimum age requirement on wisdom.' Dileep has that wisdom and presence on screen, and that’s what made him right. Once he got on camera, he brought that shoulder for Alison to lean on." Many of the actors playing secondary characters in Drag Me to Hell have appeared previously in Raimi's films, including Joanne Baron, Tom Carey, Molly Cheek
Molly Cheek
Molly Cheek is an American actress who played the mother of main character Jim Levenstein in the 1999 film American Pie. She also played Garry's best friend on the television show It's Garry Shandling's Show....
, Aimee Miles, John Paxton
John Paxton
John Paxton was an American screenwriter.-Biography:Some of his films include Murder, My Sweet in 1944, Cornered in 1945, Crossfire in 1947...
, Ted Raimi
Ted Raimi
Theodore "Ted"/"Half Ted" Raimi is an American actor, perhaps best known for his roles as Lieutenant Tim O'Neill in seaQuest DSV and Joxer the Mighty in Xena: Warrior Princess/Hercules: The Legendary Journeys...
, Bill E. Rogers, Chelcie Ross
Chelcie Ross
Chelcie Claude Ross is an American character actor. He served in Vietnam as an officer in the United States Air Force, and earned an MFA from the Dallas Theater Center.-Filmography:*Skokie *On the Right Track...
, and Octavia Spencer
Octavia Spencer
Octavia L. Spencer is an American actress. She is perhaps best known for her role on Ugly Betty as Constance Grady, the INS Agent turned stalker of Betty's father, Ignacio Suarez and in the 2011 movie The Help as Minny....
.
Filming
Sam Raimi said he set out to create “a horror film with lots of wild moments and lots of suspense and big shocks that’ll hopefully make audiences jump. But I also wanted to have a lot of dark humor sprinkled throughout. I spent the last decade doing Spider-ManSpider-Man (film)
Spider-Man is a 2002 American superhero film, the first in the Spider-Man film series based on the fictional Marvel Comics character Spider-Man. It was directed by Sam Raimi and written by David Koepp...
and you come to rely on a lot of people doing things for you and a lot of help, but it’s refreshing and wonderful to be reminded that, as with most filmmakers, the best way to do it is yourself, with a tight team doing the main jobs."
Production for Drag Me to Hell began on location in Tarzana, California. The production team included Director of Photography Peter Deming
Peter Deming
Peter Deming A.S.C. is an American cinematographer, winner of the Independent Spirit Award for Best Cinematography.Deming was born in Racine, Wisconsin.-Filmography:*Hollywood Shuffle - - Director of Photography...
(Evil Dead 2, Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery
Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery
Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery is a 1997 American science fiction/action-comedy film and the first film of the Austin Powers series. It was directed by Jay Roach and written by Mike Myers who also stars in the title role. Myers also plays Dr. Evil, Austin Powers' arch-enemy...
), production designer Steve Saklad (Juno
Juno (film)
Juno is a 2007 comedy-drama film directed by Jason Reitman and written by Diablo Cody. Ellen Page stars as the title character, an independent-minded teenager confronting an unplanned pregnancy and the subsequent events that put pressures of adult life onto her. Michael Cera, Olivia Thirlby, J. K....
), and Visual Effects supervisor Bruce Jones. The film was produced by Grant Curtis
Grant Curtis
Grant Curtis is a film producer, who has worked with director Sam Raimi on The Gift, Drag Me To Hell and the Spider-Man films. He grew up in the rural Missouri town of Warrensburg. Curtis received a Masters Degree in Mass Communication in 1997 from the University of Central Missouri , formerly CMSU...
and Rob Tapert. Tapert and Raimi are longtime collaborators, having attended college together in Michigan.
Editing
Drag Me to Hell was edited by Bob MurawskiBob Murawski
Bob Murawski is an American film editor as well as a film distributor of cult horror and independent films under the "Box Office Spectaculars" and "Grindhouse Releasing" labels. He was awarded the 2010 Academy Award, BAFTA, and A.C.E. awards for "Best Film Editing" on the feature film, The Hurt...
, who has collaborated with Sam Raimi on several films including the Spider-Man
Spider-Man (film)
Spider-Man is a 2002 American superhero film, the first in the Spider-Man film series based on the fictional Marvel Comics character Spider-Man. It was directed by Sam Raimi and written by David Koepp...
series, The Gift, and Army of Darkness
Army of Darkness
Army of Darkness, also known as Evil Dead III: Army of Darkness or simply Evil Dead III, is a 1992 horror comedy fantasy action film directed by Sam Raimi. It is the third and final installment in The Evil Dead trilogy. The film was written by Raimi and his brother Ivan, produced by Robert Tapert,...
.
Raimi has said of working with Murawski on Drag Me to Hell, "He’d come (down to the set) to see how things were going and to let me know if he’d just cut something that wasn’t working the way he’d wanted it to, or to suggest a pick-up shot I should get for a piece he felt we needed in a sequence I hadn’t realized I needed. He’s very detail-oriented... So we’re very close collaborators."
Raimi finds editing with Murawski to be "relaxing," adding, "I love it. For me, it’s so relaxing, unlike pre-production, which is fraught with anxiety and fear about how we’re going to do things, and production, which is so rushed and a sleepless time and you’re just racing to finish every shot and worrying about focus and so on. So post is soothing and I can watch the film come together, so it’s a time of discovery for me as Bob and I fit all the pieces together. I see new possibilities in post, as Bob puts the film together, sometimes in a way I never imagined..."
The film was edited by Murawski on an Avid computer system in a West Los Angeles facility. The color grading was completed at Company 3 with colorist Stephen Nakamura. Nakamura used a "da Vinci Resolve." It was CO3’s first start-to-finish feature in 4K resolution.
"For us, post is a very creative time where it’s not just about this factory producing the blueprinted product. It’s really a very creative, experimental time where we try and take everything that’s been written and then shot to the next level," said Raimi.
The final sound mix was completed at The Dub Stage in Burbank with mixers Marti Humphrey and Chris Jacobson.
Effects
The effects in Drag Me to Hell were created in many different ways, including green screenGreen Screen
The Green Screen international wildlife film festival is held annually in Eckernförde, Germany. The festival shows full-length and short nature documentaries about animals in their natural habitat. It is the only festival of its kind in Germany...
, puppets, prosthetics and computer-generated imagery
Computer-generated imagery
Computer-generated imagery is the application of the field of computer graphics or, more specifically, 3D computer graphics to special effects in art, video games, films, television programs, commercials, simulators and simulation generally, and printed media...
. Bruce Jones was the Visual Effects Supervisor on the film. Of Jones, Raimi commented, "He brought a great can-do approach to the film... He’s got a great team of artists and technicians with him, and he’s got great instincts.”
There were hundreds of visual effects in the film, and different effects houses were utilized. According to Raimi, the Bay Area's Tippett Studio was a big player. "We also had work done by Amalgamated Pixels, Ghost VFX, KNB Effects, Home Digital, Cinesoup and IE Effects," said Raimi. According to Raimi, “Bob (Murawski) and I kept adding visual effects as post proceeded. In this film, the supernatural, the unseen, is almost another character, so sequences were developed — even in post — that would suggest the presence of the supernatural, and we kept on adding. The same with the sound effects, so it was a very ongoing, very live process in post."
Director of Photography, Peter Deming tried to use realistic lighting in the film. Said Deming, "Normally, you'd put all corrected bulbs in, but we went with what was there, including the shots in the street. We used the streetlight look and mixed that with interior lighting. There were a lot of odd color sources that we chose to leave the way they would be naturally. It’s a heightened sense of realism." One of the earliest projects the special effects teams did was the scene in which Mrs. Ganush attacks Christine in her car. To film the action, which included close-ups of Christine jamming her foot on the pedal, hitting the brake, and shifting gears, the team created a puzzle car which allowed the front engine compartment and back trunk — as well as all four sides and doors — to come away from the car. The roof came off in two directions.
Interpretation
Sam and Ivan Raimi have said they wrote the script as a modern morality tale, desiring to write a story about a character who wants to be a good person, but makes a sinful choice out of greed for her own betterment and pays the price for it.Reception
Drag Me to Hell was first shown to the public as a "Work in Progress" print at the South by SouthwestSouth by Southwest
South by Southwest is an Austin, Texas based company dedicated to planning conferences, trade shows, festivals and other events. Their current roster of annual events include: SXSW Music, SXSW Film, SXSW Interactive, SXSWedu, and SXSWeco and take place every spring in Austin, Texas, United States...
festival on March 15, 2009. The film debuted in its full form at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival
Cannes Film Festival
The Cannes International Film Festival , is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films of all genres including documentaries from around the world. Founded in 1946, it is among the world's most prestigious and publicized film festivals...
, where it was shown out of competition on May 21 as a midnight screening.
Box office
The film was released in American theaters on Friday May 29, 2009. The film opened at #4 with $15,825,480 from 2,508 theaters, for an average of $6,310 per theater. In its second weekend, it dropped to seventh place, with $7,040,550, expanding to 2,510 theaters, averaging $2,805 per theater, and bringing the 10-day gross to $28,233,230. Drag Me to Hell closed on Thursday, August 6, 2009, with a final gross in the United States and Canada of $42,100,625, and an additional $48,742,021 internationally for a total of $90,842,646 worldwide.Critical reception
Drag Me to Hell received positive reviews from critics upon release. Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
rated the film as "Certified Fresh," with 92% of critics giving the film a positive review, based upon a sample of 216 reviews. At Metacritic
Metacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
, which assigns a normalized
Standard score
In statistics, a standard score indicates how many standard deviations an observation or datum is above or below the mean. It is a dimensionless quantity derived by subtracting the population mean from an individual raw score and then dividing the difference by the population standard deviation...
rating out of 100 reviews from mainstream critics, the film has received an average
Weighted mean
The weighted mean is similar to an arithmetic mean , where instead of each of the data points contributing equally to the final average, some data points contribute more than others...
score of 83 out of 100, based on 32 reviews, signifying "universal acclaim."
Positive critical reception of the movie generally praised the film's scary but humorous and campy tone. Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
gave the film an A rating, stating that "Raimi has made the most crazy, fun, and terrifying horror movie in years." Betsy Sharkey of the Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
praised the film, stating that it "should not be dismissed as yet another horror flick just for teens. The filmmakers have given us a 10-story winding staircase of psychological tension that is making very small circles near the end." Michael Phillips
Michael Phillips
Michael Phillips is the name of:*Michael Phillips *Michael Phillips *Michael Phillips *Michael Phillips *Michael Phillips , figure skater and ice dancer...
of the Chicago Tribune
Chicago Tribune
The Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, and the flagship publication of the Tribune Company. Formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" , it remains the most read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region and is...
described the film as a "hellaciously effective B-movie [that] comes with a handy moral tucked inside its scares, laughs and Raimi's specialty, the scare/laugh hybrid." Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
of the Chicago Sun Times wrote a positive review, stating the film "is a sometimes funny and often startling horror movie. That is what it wants to be, and that is what it is." In a positive review, Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
said of the film: "Scant and barren of subtext, the pic is single-mindedly devoted to pushing the audience's buttons... Still, there's no denying it delivers far more than competing PG-13 thrillers."
Bloody Disgusting
Bloody Disgusting
Bloody Disgusting is a website that covers horror movies with reviews, interviews and news. It is currently run by Brad Miska, and Tom Owen. According to one source, the site has 1.5 million unique visitors and 20 million page views each month. It is widely considered to be the "world's most...
gave the film four and a half stars out of five, with the review calling it "quite simply the most PERFECT horror film I've seen in a long, long while... [It's] a blast and moved quickly from start to finish [and] is well on its way to becoming an immediate classic." The film was then ranked thirteenth in Bloody Disgusting's list of the 'Top 20 Horror Films of the Decade'.
Kyle Smith
Kyle Smith
Kyle Smith is an American critic, novelist and essayist. He is a staff film critic for the New York Post. His film reviewing style has been called "an exercise in hilarious hostility" by Entertainment Weekly....
of the New York Post
New York Post
The New York Post is the 13th-oldest newspaper published in the United States and is generally acknowledged as the oldest to have been published continuously as a daily, although – as is the case with most other papers – its publication has been periodically interrupted by labor actions...
thought it was cheesy, with too many "gross-outs", Rex Reed
Rex Reed
Rex Taylor Reed is an American film critic and former co-host of the syndicated television show At the Movies. He currently writes the column "On the Town with Rex Reed" for The New York Observer.-Life and career:...
of the New York Observer
New York Observer
The New York Observer is a weekly newspaper first published in New York City on September 22, 1987, by Arthur L. Carter, a very successful former investment banker with publishing interests. The Observer focuses on the city's culture, real estate, the media, politics and the entertainment and...
thought that the plot wasn't believable enough, and Peter Howell of The Toronto Star disliked Lohman's performance and thought it was "just not very funny". The movie was nominated for "Choice Movie: Horror/Thriller" at the 2009 Teen Choice Awards
Teen Choice Awards
The Teen Choice Awards, are an annual awards show that air on the Fox cable channel, that honor the year's biggest biggest achievements in music, movies, sports, television, fashion and more, voted by teen viewers aged 14 through 17. Winners receive an authentic full size surfboard designed with...
, which the film lost to Friday the 13th
Friday the 13th (2009 film)
Friday the 13th is a 2009 American slasher film directed by Marcus Nispel and written by Damian Shannon and Mark Swift. It is a reboot of the Friday the 13th film series, which began in 1980 and the twelfth Friday the 13th film in total...
(2009). At the 2009 Scream Awards
Scream Awards
The Scream Awards is an award show dedicated to the horror, sci-fi, and fantasy genres of feature films. Originally only having Scream Queen and Heroic Performance awards for actors, the personnel awards have expanded to include actors and actresses of all three recognized genres. In addition,...
show, Drag Me to Hell won the awards for Best Horror Movie and Best Scream-play
Screenplay
A screenplay or script is a written work that is made especially for a film or television program. Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of writing. In them, the movement, actions, expression, and dialogues of the characters are also narrated...
.
Reviews have also received the movie as a comedy horror in a more classic Raimi
Sam Raimi
Samuel Marshall "Sam" Raimi is an American film director, producer, actor and writer. He is best known for directing cult horror films like the Evil Dead series, Darkman and Drag Me to Hell, as well as the blockbuster Spider-Man films and the producer of the successful TV series Hercules: The...
vein. Vic Holtreman of Screenrant claims the film is a long-awaited movie that combines both genres as Army of Darkness
Army of Darkness
Army of Darkness, also known as Evil Dead III: Army of Darkness or simply Evil Dead III, is a 1992 horror comedy fantasy action film directed by Sam Raimi. It is the third and final installment in The Evil Dead trilogy. The film was written by Raimi and his brother Ivan, produced by Robert Tapert,...
had done. Noemi Minaya-Mende of Spinnaker Online likens the movie to "traditional dark comedy horror". A reviewer at UGO Networks says that the movie is very much more a comedy than horror and that this is in keeping with Raimi
Sam Raimi
Samuel Marshall "Sam" Raimi is an American film director, producer, actor and writer. He is best known for directing cult horror films like the Evil Dead series, Darkman and Drag Me to Hell, as well as the blockbuster Spider-Man films and the producer of the successful TV series Hercules: The...
not having produced a "true horror" since he started.
Home media
Drag Me to Hell was released on DVD and Blu-ray Disc in the US on October 13, 2009. Both media include an Unrated Director's Cut as well as the Theatrical Version. In its first two weeks the DVD sold 459,217 copies generating $7.98 million in sales.Soundtrack
The soundtrack for Drag Me to Hell was composed by Christopher YoungChristopher Young
Christopher Young is an American music composer for both film and television.Many of his music compositions are for horror films, including Hellraiser, Tales from the Hood, A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge, Urban Legend, and Drag Me to Hell...
. Young has worked with director Sam Raimi previously on his films The Gift and Spider-Man 3
Spider-Man 3
Spider-Man 3 is a 2007 American superhero film written and directed by Sam Raimi, with a screenplay by Ivan Raimi and Alvin Sargent. It is the third film in the Sam Raimi Spider-Man trilogy based on the fictional Marvel Comics character Spider-Man...
. The soundtrack was released on August 18, 2009. Sam Raimi stated that emphasis was on using the soundtrack to create a world that didn’t exist, a world of the "supernatural."
- "Drag Me to Hell" – 2:33
- "Mexican Devil Disaster" – 4:33
- "Tale of a Haunted Banker" – 1:52
- "Lamia" – 4:06
- "Black Rainbows" – 3:24
- "Ode to Ganush" – 2:23
- "Familiar Familiars" – 2:11
- "Loose Teeth" – 6:31
- "Ordeal by Corpse" – 4:35
- "Bealing Bells with Trumpet" – 5:12
- "Brick Dogs Ala Carte" – 1:46
- "Buddled Brain Strain" – 2:51
- "Auto-Da-Fe" – 4:31
- "Concerto to Hell" – 5:59