The Most Shocking 5 Minutes in a Sam Raimi Horror Movie Aren’t in Evil Dead

The Big Picture

• The final scene in Sam Raimi’s
  Drag Me to Hell
  tricks the audience into thinking the protagonist, Christine, has survived her horrific ordeal before she literally gets dragged down to hell in the final moments of the film.
• The ending to
  Drag Me to Hell
  is Raimi at his most punishing, pulling the rug out from not only Christine, but the audience as well, who has come to accept her innocence.
• The scene is especially cynical because it suggests that our past will never be done with us.

Unbeknownst to many casual viewers, Sam Raimi has one of the most eclectic filmographies of any living filmmaker. Throughout his 40-year career, Raimi has made crime dramas, Westerns, romantic baseball tear-jerkers, and supernatural thrillers. However, one genre, horror, is most synonymous with his careerthanks to his breakthrough indie, The Evil Deadwhich developed a cult following with its subsequent sequels, Evil Dead II and Army of Darkness. While most of his filmography is removed from the genre, the horror fandom will forever embrace Raimi for his unique blend of zany slapstick comedy and lurid imagery. Raimi never truly conceals his horror DNA, as even in his blockbuster phase as the director of the Spider-Man trilogy, his films are sprinkled with shocking and absurdist flourishes. In terms of shock value, another Raimi horror film, Drag Me to Helltops The Evil Dead by constructing an ending so vicious and surreal that it could’ve only been envisioned by one twisted mind.

‘Drag Me to Hell’ Brought Sam Raimi Back to His Horror Roots

Following Spider-Man 3the derided sequel notorious for its studio meddling and loss of creative control, Raimi needed a creative reset. In 2009, he returned to his roots with Drag Me to Hellan old-fashioned, meat-and-potatoes horror joint that gives the people what they want while also reinvigorating Raimi’s chops as a master of scares. The film follows Christine (Alison Lohman), a loan officer eyeing a promotion at her bank. To prove she has the fortitude for tough decisions, she denies a loan to a decrepit European Roma woman, Sylvia Ganush (Lorna Raver). Later, the elderly woman ambushes Christine in the parking lot. After a long struggle, Ganush rips a button from Christine’s coat and places a curse on it. Throughout the rest of the film, Christine is tormented by the dark spirit infecting her, attacked by a ghostly entity, and experiences shocking bursts of body horror. The depraved side effects of this curse, including profuse bleeding and vomiting, will have viewers aghast upon learning that Drag Me to Hell was rated PG-13.

After various attempts to rid herself of the curse and consultation from a fortune-teller, Rham Jas (Dileep Rao), Christine is left with no option besides digging up Ganush’s grave and placing a sealed envelope containing the cursed button on her person. It appears as though Christine’s trauma has officially passed. She even displayed her moral conscience by rejecting her temptation to pass the button on to an unsuspecting person. By returning the curse to its rightful place six feet under, Christine’s life is back on track, and her future is beautifully idealistic. Not only did she receive her coveted promotion, but a marriage proposal from her boyfriend, Clay (Justin Long), is inevitable. For a Sam Raimi horror film, Drag Me to Hell seems like it will conclude with an unexpected hopeful and innocent spirit. The final scene, with Christine and Clay at a train station, feels like a pleasant dream. Amid this scene that plays like a fairy tale of young love and career fulfillment, Christine admits to Clay that she could’ve given Ganush another extension on her loan. With this act of repentance, she is certainly absolved of her sins, right?

What Happens at the End of ‘Drag Me to Hell’?

Sam Raimi has two modes: sweet and earnest, as seen in Peter Parker’s (Tobey Maguire) guileless attitude towards being the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, and grisly and cynical, as seen in the never-ending cycle of torture experienced by Ash Williams (Bruce Campbell). The two sides of Raimi perfectly collide upon the revelation that Christine placed the wrong envelope in Ganush’s grave, as Clay shows her the cursed button that was found in his car. A horrified Christine unconsciously walks backward and falls onto the train tracks. Clay is helpless as a train flies in at full speed. Yet, somehow, being struck by a locomotive would have been a less fatal outcome for her. On the train tracks, she is grabbed by fiery, demonic hands that emerge from the ground. As the film’s title indicates, Christine is forcefully dragged to hell, as we see her consumed by an inferno.

In a vacuum, the ending to Drag Me to Hell pales in comparison to the grotesque brutality of the Evil Dead trilogy, or even Raimi’s burst of horror in the middle of Spider-Man 2 when Otto Octavius (Alfred Molina) unleashes a rampage in the surgery room. Viewers are more likely to be spooked by the monstrous acts of body horror emanating from Christine throughout the film. In the context of its narrative, however, the closing sequence in Drag Me to Hell shows Raimi at his most punishing. The director’s gleeful energy toward abusing Ash Williams and Peter Parker carries a supplemental ounce of cynicism when targeting Christine. The harshness is emphasized from the viewer’s perspective, as women are often not the target of Raimi’s violent antics. Historical context is another factor here, as the film was released amid the throes of the Great Recession. For audiences in 2009, watching a loan officer being tormented by ghostly figures provided some unexpected catharsis.

What Separates This ‘Drag Me to Hell’ Scene From Raimi’s ‘Evil Dead’ Series

Sam Raimi pulls the rug out from under both Christine and his audience at the end of Drag Me to Hell. After maintaining a side-eye attitude towards Christine, Raimi leads the audience into accepting her salvation. Lohman effectively portrays a well-meaning person who is pushed to the brink due to uncontrollable forces, and in the end, we buy into her innocence. What separates Drag Me to Hell from Evil Dead is the former’s real-world setting and circumstances. In some form or fashion, everyone is or was like Christine — full of ambition and anxious about what happens when you don’t capitalize on career and life opportunities. Being literally dragged away from your promising future due to a past sin is authentically harrowingeven in the fantastical mold of the film. Through Raimi’s cruel demonstration of punishment, he conveys how the past is ultimately never through with us.

The cynical ending of Drag Me to Hell is nothing short of daring for a widely released studio picture. The harshness of its protagonist being viciously pulled into a fiery pit from hell is compounded by the bluntness of its execution. A director who never pulls punches, Sam Raimi put a bow on this story in a manner only he could. Before any tactful denouement can arise out of this fatalistic conclusion, the end credits roll. As horrifying as the ending sounds on paper, Raimi’s pitch-black sense of humor still takes precedence overall. Raimi did not need to sell out to create a horror sequence that tapped into real-life fears. He stuck to his vision, which is why Raimi remains one of the premier filmmakers of our time.

Drag Me to Hell is available to rent on Prime Video in the U.S.

Rent on Prime Video