Girls on Film: Drag Me to Disappointing Hell
Filed under: Comedy, Horror, New Releases, Fandom, Girls on Film
Combining the words "Sam Raimi" and "horror" is one of those mixtures that evokes bliss -- wild laughs, wonderful chills, and the best hero the big screen has ever seen. Just thinking of Ash was enough to send me into an INeedToSeeDragMetoHellNOW frenzy, positive that Raimi had created a character to rival Bruce Campbell's Ash. Add to that two weeks of tweets about how darned good Raimi's return to horror was, and I was just about foaming at the mouth as I tried to find a way to slip it into my busy weekend schedule.
Preemptively, I began to muse about how great the film would be for this column. So many were saying that Raimi has still got it that I was sure Alison Lohman's Christine would bring some horror-fighting magic. I slipped into a matinee seat, and prepared to be amazed. 99 minutes later, I left in shock. My praising spin was lost in a sea of disappointment.
Drag Me to Hell was bereft of Raimi's best horror asset: the magic and charm that made two films of the bloody same thing, plus a wacky sequel, all worthy of repeated viewings -- the strong, determined, and irresistibly engaging lead. Although more polished than the horror of the past, the rest of classic Raimi was present in Hell -- the drudgery of real life making way for the excitement of horror, the possessed inanimate objects, and even a cackling and creepy dance scene. But there was no creation of a force to be reckoned with, one who could banter with the best of them and seem cool, even in the face of a never ending torrent of gross goo (that Lohman faces repeatedly) and horror.
Christine Brown could have been our new scary movie heroine, one that we'd be quoting for years to come. Instead, she is merely an amalgam of oft-used stereotypical characteristics. Christine is a sweet farm girl who has skinnied herself up, picked up a score of cute sundresses, got a good job, and nabbed a rich and caring boyfriend. But she's just too sweet to make the advancements she yearns for, and the minute she gets a little cutthroat at the expense of a struggling gypsy about to lose her home, Christine is in for three days punishment before she's sucked into the depths of hell.
Rather than becoming a strong banisher of evil herself, she pays others in hopes that they can help. When each attempt fails, she wallows in ice cream and desperation. Now to be fair, there are moments where she fights -- but in these all-too-brief and fleeting scenes, it's as if Ash ripped through the folds of time and took possession of Christine to give us someone to root for, like there's another personality yearning to break through the surface.There's no transformation, just momentary fighting hiccups encased in a rather flat and one-dimensional character.
It's hard to root for a character you have no reason to love, or even to hate. And it's even harder to not be disappointed since this is Raimi's first starring heroine. The man who brought us Ash and an updated Spider-Man couldn't scheme up an engaging and memorable female lead? Or, at the very least, a character who has some depth rather than fleeting characteristics that seem more like filler than motivation?
If there was anyone who could have made a great female butt-kicker, one to make Sydney Prescott look like nothing, it was Raimi ...
So why do you think it is that he put aside his talent for creating iconic leads, gave up the opportunity to create an engaging heroine, and let it all blow away in the lamia-heavy wind?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
6-01-2009 @ 9:18PM
Alexspivey@gmail.com said...
because if she was too real, too likable, we wouldnt want to see her go... to hell...
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6-01-2009 @ 9:24PM
john said...
I myself loved the movie, just like any REAL Raimi fan would. And she was very likeable, to bad about that ending.
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6-01-2009 @ 9:51PM
George McBain said...
Being a HUGE Raimi fan, I also came out of the theater's thinking "meh".
It was enjoyable, but nothing spectacular at all.
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6-01-2009 @ 10:38PM
Joe Turner said...
If she was a but kicker or a female Bruce Campbell the movie would not have been nearly as fun. You were not supposed to like her throughout the whole film. You said that she was a combination of sterotypes. Isn't that exactly what Bruce Cambel was in the Evil Dead series. Bruce was a Characture of the male heros of the 80's and 90's. Alison Lohman in this film is a Characture of the women heros in modern horror films like Dark Water and The Others. She is not a feminist hero at all, if your looking for that you barking up the wrong tree.
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6-14-2009 @ 3:08PM
Kim said...
Well Said Joe! I think the people that slammed this movie were going into the theater thinking "Spiderman" or "The Grudge"...it wasn't meant to be that kind of movie and anyone who's ever watching, laughed, jumped and LOVED the Evil Dead movies would know that and love Drag Me To Hell as much as the rest of his fans did! I thought it was perfect, classic Rami at his best! A very well done, Evil Dead type movie! :)
6-01-2009 @ 11:54PM
warbringerdoom said...
The fact that it was a direct throw back to EVIL DEAD is a great thing!! I think it also was the point that she was not supposed to be the ASH/RIPILY hybrid bad-ass! She's not wanting to fight she wants it to just stop..... hello.... she freaking killed her cat!!!!! I liked it. Name the last good PG-13 horror movie....it had good scares, gross outs and trippy loud music that helped the jump factor.......
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6-02-2009 @ 3:09AM
Troy said...
Monika, I think you missed the point...MAJOR SPOILERS...
...
Christine is not Ash, she's not supposed to be a 'classic' Ripley-like heroine -- her character's supposed to be a phony. Her nice girl persona is an act - she used to be fat, lived on a farm, ran away from her old life and has a whole set of stated beliefs that turn out to be bogus. Her life is essentially a sham. Actually, she could be probably be seen as the antagonist.
Everything she does in the movie is for her own best interests, right down to denying the loan which, afterall, was her call. In the end, the other guy competing for the new job would have gotten fired anyway (as seen in the conclusion). She killed her own cat thinking it would end the curse - again, contradicting her stated beliefs - blamed others (the bank/her boss) rather than own up that she was the one who hurt the old lady and did so right down to the seance. And in the end, she contemplated condemning someone else to hell to save her own life.
And of course the joke is that us watching would have probably done the same thing.
PS - Sorry about the length.
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6-02-2009 @ 8:04AM
Robin said...
Good post, Troy.
The second she killed the cat I didn't care what happened to her. Just another poser pretending to be better than everyone else.
6-02-2009 @ 1:41PM
Monika said...
It's not that she had to be Ripley, or even Ash, but just engaging. Whether we'd want her to live or to be dragged into hell, there should be a desire there, a reason for engagement, a reason to cheer or just care either way -- a dynamic lead we love or hate.
Where you see a phony character, I see a one-dimensional character who is desperate with some sort of split personality disorder -- and not in a way that makes her the least bit engaging. Her actions are all over the map, and the only the few times she got that goofy, crazed look in her eyes did she seem at all interesting.
It balloons out from her to the other characters -- no chemistry whatsoever with Justin Long, no depth to the office turmoil, etc.
6-02-2009 @ 9:40AM
NP said...
Just echoing what some others have said. Christine is not Ash, and I don't think Raimi intended that. Again, as others have said, Christine isn't even supposed to necessarily be a protagonist who we suture ourselves to. Raimi plays with identification, so you get these fleeting moments where you sympathize with and think you understand Christine, but then he rips the rug out from under you (see: cat).
Considering the depth of most female characters in horror films, I thought Christine was a pretty great, three-dimensional character, a flawed individual (aren't we all?) who we witness endure great trials.
At first, it seemed to me the film wanted to punish Christine for being aggressive and seeking success (more conventionally male characteristics--competitiveness, etc.), as that's a typical course of events in horror: person (usually a woman) breaks gender norms and is punished severely, but DMTH punishes its characters across gender lines (Christine's coworker eventually gets caught trying to do something underhanded to get ahead).
I thought the whole thing was pretty great and avoided some of the most used up ideological pitfalls of horror.
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6-02-2009 @ 9:45AM
Jason said...
"it's even harder to not be disappointed since this is Raimi's first starring heroine."
You're forgetting about Cate Blanchett in The Gift.
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6-02-2009 @ 1:46PM
Monika said...
I considered referencing that, but I don't slip The Gift into the same arena. The film was much more indie and less mainstream, with a defined and strong supporting cast rather than one stand-alone character, and unfortunately -- a Katie Holmes topless scene that seemed to steal all the thunder of the narrative.
6-02-2009 @ 2:20PM
BIGDEC said...
*****SPOILERS*******I loved this movie. This was a more satisfying horror movie than any other put out in the last ten years. It did not rely on "torture" porn, it did'nt have buckets of blood, and it did one thing that most horror movies have missed recently- it scared you. The scares were done "old school", amped up sound effects, quick camera cuts, slow build up, and then wham, out of no where a quick glimpse of the Lamia, then nothing. Christine was never meant to be a bad-ass, as a matter of fact I think Raimi wanted her to be just the opposite. She was just trying to get ahead, and the one time she made a difficult decision, one that she normally would not have made, in order to better herself, it turned around and bit her hard. She was desperate, and the best line in the film summed her situation up, when the seer told her about the animal sacrifice she could try, she quickly dismissed it, and he said "You would be surprised at what you will do when the Lamia comes for you", or something like that, the whole cat thing was Sam's way of showing her "extreme" that she was willing to do to prevent this bad thing from happening to her. Just like Ash having to remove his own hand, Christine had to bring harm to herself and/or something she cared about to save her own behind. I loved the story, the ending was a little rushed for my liking, and a little predictable with the quarter/button, I only wish he would have had Christine have to watch her boyfriend be dragged down instead, but all in all I would take a Raimi pg-13 horror movie over any Eli Roth crapfest ten times over.
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6-02-2009 @ 1:49PM
John said...
This article articulates my main problem with DRAG ME TO HELL: that Christine, or Alison Lohman's Christine, just wasn't an interesting character.
If Raimi had cast Ellen Page (like he originally intended) or Emily Blunt in the role, Christine would most-likely be a more complex character: someone you root for, but someone you would also have contempt for. Also, a stronger actress probably would have demanded changes to make Christine more dynamic and physical.
And I wouldn't consider Cate Blanchette in THE GIFT an action heroine.
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6-02-2009 @ 1:51PM
Monika said...
Lohman was something I struggled with, because I couldn't quite decide if the entire film would've been different with Page, or if this was all Raimi. There was just too many holes for me in her personal narrative, which made me cast aside any critiques of Lohman. Then again, perhaps there would've been subtle mannerisms and quirks that would've tied it all together. I'm not sure.
6-02-2009 @ 2:19PM
Jay said...
I would have rather seen a review on the movie you saw, and NOT the movie you DIDN'T see.
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6-03-2009 @ 1:48AM
John said...
The question of "well is it the character or is Lohman?" is a gray area for me. Still-- the character would have benefitted from an actress that people, in a positive way, have slightly mixed feelings for. Lohman just makes you think of the nice girl next door. Actresses like Page and Blunt make you think of edgy woman that you would still want to hang out with.
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6-02-2009 @ 3:02PM
Midnight13 said...
Raimi doesn't make us sympathize with the gypsy either. Perhaps it would have been an nice switch-a-roo if he had made the curse inducing gypsy someone to root for. However we immediately are made to find her groteseque from the claw-like fingernails, the ugly dentures and the disgusting phlemy hack. So we get a knocked-down dragged out rivalry between two ladies who only want to over-power one another. Perhaps what we get is the first anti-heroine.
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6-02-2009 @ 3:50PM
trvs said...
I think you're thinking about this way too much. I found the character very engaging. Yeah she may not have been horror's great heroine, but the character herself was pretty straightforward to me. Nothing seemed to go right for her, luck never seemed to be on her side at all in the film,even up till the final scene of the movie nothing went right for her. And as movie goers we're prone to always root for the underdog we always want to see them win in the end. And to me it was entertaining to see the lengths she was willing to go to to get her life back on the right track. Throughout the film I just wanted to see how things would eventually turn out for her. I thought it was a great film, with great characters. And all around a really fun time at the movies. Who else thinks the ending of the movie warranted a sequel?
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6-03-2009 @ 1:35AM
vega said...
the movie sucked period get off raimis nuts and admitt it was a bad film hes a good director but nothing good since spiderman 2
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