Pratik Handore
‘Drag Me to Hell’ is a 2009 supernatural horror film directed and co-written by Sam Raimi. It stars Alison Lohman and Justin Long in the lead roles and tells the story of a young woman who is haunted by a demonic force. Christine Brown, a loan officer, becomes tormented by an evil spirit when she makes a difficult decision at work. With just three days left to live before the demonic entity claims her soul and deems her to burn in Hell for all eternity, Christine must find a way to lift the curse. As a result, viewers must have plenty of questions about Christine’s fate and the curse, which we will hopefully try to answer! SPOILERS AHEAD!
Drag Me to Hell Plot Synopsis
‘Drag Me to Hell’ opens in 1969 and follows a young medium, Shaun San Dena, helping a couple cure their son, Juan, who is supposedly possessed. While San Dena attempts to free Juan from the demonic force, the group is attacked, and Juan is dragged to Hell. As a result, San Dena resolves to fight and defeat the demon one day. In the present day, Christine Brown is a loan manager at a bank in Los Angeles. She hopes to score a promotion but faces competition from her colleague Stu Rubin. On the advice of her boss, Christine decides to demonstrate her prowess to make tough decisions.
At work, Christine deals with Sylvia Ganush, an elderly woman who has defaulted on several loan installments. As a result, Christine decides to repossess Sylvia’s house. While Sylvia begs not to take away her house, Christine does not change her decision. An angry Sylvia curses Christine as she is escorted off the property. Later, Slyvua ambushes Christine and attacks her in the car park. After a violent fight, Sylvia casts a curse on Christine using a torn button from her jacket. While Christine is unworried about Sylvia, when she and her boyfriend, Clay Dalton, visit fortune teller Rham Jas, the latter tells Christine an evil entity is haunting her.
Soon, Christine is attacked by a demonic force while in her apartment. She begins to exhibit strange behavior, such as coughing blood and experiencing hallucinations. Realizing that her plight is connected to Sylvia, Christine seeks her forgiveness. However, Christine learns that Sylvia has died. As a result, Christin turns to Jas for help. Jas reveals that Christine is being haunted by a powerful demon known as the Lamia. A curse was cast upon her through the button, and as long as she possesses the button, she will continue to be haunted by Lamia. Jas suggests performing a sacrifice to appease the demon, but when Christine sacrifices her cat, things backfire.
Moreover, Christine only has three days to lift the curse before Lamia comes to claim her soul and drags her to the fiery pits of Hell. After Christine’s hallucinations amplify, Jas introduces her to San Dena, who recognizes the demon haunting Christine from her previous encounter with Lamia. San Dena performs a séance to trap Lamia in a goat and kill it. However, when the play goes awry, San Dena sacrifices herself to banish the demon. Jas seals the button in an envelope and asks Christine to hand it to someone else to lift the curse from her. However, the seemingly simple task is difficult for Christine, who is running out of time to save her life.
Drag Me to Hell Ending: Does Christine Lift the Curse?
During the film’s climax, San Dena’s séance makes things easier for Christine as she must now get rid of the button to save her life. On the other hand, the three-day time limit given to her by Lamia is rapidly closing. Therefore, Christine must find a way to pass on the button to someone else before it is too late. At a diner, Christine meets her coworker, Stu, and tries to hand over the button to her. However, when she fails, Christine targets an elderly married woman dealing with an illness.
While Christine comes close to getting rid of the envelope, she cannot bring herself to doom someone else to the flames of Hell in her place. Therefore, Christine decides against handing over the envelope. Instead, Christine goes to the graveyard to dig up Sylvia’s grave. Since Sylvia is responsible for casting the curse upon her, she tries to end the curse by returning the button to Sylvia. Christine stashes the envelope in Sylvia’s coffin and returns home believing she has freed herself from the curse.
Christine also learns that Stu confessed to stealing a file from her, resulting in the latter being fired and Christine getting promoted. Ultimately, it seems Christine has freed herself from the curse and lifted it without risking someone else’s life. However, in the final moments, when Christine and Clay leave for their vacation, Clay gives Christine the envelope identical to the one in which the button is sealed. Just as Christine and Clay arrive at the train station, Christine realizes she misplaced the envelopes and left the wrong one in Sylvia’s grave. Therefore, she fails to lift the curse, and demonic flaming hands violently drag Christine to Hell, confirming that her time is up.
Does Christine Die? Why Was Christine Cursed?
In the final scene, Christine realizes that her plan to lift Lamia’s curse has failed, and she is doomed to lose her soul. As the realization of her impending fate looms on Christine, she falls onto the railway track, and a pair of fiery demonic hands drag her away. Clay tries to save Christine, but an oncoming train stops him from rescuing her. As a result, the final scene leaves Christine’s fate slightly ambiguous. However, it is safe to say that Christine is dead.
While we do not actually see Chritsine’s dead body, the final scene confirms that the demonic entity has claimed her soul. Moreover, Christine falls onto the railway track, where an oncoming train seemingly crushes her body. Thus, Christine dies in her moral form while her soul is doomed to be tormented in the depths of Hell for the rest of eternity. Additionally, Chase’s reaction to the events also confirms that Christine is not hallucinating and that her soul has been pulled away from her body and dragged to Hell.
Earlier on, it is established that Christine struggles to make tough decisions, hindering her rise in the corporate ladder. The one time Christine makes a hard decision, she becomes cursed by Sylvia. She later gets a chance to save her life but must make another tough decision. However, Christine refuses to make the hard choice of dooming someone else instead of her and letting them be the demon’s target. Therefore, Christine’s internal conflict about her decision-making, which is evident throughout the film, proves to be her undoing.
Furthermore, Christine’s decision to penalize Sylvia stems from her personal desire to progress along the corporate ladder. Consequently, it results in Sylvia losing her home. Through the conflicting storylines of Christine and Sylvia, the film tackles the themes of greed, money, and capitalism with a horror twist. While the demonic forces of evil that torment Christine in the film are a potent source of horror, the real tragedy of the story comes from the interconnected web of greed and capitalism that not only links Christine and Sylvia but also highlights the real-life horrors, making for some poignant social commentary.
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