Editorials
The Fiery Ending of ‘Drag Me to Hell’ Still Packs a Potent Punch [Scene Screams]
Scene Screams is a recurring column that spotlights the scenes in horror that make us scream, whether through fear, laughter, or tears. It examines the most memorable, and often scariest, scenes in horror and what it is about them that makes them get under our skin.
Comedy and horror make excellent bedfellows because of their similarities. Both aim to elicit an extreme, specific response from audiences, and both go about it through a build-up and release. Horror movies create tension then release it through scares, but the build-up and release of terror are sometimes most important in the movie’s punchline- its conclusion. A film’s ending is, after all, the last thing the viewer soaks in before the end credits roll and the experience is over. All of which to say that Sam Raimi‘s Drag Me to Hell effectively nailed its morally grey ending, and it hits just as hard today as it did upon release.
Loan officer Christine Brown (Alison Lohman) wants a promotion, but her mild-mannered temperament means she’s outperformed by her more assertive and conniving coworker, Stu Rubin (Reggie Lee). Christine denies the third mortgage extension for the elderly Sylvia Ganush (Lorna Raver) despite pleas and begging to prove she has what it takes to land the coveted position. When Christine leaves work for the day, Sylvia corners her in the parking garage, assaults her, then curses her after snatching a button from her coat. That curse dooms Christine to three days of increasing supernatural torture by a Lamia and will end when she’s dragged to Hell.
Despite the film’s title, the viewer spends the movie with Christine waiting for her to finally discover how to break the curse and avoid a nasty fate. As the hauntings begin to plague Christine, she wastes little time trying to break her curse. She attempts to apologize to Sylvia, only to find the woman dead. Christine seeks out help from a fortune teller, Rham Jas (Dileep Rao), for answers. Through his advice and her desperation, Christine winds up offering her kitten as a sacrifice to the Lamia, attending a séance that claims the life of medium San Dena (Adriana Barraza), and the final attempt to give her curse away by handing off that button to a new victim. She ponders giving it to the vile Stu but instead digs up Sylvia’s grave to give back the cursed button.
Dawn brings a sunnier disposition for Christine. She receives news that she got the promotion after Stu was fired, and she’s about to embark on a romantic trip with boyfriend Clay (Justin Long) that will end in a marriage proposal. It’s the precise type of happy ending audiences have been conditioned to expect; Christine may have made some egregiously selfish missteps along the way, but she is the heroine in this story.
Then Clay pulls out the envelope containing the cursed button, and Christine recoils in dawning fear. She falls backward onto the train tracks as a train rolls toward the station. It’s then that the protagonist gets ruthlessly dragged into Hell while Clay looks on in abject horror. Cut to the title card to drive home that Raimi made good on the film’s name.
It’s the precise type of shocking ending that fans still debate about over a decade later; did Christine deserve her fate? Raimi intentionally spends much of Christine’s story presenting a character prone to making poor decisions out of self-preservation, pre and post curse. But her flaws balance out with more likable traits and choices, too. She’s humanized more through her relationship with Clay, the option to ultimately not doom Stu even when he’s reprehensible, and she fesses up to the pain she inflicted upon Sylvia. Christine deserves punishment for the kitten and dooming Sylvia’s home, but perhaps not to the extent of a Lamia dragging her to Hell to feast on her soul.
But that’s debatable, which contributes to the ending’s enduring quality. The other factors that make this so potent are misdirection and abruptness. The horrifying imagery of Christine screaming for help as a train steamrolls on above her, hands pulling her down into the fiery pits as her flesh melts off, sticks with you. It’s made even more effective because it comes as a sudden tonal shift to the cheery, happily ever after vibe that came just moments before.
Christine’s final encounter with Sylvia’s corpse gave a sense of climactic finality, and the following scene marked the start of a new chapter for Christine. It gave viewers a sense of closure; the protagonist defeated her antagonist and came away from her confrontation full of hope and honesty. It makes the timing of her doom downright cruel.
Horror frequently paints a clear picture between good and evil, yet Drag Me to Hell blurs the lines. Even still, that final rug pull evokes such an unexpected, visceral response. It’s as much to do with Christine as a flawed protagonist as it is in the way Raimi structures this story. Raimi is a master of horror-comedy and knows how to deliver a dramatic horror punchline that sticks with you years later.
It’s been 75 years since The Thing From Another World first warned us to “watch the skies”, and filmgoers have done just that by showing up to multiple instances of extraterrestrial contact on the big screen. This makes sense, as a recent CBS news poll estimated that 63% of Americans believe in intelligent life on other planets, and the ongoing disclosure movement aims to raise that number with each passing day.
With Steven Spielberg’s Disclosure Day leaving many genre fans hungry for more alien footage (preferably of the spooky variety), today I’d like to share a list recommending six underrated alien invasion thrillers for your viewing pleasure. After all, regardless of whether or not you believe that we’re alone in the universe, it can be fun to dream about the worst-case scenario if our cosmic neighbors ever decide to visit.
For the purposes of this list, we’ll be focusing on lesser-known invasion stories rather than the popular extraterrestrials of franchises like Alien and Close Encounters of the Third (or even Fourth) Kind. That being said, don’t forget to comment below with your own alien favorites if you think we missed a particularly thrilling movie.
While it won’t be featured in this article, I’d highly recommend checking out Dean Alioto’s UFO Abduction/The McPherson Tape if you’re up for some ufology-inspired found footage thrills.
With that out of the way, onto the list!
6. The Arrival (1996)
Not to be confused with Denis Villeneuve’s Academy Award-winning Amy Adams vehicle about learning to communicate peacefully with extraterrestrial life, David Twohy’s The Arrival is a much more straightforward (but no less entertaining) genre romp where Charlie Sheen faces a global conspiracy involving hostile alien invaders.
It’s not exactly up there with Close Encounters or even Independence Day, but Twohy’s conspiratorial thriller plays out like an exceptionally fun episode of The X-Files that I’d recommend to sci-fi/horror fans who don’t mind a little bit of wonky CGI and 90s excess alongside their alien thrills.
5. Extraterrestrial (2014)
The Vicious Brothers made a name for themselves with the success of 2011’s Grave Encounters, but that was far from the Canadian duo’s only collaboration. And while it’s not exactly a fan favorite, I always point out 2014’s Extraterrestrial as one of their most underrated projects simply because I agree with the filmmakers’ opinion that there aren’t enough ‘cool alien abduction movies’ out there.
Admittedly, the majority of the picture functions like a run-of-the-mill creature feature with paper-thin characters and familiar horror tropes, but I’d argue that the cosmically-terrifying final act elevates the experience to new and memorable heights. The movie also boasts great performances by both Michael Ironside and Emily Perkins – a combination that more than makes up for the occasionally janky CGI.
4. Alien Raiders (2008)
Director Ben Rock has gone on record lamenting how his John-Carpenter-inspired creature feature was forcefully renamed from Supermarket to the painfully obvious Alien Raiders (a change which likely resulted in many potential viewers skipping out on the experience), but the new title doesn’t change the fact that this single-location thriller is something of a hidden gem.
Taking place entirely within a supermarket, Alien Raiders tells the story of an ensemble of customers and employees who are taken hostage by a group of armed men looking for something far more dangerous than an easy payout. I won’t get into details in order to avoid spoiling the experience, but I’d highly recommend this criminally underseen flick to fans of John Carpenter and the Resident Evil games.
3. Phoenix Forgotten (2017)
You’d think that a Ridley-Scott-produced retelling of one of the most infamous real-life UFO sightings of all time would have a bigger following, but I rarely see Justin Barber’s Found Footage period piece brought up during discussions about extraterrestrial-focused horror movies.
This is a huge shame, as Phoenix Forgotten is just as spooky as it is convincing, with this well-researched dive into the Phoenix Lights incident benefiting from surprisingly believable special effects as well as an appropriately horrific finale.
2. Communion (1989)
I wouldn’t blame you for disregarding Whitley Strieber’s controversial book about his alleged close encounter as sensationalist slop, but I’d argue that Phillipe Mora’s 1989 adaptation of these events is much better than the source material. After all, the movie works as a standalone piece of speculative fiction while also benefiting from an incredible performance by the one and only Christopher Walken!
Mora’s take on Communion may not be particularly scary, but the film is still an unforgettable character study regardless of whether or not the abduction really happened. Not only that, but the flick also paved the way for plenty of future sci-fi stories where the extraterrestrial invaders aren’t as evil as they initially appear.
1. Altered (2006)
Originally envisioned as a Sam Raimi-style horror-comedy titled Probed, Eduardo Sánchez (of The Blair Witch Project fame) eventually realized that it would be much more interesting to turn the film into a serious exploration of the emotional aftermath of a traumatic abduction incident.
That’s how we got Altered, a clever inversion of the standard abduction narrative that follows a group of troubled friends as they capture and experiment on an alien in order to enact revenge for their own abduction years prior.
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