Drag Me To Hell Case Study

Drag Me To Hell is an American Horror/Thriller about a woman who works in a bank. She wants a promotion so decides to evict an elderly gypsy woman from her house. The gypsy then curses her and she is forced to seek help from a psychic before the evil spirit she was cursed with comes to claim her soul.

Production Info:
It is dicected by Sam Raimi and stars Alison Lohman, Justin Long and Ruth Livier. The film was released on 27th May 2009 in the UK. It had a budget of $30,000,000 and has a gross revenue of $90,850,000. The film was produced by Universal Pictures and has a runtime of 99 mins

Narrative Structure:
The film has a linear structure and there are no flashbacks, but the end does link back to the opening of the film in that the woman that tried to help Christine (the cursed woman who works in the bank) is the same woman who tries to help a small boy escape the same curse.

Conventions of the Thriller genre:
The movie follows some conventions of the Thriller genre such as the notion of being watched. This can be best shown with the example of the scene where Christine is walking back to her car and feels like she is being followed. This voyeurism is a popular convention of Thriller films. Another convention in this film is being chased. The woman is contantly being chased/hunted by the evil spirit who eventually claims her soul.

Semiology:
In the film, flys are a reccuring symbol. In the opening, when the child reveals the necklase he stole from a gypsy wagon, a fly comes out of his pocket too. When christine is cursed, a fly crawls into her mouth while she is sleeping and comes out during a dinner with her boyfriend's parents. This fly could symbolize that they are cursed and it is like a disease so people should stay away... Also, eyes are seen throughout the film, which is another reference to the notion of being watched. The old lady who curses Christine has different colour eyes, the symbol in the psychic's wondow is an eye and an eye appears in the cake in the scences during the dinner.

Sound:
During the opening of the film, there is choir-like singing and high-pitched screeching. This creates an eerie atmosphere - perfect for the opening scenes of a Thriller movie. The dialogue in the opening is in Spanish, giving you a sense that you don't belong here, and you are an outsider intruding on the scene. It also has the effect of disorientating you slightly as you do not know exaclt what is going on - there are subtitles, but not all dialogue is subtitled.
Throughout the film, during scenes of high tension and anticipation, harps and other stringed instuments are used to build the eerie sensation as well as the screeching noises. Bird song is used immediately after one scene where Christine is being taumented by the evil spirit. This has the effect of making you think that it is all over and everything is back to normal...

Camera Shots/Angles:
In the scene where Christine is cursed by the Gypsy woman, high angled shots are used of the gypsy and low angle shots of Christine as well as a shot-reverse-shot technique. Combined, these have the powerful effect of giving the impression that the gypsy woman is the dominant one and Christine is the weak one. This is mirrored in the narrative as it is the gypsy woman that is putting a curse over the other woman.
In scenes where the evil spirit is tormenting Christine, the camera is tilted slightly on the side, this has the effect of distorting the viewer's perceptions. This has been used in order to make the viewer feel sort of the same as Christine would in these scenes - as if she has no idea what is going on and it could all be a dream...

Gender Representation:
The female gender role is represented fairly stereotypically in the movie. Christine is shown to be a young and attractive woman. Even in the graveyard scene where she has just dug up the body of the woman who cursed her and is covered in mud, she still looks attractive. This links to the theory of male gaze (Mulvey, 1975) where females are prepresented as passive objects of male desire. Christine is shown to eat ice cream for comefort and also to want cake, highly stereotypical of women. You get the impression she is opressed in the work place by her male co-workers as she believes that her boss favours her opposition (a man) for the promotion she desperately desires. This could link to the feeling of opression she might be feeling in life as you could say that she is being opressed by the evil spirit.