Drag Me to Hell Review

Gypsy’s seem to get a bad reputation. They are usually portrayed as children stealing nomads that wear tacky clothing. But even more so than that, they are usually shown as putting a curses on anyone that pisses them off. This is the case in the movie Drag Me to Hell, where the main character, Christie Brown, pisses off a Gypsy by evicting her out of her house and gets a curse put on her. Actually, what I find funny about this is that in order to put the curse on her, the old gypsy woman needs to get something that belongs to Christie, so she breaks into her car, waits for her to get off work, and when she enters the car, she starts to beat the shit out of her. And what’s even more funny is that this sickly old gypsy woman wins. She takes a stapler to the face, a ruler down her throat and flies through the car window, and after all this she still is able to drag Christie out of her car, takes a button and curses her. If this was a zombie movie, I would be terrified.

So now that she is cursed, she is plagued with horrible nightmares and haunted by this evil spirit. Naturally, she tries to find forgiveness or a way to atone for herself. She goes to the gypsy lady to remove the curse on her, but she died. She stabbed her kitty as a sacrifice to try to make the demon go away, but it didn’t work. She even sells most of the things she has to afford to go to a medium, who at the beginning of the movie failed to remove the same curse the plagued a little boy. The medium fails and dies herself. It is then it is reveled to her that her only option left is to give the button as a formal gift to someone so that they would go to hell in her place. She thinks about giving it to the guy who stole her work and got the promotion, she even calls him up to meet her so she can give it to him, but changes her mind. So she goes to the gypsy’s grave, digs her up and makes the formal gift back to her dead body. However, the button was mixed up and she ends up going to hell.

The theme of this story is to show mercy to others as you would want to be shown mercy yourself. I mean, the Gypsy lady begged her to extend her loan but she kicked her out, so when it was her turn to ask for mercy, she was denied. The only real problem I had with the movie was that I didn’t really believe she needed to be sent to hell for it. Sure, she made a mistake, but she did feel genuinely bad for it and even gave up her kitty, her possessions and money to try to make it right. She did try to make up for her mistake. A tiny thing like not extending a loan I don’t believe is a strong enough foundation for eternal damnation. She even seemed like a good enough person. She didn’t send her most hated enemy to hell to save herself, which is a good deed. So perhaps another theme is a tiny act of weakness can lead to downfall. The cursed button may also be a symbol of this.

I may not have liked the ending, but the movie is still good. Some parts are creepy, and the story telling is good.