Is Drag Me to Hell Scary? The Verdict and the Whole Plot
Yes, 5 out of 10. It's a loud, gross, darkly funny curse movie with a lot of jump scares.
🐱THE SCARE SIGNAL
SCARE SCORE
5 /10
🐱🐱🐱🐱🐱🐱🐱🐱🐱🐱
DREAD LEVEL
Low
It is built to startle, and it is mostly forgotten by the time you are asleep.
DOG
Dog: fine
no dog dies, but the kitten does not make it.
Ruling: It is jumpy and gross, and darkly funny enough that you will probably laugh at the goat.
Drag Me to Hell runs 99 minutes and begins when a bank loan officer says no to an old woman who wants more time on her mortgage. That was an expensive thing to say no to.
The premise, briefly
A loan officer denies an elderly woman a mortgage extension and finds herself cursed with a demon that will torment her for three days.
How much do you want to know?
🐱
The verdict above is spoiler-free. Everything below, including the ending, stays hidden until you pick a depth.
🐱CUT TO THE CHASE
How it ends
Christine tries to pass the curse to Sylvia's corpse, but she mixed up two envelopes, so the button never leaves her. At the train station, demonic hands pull her under the tracks and into Hell while Clay watches.
The scene you're dreading
The kitten scene, in the middle of the movie. Christine kills her pet kitten with a knife to appease the demon. The kitten is off screen, but you see the blood, and the next scene shows its body being buried.
The dog
No dog dies in Drag Me to Hell. Christine's kitten is sacrificed, and you see the aftermath rather than the act.
Drag Me to Hell is a jump-scare comedy with one sad pet death and a bleak ending.
THE SHORT VERSION IS HIDDEN
How it ends, the scene you're dreading, what happens to the dog, and the bottom line. About twenty seconds to read.
What actually happens
A button is the least of the problems
In 1969 Pasadena, a couple asks the young medium Shaun San Dena for help because their son Juan hears evil voices, ever since he took a silver necklace from the wagon of a Romani woman. San Dena sets up a seance, but an unseen force attacks and drags Juan down to Hell. Forty years later in Los Angeles, bank loan officer Christine Brown is competing with her co-worker Stu Rubin for a promotion. Her boss advises her to show she can make tough decisions, so she refuses an elderly woman named Sylvia Ganush a third extension on her mortgage. Sylvia begs and then accuses Christine of shaming her in public. In the parking garage that evening, Sylvia attacks her, rips a button from Christine's coat and curses it.
Christine and her boyfriend Clay Dalton visit the fortune teller Rham Jas, who says a dark spirit has attached itself to her. The spirit torments her at home, and at work she gets a violent nosebleed while hallucinating about Sylvia. Christine goes to apologize to Sylvia's granddaughter Ilenka, who tells her Sylvia has died. Jas explains that she is cursed by the Lamia, or Black Goat, a demon that spends three days tormenting its victims and then drags them to Hell. He suggests an appeasing sacrifice. In the middle of the movie, Christine reluctantly kills her kitten with a knife before dinner with Clay's wealthy parents, Trudy and Leonard. The kitten is off screen, but there is blood, and the next scene shows it being buried. Grotesque hallucinations torment her through the dinner.
The goat gets a say
Jas offers an introduction to San Dena for $10,000, and Clay pays it. San Dena has been waiting for revenge on the Lamia. She and her assistant hold a seance and try to trap the demon in a goat and kill the goat, but the entity takes over San Dena, the goat and the assistant, who then vomits up the dead cat. San Dena manages to banish the Lamia and dies soon afterward. Jas puts the button in an envelope and says Christine can get rid of the curse by handing the button to another person. At a diner she confronts Stu, whom she believes took a file from her desk, intending to hand him the button, but he talks her out of it by begging. Jas then says the curse can be offered to the dead, so Christine digs up Sylvia's grave and stuffs the envelope into the corpse's mouth. A downpour almost traps her in the grave, but she gets out.
The ending, explained
Christine goes to Union Station, where Clay plans to propose. Her boss tells her she got the promotion because Stu was fired for stealing her file. Clay then hands her an envelope he found in his car, which holds the cursed button. Before she dug up Sylvia, she had mixed it up with a similar envelope containing a rare coin, so the curse was never passed on. Horrified, she steps backward onto the tracks, a train approaches, and demonic hands come out of the ground and pull her down into Hell. Clay watches from above, holding the button.
The post-credits ruling
There is no post-credits scene. You can leave when the credits start.
✓ Spoiled safelyDog status: no dog dies, but the kitten does not make it.
Questions people ask at 1am
Is Drag Me to Hell scary?
Yes. Drag Me to Hell scores 5 out of 10 with low dread, and the fear comes from loud jump scares and gross hallucinations, with a streak of dark comedy.
How does Drag Me to Hell end?
Christine fails to pass the curse to Sylvia's corpse because she mixed up two envelopes. At the train station, Clay gives her the cursed button, and demonic hands drag her down into Hell.
Does the dog die in Drag Me to Hell?
No. No dog dies in Drag Me to Hell. Christine does kill her pet kitten with a knife, off screen, and a goat is possessed during a seance.
Is there a post-credits scene in Drag Me to Hell?
No. Drag Me to Hell has no post-credits scene, so you can leave when the credits start.
What is the curse in Drag Me to Hell?
It is the curse of the Lamia, also called the Black Goat, a demon that spends three days tormenting its victims and then drags them to Hell. In Drag Me to Hell it can be passed on by giving the cursed object to someone else.
BLURRED FOR YOUR PROTECTION
The whole plot of Drag Me to Hell is hidden, ending included. It stays that way until you ask.
That is the whole curse in Drag Me to Hell, from the button to the train tracks. Install Scaredy Cat and the internet's horror gets blurred before you see it.
