Spider-Man director Sam Raimi, who shot to fame in the ‘80s with his low-budget, horror trilogy Evil Dead, returns to his darkly humorous, horror roots with new film Drag Me To Hell.
This classic tale or horror comeuppance opens with the ever-so-sweet loans officers Christine (Alison Lohman) making the tough decision to refuse an elderly, gypsy lady (Lorna Raver) a home loan extension, just so Christine can get that promotion she’s been working so hard for. But, this move earns Christine a nasty curse and she has just three torment-filled days to reverse the curse, before an evil spirit comes to drag her to hell…
Sam, you and your brother Ivan wrote Drag Me To Hell as a short story way back in 1989, what was it about this short story that compelled you to turn it into a film after all those years?
“It was a good old fashioned chiller, the story really got to me. It seemed to be really scary when I read it, it seemed like it could be a really scary movie and I so when my brother suggested we turn it into a movie I just thought that was a really great idea. I hadn’t really been involved in horror for many years, which is also why I never thought about turning it into a screenplay. I had a great opportunity to work with a lot of great authors, like Scott Smith who wrote a novel called A Simple Plan, I had a great opportunity to direct some Spider-Man films, I’ve had so many wonderful options as a director, I never really returned to my own material because I’m not primarily a writer and the material that other people give me is usually just so much better than anything I could ever do.”
The theme of Drag Me To Hell, really, is greed and its effects. Did you set out to provide a moral lesson with this film?
“Yes. It’s not really a message picture, but it’s like that old fashioned story that maybe they would tell in church, although I never really went to church. It was like a morality tale, the oldest kind of story, where a person is faced with one of the seven deadly sins, in this case greed, and they’re tempted by it and they commit a sin of greed, then they end up paying for it. It’s a simple story, just like one of those.”
In America the film got a PG13 rating, and here it’s rated MA15+. Did you deliberately set out to create a horror film that the younger audience could watch and connect with?
“Yes, we really did. We wanted to make one that one, would be really scary, but two the strength of this film is that we were never about violence. Not that that isn’t an important element of a horror film and there are some violent scenes in this film, but it’s not what the film is based on. It was always designed to scare them, shock them, build suspense, make them laugh, gross them out, but we tried to keep the realistic violence down to a minimum.”
And by using everyday objects like a stapler as a weapon and something like shadows on a wall to build suspense, the film is even more scary and sinister…
“I agree because when you use shadows or the suggestions of things that the supernatural can exist versus violence, you let the audience use their imagination. I think the most effective horror films and horror stories is when the author of them paints a picture that is a suggestion and lets the audience participate in filling in the missing blanks.”
What makes this horror film stand out, really, is the role of Christine. The film isn’t just about the screams; the audience really connects with Christine, they really feel sorry for her and cheer for her, and there’s an urgent sense that something is really at stake here (her soul!). How hard was it finding the right actress to fill the role of Christine?
“Well thanks for that compliment.”
It’s true!
“I was very lucky to get Alison Lohman to play that part, that had a lot to do with it. She’s a very likeable, sweet person in real life and well, it’s very hard to fool the audience and to make them believe that someone who is callous in real life is a good person. When the camera gets in close, I guess that’s why they say the close-up doesn’t lie, the audience can really tell… I wanted the audience to really connect with her and identify with her because I wanted the audience to sin with her. When she denies that old woman the loan, I wanted the audience to say, ‘oh just go ahead and do it, she’s so ugly and unpleasant and I really want you to get this promotion’, I wanted the audience to identify with her, so her likeability and her personable nature were really important.
“And the reason I wanted the audience to sin with her was because I wanted them to be guilty of it so that every moment after that when this demon from hell was coming for our main character, the audience would know in their hearts, secretly, that it was coming for them, that they were deserving of it, and to punish them for their attitude that they had earlier in the film and that’s what I hoped would make the ending as effective as possible.”
When Alison signed up for the role, did she have any idea what the role involved in terms of being covered in blood, vomit, mud, maggots…?
“No, not really (laughs cheekily). When I was trying to get her to take the job I was trying to tell her more about the character aspects. I didn’t quite go through all the detail of all the maggots flying into her face or burying her alive under 800 pounds of mud, or having spew from a corpse [hurled on her], I didn’t go through all those details… I didn’t want to bore her.”
There’s plenty of dark humour in this film and it really does look as thought it was a lot of fun to make. What was your favourite scene to write or shoot?
“It is the most fun I’ve ever had making a movie, which is usually a bad sign, but it wasn’t really in this case. I loved the cast and I loved the crew and we really were having fun like, oh, bad kids getting ready to scare their sister and knowing she was coming up the steps. We were giggling to ourselves and hoping the audience would like it.
“[In terms of my favourite scene], umm… well my favourite scene is really anytime Alison’s character acts badly. Once this thing is coming for her, although in some ways she becomes a stronger and stronger character, in other ways she becomes a weaker and weaker character, morally. I like watching her squirm in weak ways and reveal more and more of her weakness as the story progresses. I enjoy watching humanity in characters, and in her case she’s a weak character…”
This film is a real emotional rollercoaster. You come out feeling incredibly shaken up, not just from fright, but also from the heightened emotions of cheering for Christine, feeling happy, then sad, then shocked…
“(Big belly laughs) thank you for telling me that! You’ve made my day. I wanted to give the audience like a super-charged ride, like those old fun house rides. I really always liked those [as a kid] and I would giggle with excitement and fear going into those things and I’d be screaming and laughing and I’d be terrified coming out and I’d be laughing at myself for screaming… and those things really charged me up and I wanted to give the audience like a motion-picture version of that, which is not a fine delicacy. You know, it’s a very particular cut of meat that not a lot of people like or care for. But for those that do, if you like a good thrill ride I really do think this is one for that audience.”