Drag Me to Hell

Drag Me to Hell is a 2009 American supernatural horror film directed and co-written by Sam Raimi with Ivan Raimi, starring Alison Lohman, Justin Long, Lorna Raver, Dileep Rao, David Paymer, and Adriana Barraza. The story focuses on a loan officer who, in an effort to prove to her boss that she can make the "hard decisions" at work, chooses not to extend an elderly woman's mortgage. The old woman places a retaliatory curse on her that, after three days of escalating torment, will plunge her into the depths of Hell to burn for eternity.

Raimi wrote Drag Me to Hell with his brother before working on the Spider-Man film trilogy (2002–2007). The film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and was a critical and commercial success, grossing $90.8 million worldwide against a $30 million budget. It won the Saturn Award for Best Horror Film at the 36th Saturn Awards.

In 1969 Pasadena, a Hispanic couple seek help from young medium Shaun San Dena, claiming their son Juan is hearing evil voices after having stolen a silver necklace from a Romani woman's wagon, despite his attempts to return it. San Dena prepares a séance, but an unseen force attacks them and drags Juan to Hell. San Dena vows to fight the demon again one day.

Forty years later, in present-day Los Angeles, bank loan officer Christine Brown vies for a promotion to assistant branch manager with her co-worker, Stu Rubin. Her boss, Jim Jacks, advises her to demonstrate tough decision-making. When Sylvia Ganush, an elderly and disheveled Romani woman, asks for a third extension on her mortgage due to economic problems resulting from an illness, Christine, against her better judgement, denies her request, and Sylvia desperately begs not to have her house repossessed. As security guards escort her out, she accuses Christine of publicly shaming her. Later, in the parking garage, Sylvia attacks her as she is leaving. After a struggle, Sylvia rips a button from Christine's coat and places a curse on it. After she returns it, she warns that Christine will soon come begging to her.

Christine and her boyfriend Clay Dalton, a college professor, visit fortune teller Rham Jas, who explains that a dark spirit has latched onto her. At home, the entity tortures Christine, and at work, she suffers a violent nosebleed while hallucinating about Sylvia. As she leaves, Stu covertly confiscates a file from her desk. Christine visits Sylvia's granddaughter Ilenka, intending to apologize to Sylvia, but Ilenka reveals Sylvia has recently died. She inadvertently embarrasses the attendees at her funeral, and Ilenka warns her that she deserves her eventual fate. Jas explains to Christine that she has been inflicted with the curse of the Lamia or "Black Goat"; an ancient and powerful demon that torments its victims for three days before literally dragging them to Hell. Following his suggestion of an appeasatory sacrifice, Christine reluctantly kills her pet kitten before meeting Clay's wealthy parents Trudy and Leonard at their house for dinner, during which grotesque hallucinations torment her further.

Jas offers to introduce a furious Christine to San Dena for $10,000, which a sympathetic Clay pays on her behalf. Revealing that she has been awaiting vengeance against the Lamia, San Dena and her assistant prepare a séance, attempting to trap the spirit in a goat and kill the animal to destroy the demon, but the entity possesses her, the goat and her assistant, the last of whom vomits up the corpse of Christine's deceased cat. After successfully banishing the Lamia, she dies soon afterwards. Jas seals the button in an envelope and tells Christine that she can remove the curse by giving the button to someone else, thus transferring the curse to them.

At a 24-hour diner, Christine telephones Stu, accusing him of stealing her file and demanding he meet her there, intending to present the cursed button to him. When he arrives, he successfully implores her to pity him and abstain from notifying Jacks about his transgressions. Consulting Jas, Christine learns she can formally offer the curse to the deceased, so she exhumes Sylvia's corpse and shoves the envelope into her mouth. A massive downpour nearly traps her in the grave, but she successfully manages to escape.

Returning home, she ventures to Union Station, where Clay intends to romantically propose to her. Jacks also telephones her, explaining that she has received the promotion after Stu was ultimately dismissed for stealing her file earlier. At Union Station, Clay presents her with an envelope he had discovered in his automobile, which is revealed to contain her cursed coat button; before exhuming Sylvia, she had mistaken it for a similar envelope containing a rare coin she had given to Clay earlier, meaning that the curse was never broken, and the Lamia is still coming for her. Horrified, she stumbles backwards onto the tracks; as a train speeds towards her, demonic hands emerge from the ground and drag her down into the fiery caverns of Hell, leaving a shocked and horrified Clay staring at the tracks from the platform above with tears streaming down his face and the cursed button still in his hands.