Christine, an ambitious young woman, denies an elderly woman's request for a mortgage extension. The woman curses Christine, sending a demon to drag her to hell. Christine must find a way to pass on the curse to escape her fate. The trailer follows horror conventions, establishing Christine's equilibrium before showing her distress as the curse takes effect. It represents Christine as both a successful career woman and later a disturbed victim, drawing the audience in with its linear narrative and ominous tone.

1. Drag Me To Hell analysis

2. The production
• Drag me to hell was originally going to be called “the curse”
This original idea was though up about ten years before the
film went into production. The writers Sam and Ivan Rami
had many delays in producing and filming drag me to hell
due to Sam rami working on the Spiderman trilogy. In 2007
production began and was run by Ghost House pictures in
which the film became lower budget.
• When casting began, Rami wanted Ellen page to play
Christine however she dropped out and was replaced by
Alison Lohman. As for the filming, the location for this was
Tarzana California. the production team was Steve saklad
who worked on films such as Juno, peter deming and Rob
Tarpert, who produced it.
• The film was released in the UK was 27th may 2009.

3. Plot
• A young woman called christine brown is working hard
for the promotion in her job, however she is in
competition with her new colleague Stu, who is known
for his tough decisions in the workplace. Having known
this, Christine decides to follow in his foot prints and
copy his tough approach towards her clients.
• She starts off by declining a time extension for a
morgage of the house owned by Mrs Ganush, an
elderly woman. A bad mistake to make, Mrs ganush
then curses Christine and sets the horrible demon
called the lamiah upon her in which to drag her to hell.
The only way in which to escape this horrible fate is to
pass on the curse.

4. Codes and Conventions
• When analysis the drag me to hell film trailer, you can see that is follows
many codes and conventions which are associated with the horror genre.
• First of all, the warning goes unheeded by the young lady and then soon
pays the price for what she has done by making a mockery of the old lady.
• Another convention that occurs is when the boyfriend (Clay) mentions to
Christine that she is under no threat and that she is imagining it all.
• Within the trailer the audience also sees glimpses of different symbols and
writing about demons that seem old and or religious. This also occurs
within many different horrors of the supernatural sub-genre. The music
also ties in with typical conventional horror trailers; this is because the
non-digetic music being used starts off with happy piano music which
then; when the mood changes in the trailer, becomes darker and full of
violins with a stronger beat and longer pauses in it.

5. Narrative
• The narrative within this trailer is linear and links in with
Toddorrof’s theory. This starts with an equilibrium, which in the film
is Christine being happy at her job and with her boyfriend. There is
then a disequilibrium which occurs when Christine gets cursed by
the old lady who Christine rejects for a lone. The realisation
happens when Christine is told that she get pass the curse on to
someone else. However for the restored order, with knowledge
about the film, I know that she tries to pass the curse on to her
work colleague Stu. Finally, there is no equilibrium at the end in the
trailer, which is a good technique used to intrigue the target
audience, making them want to go and see the film. However, I
think that the linear narrative makes this trailer give away too much
of the storyline. This is because by watching the film, the main
elements are all in the trailer, there are only a few other things that
happen in the film that do not appear in the trailer.

6. Representation
• The representation of Christine, the main character in this film , has
two different ways of showing her. In the beginning of the trailer, it
shows her to be a successful young woman who is aiming high in
her career; she is also in a relationship and is hoping to push herself
in her work in order to gain her promotion. However, once she has
been cursed, her attitude changes and she becomes very distorted
and disturbed and no longer keeps a level head, she starts to freak
out and fix the solution. Christine is a young blond woman who is
very pretty, this is catching the male gaze and also is going against
the stereotypical ‘dumb blonde’ as she is shown to be intelligent.
Although, as the trailer goes on, she gets into more and more
trouble and then relies on the help of others.
• The representation of the old lady is stereotypical within a horror
film due to the innocence that she possesses, yet by being
conventional, we know that she is vulnerable, meaning that she
could become possessed or be not all that she seems to be.

7. Mise-en-scene
• The mise-en-scene within this trailer is different from most horror
films, this is because of the setting, it is in a busy city, there are lots
of people in most of the scenes. The office that is shown looks very
dull and contrasts with Christine’s enthusiasm to stay working
there. The look of the film (the props and clothes) show the
audience that it is set in modern times. Although, by the clothes of
the old lady, you can see that she is different and less conventional.
This shows the audience that she is different from the rest of the
characters, leaving them the decision if that is in a good or bad way.
The lighting changes mid trailer, as soon as Christine gets cured, the
tone of the light gets a lot darker, showing that she is cursed. A lot
more scenes then start to be shot at night, showing a much darker
setting, this could be representing the hell that she is being dragged
into.