I saw yesterday Sam Raimi's Drag Me to Hell and Lars von Trier's AntiChrist. Surprisingly the movies are somewhat connected, but not in the way you would expect. I would recommend going to both. AntiChrist isn't at all as gory as people say All you need is to close your eyes for about 30 seconds total (split to several scenes) and besides that it is similar to the more psychological of Bergman's films.
Drag me to Hell is both lots of fun and smart.
I'll talk here about Drag Me to Hell. Spoiler Alert - I'm assuming you saw the film and immediately start from the end, so no peeking.

I really enjoyed Drag Me to Hell. Until the end it seemed to me a fun, trite, horror film, but the surprise ending gives it a lot of weight. Why?



The movie starts with the empty chair, a chair she wants to fill. Her desire causes her to slip. A small slip, she sees an ugly old woman, she sees the tempting empty chair and money which comes with it, she desires the chair, and she slips, she sins. she decides to throw the woman out of her home to appease the bank manager thirst for money. Life, the world, to get ahead, it drags you to Hell. It makes you mean, even if you are a good nature girl from the farm.

She feels guilty but is not willing to admit her fault. No, it was the manager's fault. During the film she tries to pass on the guilt. First to her cat (killing it), then she hopes the goat will take her place, the death of the exorcist, and at the end this is literalized by the gift of the button - choose who you want to take your place. But no one can take her place. She did it and she needs to pay. Like the new guy in the bank trying to pass on the guilt onto her (of passing the loan to First National) - it doesn't work. It's her button, her guilt, and not one can take it away from her.
She throws the coat, and gets a new one, feeling she managed to hide all traces to her past sin, but no, there is always a trace, a leftover button which incriminates the killer. It is hers. (At least she went to hell in style).

This feeling is what stays with me from the film. Her fall at the end and how you can't escape your mistakes. Hugh mentioned in Don't call me stupid how he constantly does stupid things and moves on. But from a sin you can't. Sin here should, obviously, not be taken in the religious sense. The film is not religious and it is not really hell..
I think the end is strong. That last image of her disappearing in the stones. She confesses to her boyfriend of her guilt, she sees the button, and she falls - it's a strong ending. A small slip, a fall, and you can't take it back.
She is not bad, but the world, life, it can drag you there unless your careful. She is arrogant, as her boyfriend says when she fixes the pencil sharpener. She thinks she can fix everything. But some things, after you broke them, that's it.


Three other small points:
The Apple.
Sam Raimi is not one to shy away from product placement (to those of you who don't know, product placement is putting stuff in movies so that you see it there you then later go and buy it. Apparently it works).  I still remember the huge, takes up half the screen shot, of either a Pepsi or Coke can in Spiderman. The film, Drag Me to Hell, is not lacking in flamboyant product placements of Apple. Whether its the ipod taking most of the screen, or a Mac laptop, or her boyfriend who plays the mac in the mac ads. It is somewhat flamboyant (disgusting?) product placement, but it is more than that. The apple, that single bite from the apple, is what dragged us all away from heaven, for a while, and some later to hell. A small slip, a bite, shame came upon them, no they didn't eat anything, but there is no fooling the all seeing, and so the fall.

psychology.
At the beginning, her boyfriend's friend mentions how it is all in her mind, a post-traumatic symptom. We laugh. We know what kind of movie this is. But should we have? The entire movie could be read psychologically. She feels bad, she feels guilty, she kills her cat, but she can't get her sin away from her. And the end, she sees the button, walks back, and slips, and though we see her eaten by the stones, and her boyfriend crying, she might have simply been run over by the train. We obviously throughout the movie see her point of view. Her dreams, or should I say nightmeres. She can't get away from her guilt. At the end, nothing real happens, besides her being run over by a train. (There is the death of the exorcist, but she also believed in our hero's nightmeres.)

The opening



This one I will simply sketch, but notice in the image how her hair enters her mouth. There is an opening, an opening of an assistant bank manager. And sin will come through this opening. Sin is a small fly, it enters you, and constantly things enter her mouth. From the fly (who also enters her nose but comes out), to the cake, the old lady constantly throwing up into her mouth, puting a hand in her mouth. It is her mouth which uttered: No, you can't get the loan. It is her mouth which sinned. And she consantly tries to spew it out. She spews blood from her nose, and she sticks the button back into the mouth of the witch, the same mouth which cursed her, but we know it is not the button she stuck there. The empty chair from the beginning - what enters through there.

Besides, it's a fun movie, and a scary one at that.
But what if didn't end the way it did? Would I have even thought about it a minute later to figure all these things out? The tiniest detail can change the effect of an artwork completely.