Dating is what couples do in movies. I’ve been on very few dates. I went on one once, in high school, and I felt bad about myself the whole time. My date didn’t get my jokes. The Wikipedia says dating is performed so each individual can assess whether the other would make a good spouse. That is not what happened during my high school date. We went to see Charlie’s Angels. I made an unfunny joke in the car about my driving skills in comparison to Drew Barrymore’s, and my date didn’t laugh. That meant he was either a good and honest judge of jokes or insensitive. You see why I couldn’t tell what kind of husband he’d be.

Image courtesy of Ghost House Pictures

I have a boyfriend now, and we are both living at home so as to save up money and leave soon. Hanging out in our parents’ houses together makes us feel either young and restricted or old and pathetic. So we’ve decided to go on dates. Our first one was recently, also to the movies. It was bound to be better than my high school date because I know for sure that when my boyfriend does not laugh at my lesser jokes, it is because he is discerning, not mean. I know that now that we have been together for almost three years. Now we are ready to date.

For this date we chose the movie Drag Me to Hell. My boyfriend wanted to see it. I am always tempted to watch horror movies even though they give me acid reflux. As with spicy, cheesy foods, I’ve learned to overcome the temptation and not indulge. But this one seemed OK. Slate wrote a review calling it “an allegory for our times.” Scary allegories are regarded as quality art and studied in schools. Look at Lord of the Flies. So I thought it was a good idea for me to see this important horror movie.

We were one of four groups in the theater. There was a man by himself at the front, and two groups of friends in the rows ahead of us. We were the furthest back. That worried me, because in horror movies danger always strikes from behind. I was pretty sure I would imagine things in the yawning gap between us and the theater’s rear wall if no one sat in between.

My boyfriend put his arm around me, which made me feel better because that was something blocking me from the space I couldn’t see. Part of my reason for suggesting this movie was so I could grab my boyfriend’s hand when I was scared and he could squeeze it and feel like more of a man. When you’re starved for alone time and relying on two-hour dates to satisfy you, it’s best to pick ones that exaggerate gender roles.

From what I had read, the movie was meant to approximate a typical horror movie while maintaining just enough ironic distance from an actual one. It is really very good at doing that. The girl who plays a young Jessica Lange in Big Fish was the main star. Alison Lohman. In Big Fish she is supposed to be heartbreakingly lovely, like a doll. She was the same here. An angry old witch yanks out chunks of her hair many times during the course of the movie, but in the next scene her style always looks perfect, with gold waves around her face. That was one of the effects that made the movie feel unreal, like someone’s dream of a horror movie.

In the movie, Alison Lohman’s character Christine works at a bank. She denies a payment extension to an evil-looking gypsy who turns out to be a witch and curses her. Many reviewers have said that this is an uncannily-timed release because director Sam Raimi’s brother, Ivan, wrote the script before the housing market fell right in front of us. I think the weirder thing would have been if Ivan had developed this idea during a time when banks were acting wisely.

The Mac guy from the Mac vs. PC commercials is in it. He’s Christine’s boyfriend and he happens to use a Mac in the movie, which is one more touch that kept me safe from believing the whole thing. Their relationship and Christine’s with her parents and co-workers are set in place before the movie begins and not examined thoroughly, because in horror movies, you do not look at the roots of a main character. You descend to where they are and see them fall apart then lift off again, coming back into your own world. I think Raimi understands this distance well, and that is why I did not feel acid churning in my stomach. Nobody from work calls Christine to see how she is doing after she spews blood from her nose all over her desk. That is not realistic, and neither is the laughing, dancing evil goat that comes later on. They were all part of the story. The fairy tale.

I was scared by the movie. I also laughed at some parts of it, just as Slate promised I would. What neither scared me nor pleased me was the gory stuff, aka “gypsy phlegm.” There is a lot of gypsy phlegm. I read in an interview with the Writers’ Guild of America that said Ivan Raimi is an osteopathic doctor who writes screenplays on the side. I think this is part of why he wrote in so very many bodily fluids. Maybe if a prostitute made a movie he or she would include too much sex without even meaning to.

In that same interview, Ivan says that this movie is nothing more than a simple “gypsy curse story.” That’s all well and good, but what about its status as allegory for our times? The only updated message I could see was that loan officers in particular should be punished for their recent sins. I wonder if loan officers who saw this movie felt guilty. Or threatened?

What I liked was not the news-driven subtext, whatever it was. I liked the nifty plot trick at the end. Raimi plays a sleight-of-hand so everything shifts and my stomach rammed into my mouth, I was so shocked. I can play that scene back in my head slide by slide. In those last few moments, there is terror so big you hope the movie was not made to tell you anything. What it has to say I choose not to believe.

When we left the theater, only the lone man towards the front remained. The credits were gone and he had the air of someone moved. His hands rested on his mouth, his fingertips touched into a cage. I didn’t think he was pondering allegory. I was worried about him.

My boyfriend agreed that the man’s reverie was unsettling, considering how the movie had ended. I didn’t have to ask in a cute or clever way whether or not he agreed. I just asked and he said yes, I agree. We held hands as we walked out, agreeing, leaving the man alone behind us. We were like characters in love.

by Mallika Rao