The Scene In Drag Me To Hell That Gets Fans Laughing Every Time
"Drag Me to Hell" is basically a PSA reminding viewers to never upset their local witch. When loan officer Christine Brown (Alison Lohman) refuses to extend a mortgage loan for an elderly Roma woman, she gains firsthand experience on the power and horror of a Catholic curse. The film, directed by Sam Raimi, pulls no punches when it comes to supernatural horror. However, it also seeks to be wonderfully tongue-in-cheek with how it goes about scaring audiences. As The Guardian's reviewer put it, "Onscreen violence is often inappropriately justified by citing some sort of comparison with cartoons, but with Raimi it is in fact accurate." Every one of the terror-inducing sequences in "Drag Me to Hell," whether it be a jump scare or the more-than-gross sight of a possessed man vomiting up a cat, is just as much of a gag as it is a shock. Sometimes, it feels like Raimi's goal is to confuse you until you can't tell whether you are laughing to relieve the fear, or laughing because the film is genuinely funny.
There is one scene, however, that pushes the film fully into comedic territory for many fans. And while the scene has its fair share of disturbing images, it also becomes so absurd that it's almost impossible to take seriously. Referred to among fans as "the goat scene," here's how one sequence gets fans laughing every time.
The goat scene is Drag Me to Hell's comedic peak
Midway through the film, protagonist Christine Brown manages to track down a trustworthy mystic willing to help lift her curse. As is par for the course in a film of this nature, they enlist the help of another powerful medium named Shaun San Dena (Adriana Barraza) and stage a séance to help deter the demon haunting Christine's every waking moment. Of course, more than one person gets possessed by the demon and, in an act of comedic brilliance, Sam Raimi briefly puts the demon in the body of a goat. The goat, now capable of speech, immediately bleats out a barrage of foul insults with enough force to floor any viewer.
In a recent Reddit post discussing the film in general, fans of the film reminisced on how shocking, and utterly laughable the whole sequence was. "Honestly I was terrified when I saw this movie up until the goat scene," wrote one redditor. "Then I was in hysterics." "I saw Drag Me to Hell when I was a kid, and the talking goat thing at the end had me crying with laughter," another user commented. From then on, the film seems less scary. In many ways, the goat scene is the moment at which viewers realize that what they're watching isn't for fear, it's for fun. Like a campy B-movie, the joy is in seeing just how absurd this can get, except that it comes off as intentional instead of amateur.