Mercy and Justice in Drag Me to Hell: A Jubilee Reflection

2025 means different things to different people. To wrestling fans, it means a new home for WWE Raw. To sports fans, it means another chance for your favorite team to make a storybook run to a championship. And to Catholics, it means a Jubilee Year, a special celebration that takes place every twenty-five years.

This concept has its roots in the Old Testament–where God commanded the Israelites to periodically set slaves free, return all land to its original owners, and cancel all debts (Leviticus 25:8-13, Deuteronomy 15:1-2)–and in the Church, we mark these momentous years with pilgrimages, special indulgences, and works of mercy.

In other words, the Jubilee Year calls us to celebrate God’s mercy and embody His mercy in our daily lives, and as a movie buff, I’d like to examine a film that perfectly encapsulates that idea: Sam Raimi’s 2009 horror comedy Drag Me to Hell. This may not be the first movie that comes to mind when you think of the Jubilee (or anything Catholic, for that matter!), but if you take a close look at its message, you’ll find that the fit is surprisingly snug.

The Basic Plot of Drag Me to Hell
To get our bearings, let’s start by briefly recapping the basic plot of Drag Me to Hell. The film follows Christine, a young loan officer vying for a promotion. She’s trying to impress her boss and prove that she’s not a pushover, so when she’s approached by Sylvia Ganush, an elderly woman asking for a third extension on her mortgage payment, she makes the wrong call.

Mrs. Ganush explains that she recently experienced a few unforeseen medical problems, but before these issues, she never missed a payment. She pleads for mercy and asks for just a little more time to gather some money, and at first, Christine is sympathetic to the poor woman’s plight. But when she brings the case to her boss, she changes her tune. The guy not-so-subtly pressures her to deny the request, and in her desperation to make a good impression, Christine chooses to foreclose on Mrs. Ganush’s house.

In response, the elderly woman places a curse on her callous loan officer, and soon afterwards, Christine comes under attack by a terrifying demon known as the Lamia. This creature torments its victims for three days and then drags them to hell (hence the movie’s name!), so as bad as these initial hauntings are, the worst is yet to come.

Unsurprisingly, Christine does everything she can to break the curse, but nothing works. When Drag Me to Hell ends, the Lamia emerges from the pits of hell to drag this poor woman to an eternity of fiery torment, and there’s nothing she or her loved ones can do about it.

Begging for Mercy
At this point, you might be wondering what Drag Me to Hell has to do with the Jubilee Year. God doesn’t miraculously save Christine at the last second, so what could this movie possibly have in common with a celebration of divine mercy? To answer that question, we have to pay close attention to some of Christine’s attempts to free herself from the Lamia’s curse.

First, a psychic suggests that a sacrifice might appease the demon, so the woman kills her cat and offers it to the creature. When that doesn’t work, she then attends a seance where a medium asks the Lamia not to carry out its hellish plan, but of course, the entity refuses. It stands firm in its commitment to take her soul when the time comes, and that rejection creates a striking parallel: the Lamia is treating Christine the way she treated Mrs. Ganush.

When Mrs. Ganush found herself in a desperate situation, all she could do to prevent the loss of her house was plead for mercy. She literally begged Christine for another extension, and the young loan officer could’ve granted the woman’s request if she wanted to. But she didn’t. Instead, Christine let the rules of foreclosure play out like they normally do, so Mrs. Ganush was forced out of her home.

Similarly, Christine is now in a desperate situation herself, and she too asks for clemency. She implores the Lamia to take pity on her and spare her an eternity of misery, but her pleas fall on deaf ears. The demon decides to let the “rules” of its curse play out like they normally do, so Christine ends up getting dragged to hell.

The Importance of Mercy
With that parallel, Drag Me to Hell tells us in no uncertain terms that Christine was wrong to deny Mrs. Ganush’s request for another extension. Sure, she may have been following the rules, but sometimes we have to abide by a higher standard. As the Church’s recent declaration Dignitas Infinita proclaims, “[e]very human person possesses an infinite dignity,” and that dignity far exceeds the importance of any rules or laws that govern mortgage payments. When people are in need, we have to help them, even if the “rules” don’t require it.

And if there’s any doubt about that, Drag Me to Hell hammers the point home in its final scene. When Christine erroneously thinks she’s broken free of the Lamia’s curse, she admits to her boyfriend that she should’ve given Mrs. Ganush another extension. She doesn’t say why, but I find it hard to believe that her experience with the Lamia didn’t influence her admission. Even if only subconsciously, she must’ve realized that she treated Mrs. Ganush just like the Lamia treated her, so the truth about her actions became crystal clear.

And once we come to that same realization, the relevance of Drag Me to Hell to this Jubilee Year becomes equally clear. This great celebration of God’s mercy calls us to put His mercy into practice in our own lives, so just like Christine, we too should act compassionately towards those in need. We have to go beyond the bare minimum our earthly rules require and put people’s needs first, and if we don’t already do that, there’s no better time than to start than this wonderful invitation from the Church to enter more deeply into God’s endless mercy.