Drag Me to Hell Deconstruction - Demon

I decided to take a closer look at a demon and possession sequence from the film 'Drag Me to Hell'. I felt that exploring other films to see what kind of demons they use would be useful for us and coming up with our own. The attention to detail they have regarding the demons and spirits is very precise and they obviously thoroughly research them first, to make sure they make them seem as scary as possible.

In this film there is mention of a demon called 'Lamia', who haunts you for 3 days and then drags you to hell. This is a real mythological demon who was a beautiful queen but turned into a child-eating demon. There is also the appearance of an old woman with one blind eye, rotting teeth and scraggly grey hair, who altogether looks very frightening and old. She curses a button, which sets off all the possession type activity that occurs. 

During the film they keep the appearance of the demon quite ambiguous. They only show it in shadow form, which is quite effective accompanied with screeching non-diegetic sounds (string), as it keeps the demon as a supernatural unknown being, meaning it could take any form, which will ultimately scare the audience. Furthermore, they give the demon a quite stereotypical translated name - 'the black goat'. 

It is quite stereotypical to associate evil with black. Also, many people associate goats with Satan-worship, due to some old symbols. As well as this, the film uses other generic demonic things, like flies, which can be seen in many others films e.g. The Ring. This insect is usually regarded as filthy and so watching it go into a woman's mouth makes the audience feel unpleasant and disgusted. 

They also use old scripture type books in the film to show the audience what the demon looks like in mythology. Again, it is a goat, which links to the Satanic idea that they are trying to put across. They also use this to tell the story, as the images help depict what the man is explaining. 

The demon also has the ability to possess and this is done in a conventional way. When the woman is possessed her eyes roll back into her head and she begins speaking in a way that sounds unnatural and contrapuntal to the woman's appearance. He also possesses a man and gives him the ability to fly, which is not something that we'd be able to recreate as it would be impossible for us, given our minimal budget. However, this just makes the demon seem scarier as it is able to do unnatural things.