20 THINGS YOU (PROBABLY) DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT DRAG ME TO HELL

If you've ever had a conversation with a demonic goat (and Jesus, who hasn't?) then you know what it's like to have a bad day. Spare a thought for Drag Me To Hell's Christine Brown whose chinwag with a crazed billy was probably one of the more pleasurable experiences of her three day curse, that saw her battle through the nose bleed to end all nose bleeds and have to suffer the ignominy of an old lady vomiting maggots on her face.

Turns out the actress that played Christine, Alison Lohman, had a pretty tough time during filming, too, as some of these facts you (probably) didn't know about the movie prove...

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1.

When Christine is digging the muddy grave, the dirt is actually the stuff you use to make mud-packs. "I asked for it, not because I'm a diva," explained Alison Lohman "But because I'm allergic to a million things.With the other mud, my skin would break out and go really red."

2.

Shooting the film was such hard work that Alison Lohman became run down and even got shingles. "It takes enormous amounts of energy to keep your adrenalin high, filming scenes where you're being scared all the time and fighting for your life" she said.

3.

Lohman did almost all of her own stunts. "One of the toughest was a scene in my car with this lovely older actress, Lorna Raver, who becomes demonic and attacks me." Alison recalled. "Sam [Raimi] wouldn't stand for any fake acting, so we were really going at it. Lorna is pretty strong and she was actually strangling me at one point while I'm pulling her hair. Afterwards, we compared bruises."

4.

Christopher Young, the composer of the movie's musical score, can be briefly seen walking behind Christine as she peers into a bakery on her way to her work, at the beginning of the film.

5.

Greg Nicotero, who built a puppet of Bill Paxton for use in Sam Raimi's A Simple Plan, also built the creepy mechanic goat for the séance scene. “Greg loved to scare me,” recalled writer Ivan Raimi about on-set shenanigans. “I walked into the séance room and, out of the corner of my eye, I saw that the goat was turning its head to follow me. When I turned to face it, it stopped.”

6.

The maggots that are barfed all over Christine are made of pasta. Thankfully.

7.

The yellow 1973 Oldsmobile Delta 88 car (top) is the same car used in the Evil Dead movies (bottom - Evil Dead II). Director Raimi has included it in every film of his including, incredibly, The Quick and the Dead which was set circa 1881. Bruce Campbell, at Comic-con 2005, revealed that a special covered wagon frame covered the vehicle to maintain the movie's time period.

8.

Speaking of Bruce, he's appeared in some fashion in every film Raimi's directed - they're close friends having played about with Super 8 cameras as teenagers - but turned down a role in Drag Me To Hell because he was busy filming TV show Burn Notice.

9.

Alison Lohman told The Daily Record newspaper that shooting was such hard work that she "had to have tequila shots every night just to get to sleep."

10.

Despite not being a big horror movie fan, Alison Lohman watched countless horror movies in preparation for the part: "I watched horror classics every day," she said. "I would just sit there, turn off the lights and watch films like The Shining."

11.

Ellen Page was originally cast for the main role of Christine, but dropped out of the project because of the Screen Actors Guild strike.

12.

Sam Raimi convinced Alison Lohman to take the part by telling her a ghost story over the phone. It just happened to be the plot of Drag Me To Hell, and Alison listened to the entire thing while a storm raged outside.

13.

In Christine's house is a picture of a boat that resembles Anchor Bay's corporate logo. This company released many special editions of The Evil Dead trilogy by Sam Raimi.

14.

The movie begins with the 1980s Universal logo. "The reason that logo was there," explains Sam Raimi "Was that the opening scene takes place in 1969 in Pasadena. My editor, Bob Murawski thought it would be cool and appropriate if we started with a logo from that era as a way to say this is not a flashback. You’re in 1969 and here’s where that opening scene is."

15.

The script was written after Sam Raimi and Ivan Raimi completed Army of Darkness back in 1992, but other projects such as the Spider-Man series (that became a nearly decade-long endeavour) pushed the project back.

16.

Raimi offered Edgar Wright the chance to direct Drag Me to Hell but Wright turned it down as he was filming Hot Fuzz and felt that if he did it "it would just feel like karaoke."

17.

To film the scene where Mrs. Ganush attacks Christine in her car, which included close-ups of Christine jamming her foot on the pedal, hitting the brake, and shifting gears, the team created a puzzle car which allowed the front engine compartment and back trunk — as well as all four sides and doors — to come away. The roof came off in two directions, too.

18.

While shooting the movie Alison Lohman had no idea that the film would have comedy elements to it. "I didn't realise until we actually watched the film," she said. "I thought 'Oh my gosh people are laughing, that's horrible.' Then I looked over at Sam and he was laughing and I guess I finally realised that's the sort of movie I had made."

19.

Sam Raimi's co-writer and brother Ivan Raimi is a doctor of osteopathic medicine. He works as an emergency physician in Ann Arbor, Michigan, traveling to Los Angeles occasionally to work in Hollywood.

20.

The grave scene alone took two weeks to film with Alison Lohman having water and mud thrown on her every day. "It got pretty cold," she conceded.