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Representing Heaven or Hell in cinema isn’t new. Everyone does it their own way and depending on the genre, it can be artistic, personal, or downright funny. Imagine if you could depict the greatest place in existence, where you could have it all if you were actually good in life. Depending on your upbringing, you could actually have an image on your mind. That same education allowed you to see its definite opposite. The one where you would get tortured for all eternity.
So, which one’s more cinematic? Most people would agree that Hell, as a physical plane, has more substance than “the good place”. It’s just much more attachable to a dramatic narrative, because paying for your sins is open to so much more interpretation than just sitting around on a cloud being good. From the perspective of film, Hell is simply more interesting. Like Mark Twain said, go to Heaven for the climate, but go to Hell for the company.
We talked and talked, asked and asked, fought and fought, and we came around to a conclusion on what were the best representations of Hell in cinema. We discussed staying away from the most literal, obvious, and repetitive depictions and got a bit more theoretical in our decisions. After all, Hell can be a place where you spend the rest of eternity, or it can be the worst situation you can live through; Hell can just be other people, to paraphrase Jean-Paul Sartre. That’s also some sort of punishment.
These are the best depictions of Hell in films (with one from a TV show), in no particular order.
Hellbound: Hellraiser II
Let’s start it off with an obvious, yet very worthy mention. Hellbound: Hellraiser II is a pretty good sequel that takes the original storyline and twists it in favor of developing what was definitely the most interesting aspect to the story. After Hell came to us in the original film, the sequel takes us inside Hell itself, a labyrinthine dimension in which a huge rotating diamond makes sure you remember your sins. This is an idea of Hell that works considering the kind of film we’re watching, but it’s also artistic enough to make you look at Hellraiser as more than the franchise with the pinhead guy. Matte paintings and horrific practical effects? We’re there.
Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey
Originally titled Bill & Ted Go to Hell, Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey is the most “Bill & Ted” film in the trilogy with a third act that’s hilarious, cool, and endearing. But it’s the first part of the film that serves as a very interesting subplot about karma and atonement. Bill and Ted each have their own version of Hell cut out for them, and it’s so personalized that it’s horrific to think paying for your sins is actually living your worst nightmare over and over. From an evil Easter Bunny to an excessively affectionate grandmother, Hell is full of variants in this film. We can only imagine if Bogus Journey’s original ending had been in the final cut.
Event Horizon
The one we didn’t get to see, and probably ever won’t. In Paul W.S. Anderson’s horror sci-fi cult classic Event Horizon, a group of space explorers find a lost ship and decide to explore it. However, there’s nobody there; they have vanished. The only evidence of what happened to them is in the form of footage that depicts something straight out of Hell. Literally. Unfortunately, much of the footage depicting more of that version of Hell wasn’t included in the final cut, and it’s believed to be lost. We will always wonder what else happened on the ship that had access to a dimension of pure evil.
Twin Peaks
You’re not supposed to ask much when watching David Lynch films. Even if Twin Peaks, the TV show that dared to exist when it wasn’t supposed to, is one his friendliest presentations, it still holds that sense of surrealism that makes the director an icon of the controversial auteur movement. In Twin Peaks, there are many places in this physical plane that will make you scratch your head, but it’s that damn Black Lodge whose continuous depiction prompts you to think that place is the most certain aspect of the show. It’s Hell, plain and simple, and is fleshed out in even more disturbing form in the film Fire Walk with Me and the continuation series The Return.
Requiem for a dream
Going for a more metaphorical take, we decided to include Darren Aronofsky’s fall of man in the form of the film Requiem for a Dream. The third act, the delivery, the final surrender is an aggressive representation of everything that’s rotten in a society dominated by pharmaceuticals and addictions of all kinds. Altogether, the film’s a direct jab that’s hard to recover from, and just when you think Aronofsky will let you rest in the film’s final minutes, he decides to portray the plunge into a spiral of malice and decomposition that’s only comparable to what Hell feels like.
Groundhog Day
There are many spiritual and philosophical theories as to what Phil is living through in Groundhog Day. One of the most interesting ones is that he’s in Hell. It wouldn’t explain many things in the end, but during the film’s darkest moments, it isn’t far-fetched to think he may be atoning for being such a gruff dude. At a point, he’s in eternity reliving everything over and over, so why can’t that be his own version of Hell? The optimistic version here, though, is that experiencing your worst day over and over again can become a kind of Heaven with the right perspective.
South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut
South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut has one of the most literal representations of Hell in the list and certainly the funniest. When Kenny is rejected from Heaven, he descends while James Hetfield sings him a thrash metal lullaby. All he finds down below, is an abusive co-dependent relationship between Satan and Saddam Hussein, who can’t agree while trying to take over the world. Wouldn’t you want to see that?
1408
The adaptation of Stephen King’s short story is a film which most people don’t appreciate enough. Perhaps the premise is far too exciting to actually appreciate the metaphors; basically, it’s a depiction of Dante’s fall in Inferno. 1408 is an interesting take on self-awareness during a moment of crisis and skepticism. Hell is personal this time, which is more haunting than you’d think at first.
Jigoku
In Nobuo Nakagawa’s film Jigoku (literally ‘Hell’), Hell is a surefire destination for morally corrupt characters. As artistic as his vision of Hell is, it all has a reason. This isn’t just a display of art. It actually makes sense as a variation of the religious folk tales we’ve always heard. Few films on the list can make you feel you’re in that horrific place, and Jigoku does.
A Nice Place to Visit – The Twilight Zone
Sure, it sounds like we cheated, but how could we not include The Twilight Zone episode about a man who dies and starts having way too much fun in Heaven. Rod Serling’s series always dealt with a moral twist that chilled viewers to the bone, and this episode is no different. It’s just a very creative, philosophical take on the horrors of being in Hell.
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