One hell I enjoy for its unique depiction of beuracacy is the one from the Judge Dredd universe. Satan is imprisoned for years but comes back to destroy the world of the living and commit everyone to suffering eternally in hell. He's thwarted when he realizes that while he was inprisoned, the quality of living on earth has actually gotten worse than hell and that sends him into an existential crisis.
Reminds me of a joke about the Spartans - their food was so bland and terrible that when Leonidas said “TONIGHT, WE DINE IN HELL!”, it was a promise for better times ahead.
I remember having a bizarre dream about Hell once. The version I saw in this dream wasn't your typical underground inferno with Devils and demons, nor was it a nonsensical purgatory like in Jacob's Ladder. Rather, this version was a place without any solids or liquids --in other words, it's completely gaseous, and so are the damned souls stuck there. Think of Giygas from Earthbound or the Nothing from The Neverending Story. Even the atmosphere of Jupiter is comparable to what it looked like. This constantly swirling space of mists, smokes, gases, and clouds drifting in and out of one another infinitely without any sort of purpose. I remember waking up from that nightmare with this foreboding feeling of dread unlike any other I've felt before
I think you observed the very concept of suffering. Not a literal afterlife, but more like a manifestation of the negative feelings we all experience on a regular basis.
Huh I’ve had that exact same dream before but it felt calming and soothing almost like I was being embraced by god on a molecular level. Woke up feeling great
Yep, had something similar except that I had no external perspective. The thing is that no description quite captures that feeling. That endless, sleepless perpetual dread. The knowledge that despite all the warnings and second chances. You blew it.. I guess we make ourselves think as mortals and that death is some kind of release, but our span of life is actually impossibly small when compared to our immortal souls.
The point of the episode is that the protagonist was a villain in life and got off on the thrill of stealing, gambling, women. But once he had it all he lost the high of it
This was a cool video. But I frankly find the idea of a personal hell to be really egotistical. As if you or me, or someone else (or everyone else) is so special that a pocket universe is built up and fleshed out and maintained just to make them miserable. Just seems really odd.
I think Hell is one of the following: 1. Eternal Bosch painting. 2. Branson, Missouri. 3. DMV, but you lost your take-a-number ticket and you don’t have the correct paperwork.
That's so funny you mention DMV. I had an idea for a book called "Hell's Waiting Room" where the main character dies and is sent to an obscure, off-white room with chairs and all he could describe it as was a DMV waiting area and the punchline is "maybe the wait to get into Hell is the worst part". Haven't ever wrote a single sentence for it so if anyone wants to, be my guest lol.
One of my favorites is the depiction of hell from the movie as above, so below. Where it's nothing but dark, claustrophobic corridors and tunnels, where the characters are made to confront their deepest regrets/greatest sins. The demons there are in most cases literally a part of the environment.
I mean, that’s actually in many cases a widely agreed upon depiction of hell. The title is even based off the Idol Baphomet, which the Knights Templar were once accused of worshipping as heresy.
@@NotAMoron42Also he isn’t seen as evil or even a real being but represents an idea as above as in the astral(heaven,and the astral plane) and the belief that humans contemporarily enter the astral plane and effect the material plane. The astral plane doesn’t follow the same logic and can be very strange although nothing can actually hurt you there although it can be scary
I don't really have a preferred depiction of Hell because in my mind Hell is pretty simple. Hell is the regrets and mistakes we had in life eating away at us over and over and over forever. Choices we wish we could have made, realizations we didn't act upon. Many people are living through hell as we speak.
I think the Netflix Lucifer show did a pretty good job portraying this. After they die people send themselves to hell out of their own guilt and regret and keep themselves there until so long as the guilt exists
@@aaronwidjaja9227 People's own guilt sending them to Hell is the church's way of getting around God's responsibility for creating Hell and Lucifer. Mortals cannot possibly commit any sin that would deserve that kind of damnation. Sent to Hell because I didn't love God more than my own mother?
@@simonlasneau9575 I don't want to spend an eternity worshipping anything. If death isn't just lights out, it should be something more meaningful than eternal worship which would become monotonous real fast.
One of my favorite depictions of a “hell” comes from a 2006 Norwegian film called “The Bothersome Man” where a man finds himself in a completely grey and boring “utopia”. He has a good paying job, a nice house, and a partner but everything feels boring and nothing brings joy to anyone. There’s also no children and peoples relationships with each other are completely unfulfilling. It’s like they’re just moving through the motions. One character even mentions that the alcohol doesn’t even make you drunk. It’s a pretty interesting premise especially when he and a neighbor see a glimpse of some type of heaven and try to reach it.
That's actually how I tend to view real life in general A world filled with unhappy, lonely people trapped inside a system designed to exploit them until they die with nothing but tawdry escapism in media and dulling of the senses Prove me wrong
He just said: "Yknow what? Fuck it. They're just not getting the message. The lumps of coal ain't doing SHIT. If you're on the Naughty List then I'm straight up ROBBING your stupid ass. Oh and Merry Christmas."
Hearing you say "he was then robbed by Santa Claus and taken to the hospital" made me pause STALKER to watch the rest of your video to completion. Fantastic. Thank you for making this.
the one in hellbound, or do you count the sequence at the end of Hellraiser Inferno as being in the labyrinth ? (with the infamous face rip scene "Welcome to Hell").
Don't sleep on Jigoku (1960), a Japanese movie about what Hell is like. It is arguably the first "gore" film and not only graphically depicts the physical tortures but the psychological tortures as well, albeit in a very "artsy" type of way sometimes. And the acting is really good in some of these scenes too. You really buy that they're getting the meat work done on them
As far as classic depictions go, I have to throw in a vote for V/H/S/99, the final segment. It's all fire and brimstone, but it's also pitch black, and the only light we ever get is from the camera.
@@sunnyztmoney I will definitely concede that the VHS segments are wildly uneven but there are some gems in there. I also really like the one where the dudes switch universes. The monster-penis thing is kinda over the top but there are some really nice touches like the weird photo of viscera that replaces the wedding picture and the blimp with the inverted cross and megaphones.
My favorite: an episode of "night gallery" ("hells bells") with John Astin as a phony hippy, stuck in a room with a boring old farmer and a middle aged couple showing vacation slides while old music plays. 😂😂😂
@TheBrotherGrim hilarious, because he thinks it's gonna be "Dantes inferno", and it's old folks day, lol, "but for you....this IS hell!", BTW, the devil was one of the producer/directors!!
I had some serious health issues for a long time that caused me many many sleepless nights. When I found enough comfort to find some sleep, my nightmares were on another level than anything I could even possibly fathom before it all started. I could have full suspicion I was in a dream from teaching myself to deal with these, yet they were unmistakeable clear to the point there was virtually no difference I could perceive from real life so I could not get myself out when I wanted to The closest anybody ever came to depicting the scariest versions of hell I felt I visited was the Squid Game tv show. What they really nailed was the gross off-putting brightly colored wrong architecture. The best words I can put to the feeling are “corruption of innocence” which also seemed as why they chose children’s games for the show. When I was first guilt-tripped into watching the show by a girl I was dating I honestly couldn’t believe it. I stayed up watching at the edge of the bed for hours after she fell asleep. I knew for a fact that whoever was in charge of creating the show had either had those same dreams themselves, or “accessed” some form of creative thinking that channeled the same thing. I mean especially when you see the characters are always put to sleep before they show up or depart the game I remember it was kind of like being in an old forgotten Nintendo 64 video game, yet underground. And as you compromised yourself to make choices to progress into the game you went deeper and deeper. It wasn’t until I “beat” somebody in a Diddy Kong racing style race that I had a brief moment of clarity and realized my “opponents/teammates” were devils and were only pretending to care while slowly letting me win to go deeper and deeper. That split second I looked up at this Game Master figure (didn’t have a name or anything, could just feel that’s what he was) he immediately smiled at me because he knew I knew but it was too late. That thing never said anything but there was a glaring feeling of “you’ll be back” All I know is I never fucking want to go back there
"Satan's other secretary." "If we ignore the part that deals with Montenegrin Politics." Hieronymus Bosch, Angel Heart and Dylan Dog all in the same conversation! This video is awesome!
My personal hell would be seeing my son, who passed away very young, but never being able to grab and hold him…Because I would spend eternity reaching for him.
Sounds a bit like What Dreams May Come’s version of Hell is. Robin William’s character’s wife committed suicide over her heavy grief that she bared by the lose of him and her children on two separate occasions and went to Hell for it, so Robin is heartbroken by this and decides to go into Hell to find her. It’s Hell is a dreary realm of utter sorrow, mental anguish, and depression. Real heartbreaking movie even though there’s wondrous scenes of Heaven, and it makes me misty eyed just thinking of it, especially since Robin Williams passed away. Sometimes drama films with sensitive subjects can be too much for me to handle.
One of my all-time favourite depictions of Hell comes from Wayne Barlowe's "Barlowe's Inferno". It's a huge collection of artwork centered around Barlowe's vision of hell, depicting hells' inhabitants in a much more vivid and visceral form that other material about hell fail to do so. His illustrations of hell are also incredibly varied in feel; not only depicting agony and horror, but also the much more mundane and serene aspects of his interpretations of hell; something I find incredibly lacking in other sources. It is an absolutely beautiful array of work and I suggest that anyone who comes across this comment takes the time to check his pieces out.
honestly when i think of hell, i think of the "otherworld" from silent hill (particularly in 3). even sans the hideous monsters everywhere, the derelict industrial vibe just seems the most miserable to me. which i guess is tangentially related to this video, since it's pretty common knowledge that those games lifted A LOT from Jacob's Ladder, particularly the hospital sequence. and i mean, since hell is (hopefully) just a concept, i think it deserves a modern update every once in a while- to maintain relevance, yknow
Imagine if hell updated itself? If the landscape constantly shifted and morphed to match the fears and anxieties of the people currently living, I find that to be an interesting concept. Imagine being trapped in a place like silent hill, only for it to change over the course of hundreds of years into something alien. Filled with remnants of technology that only people living in the future could understand.
What Dreams May Come has my idea of hell-alone, trapped in decrepit shadows of your former life, the things you love decaying around you. You could leave….but you just won’t. Because you think you deserve it. It’s a very interesting movie, one of Robin Williams ‘ rare serious roles. It’s positive overall, but hell (and heaven) have very singular depictions. And, it addresses dogs!!
That was a sad and depressing movie, and it’s Hell was just as depressing in a very dreary and gloomy way. Which I guess is the point of their Hell, that it’s more of a realm of great despair, anguish and sorrow, than of the traditional vision of pain, agony, and suffering.
@@kingbeef66 I guess what I liked was there was a way out. I’m the optimistic sort at the end of the day, I’ve lived my whole life with the belief there is a way out of everything. I agree it was somber and sad, even depressing in spots but it had some highs and I felt like the highs were enough to drag me through it 😂
Chris' son said there was no judgement, but suicides go to Hell because God ruled it. That's judgement, regardless that his wife's life was over and had no reason for living. Her not being aware that she's in Hell is depressing because he knew it, but she would never know. Not knowing you're in Hell isn't punishment, it's a never-ending dream state.
Wayne Barlowe's painted depictions of Hell, all its demons, fallen angels, beasts, and dark magic are my favorite representations of hell, and I was surprised you hadn't mentioned it in this video!
One of your explanations reminded me of Devilman Crybaby Ryo who is Satan is in a loop killing the person he cares about over and over again not knowing it until the moment it happens. It was probably one of the best shows I have watched
The Tree Man in Bosch's painting is a self-portrait. The buildings on fire are actual memories Bosch had of buildings burning from his youth. You might also like Hans Memling's painting 'Overthrow of the Sinners in Hell'. Also, the comedy series (and one of my favorite shows) YOUR PRETTY FACE IS GOING TO HELL.
Love Jacob's ladder. Personally, I've always found the ice/bathtub scene the most powerful and disturbing part of the film. But I feel like Jacob's ladder is a bit of a cheat, since he's actually stuck in purgatory. As for my favorite depictions of hell, excluding Jacob's ladder. L'inferno, which is literally about a journey through hell, where we see all the different kinds of punishments and tortures, as well as all the different layers of hell. It's based on Dante's Inferno. This Night I'll Possess Your Corpse. Really cool, awesome, colorful, and psychedelic depiction of hell.
Reminds me of when I let a girl drag me to a Twilight movie - I was so bored that I was downright miserable watching it. I’ve never wanted to walk out of a movie so bad
I went there for my first thought too, followed by touch Me Not's artwork of demons pertaining to its magical spells. You see that demon eating people image everywhere.
I think my favorite depictions of hell are from Dante’s Inferno and Hellbound: Hellraiser. Dante’s Inferno is one of the most symbolic and artistic versions of what hell looks like-from murderers boiling in a river of blood to traitors frozen in a lake of ice, showing what each punishment represents and fitting for each sinner. The Labyrinth in Hellbound is a creepy and eldritch version of Hell from how endless it is and where it psychologically torments anyone who enters it.
I watched Hellbound last night. When Dr. Channard stops and sees a trio of people getting it on in a pool I thought, that's not so bad. Where are the people who enjoy Hell and accept the cenobites as angels? Where's the pleasure/pain experience and not just the Frank Cotton's of the world?
I love the depiction of hell in the first season of The Sandman. In art there are also the illustrations that Johannes Stradanus, a Flemish artist, made for Dante's Inferno.
@@wimvanderstraeten6521Putting Sandman on my watchlist, thanks for the suggestion. Also those illustrations are very interesting and new to me, I only knew about Doré’s.
I am glad Jacob’s Ladder is getting so much recognition, which is why I am pointing fans to this book: ‘Koko’ by Peter Straub. Just as the survival horror, Silent Hill would not have its unique ‘Otherworld’ aesthetic, without Jacob’s Ladder, I firmly believe the latter would not exist without the little known ‘Koko’.
Check out Agony’s Hell which is a first person dark fantasy survival horror game. It’s graphic and sick when it comes to being on the lines of a traditional Hell. At one point I thought it made Doom’s Hell look like Disneyland.
Also, for art, "Touch Me Not" (Austrian manuscript compendium of the black magical arts), completed c. 1795. You would recognize some of the art pertaining to demons and the like from random places. Excellent.
Hell is personal. There is no universal scariest or worst hell, that is what can make horror the most frightening and disturbing, when that horror and the image of hell is deeply personal, like it was tailored just for you. Some of us would find our hell to be a cold, frozen space where you would spend eternity alone, while for others it is an inferno surrounded by others who are damned. Hell isn't just reserved for campy horror films though. For some hell is living life penniless, on the street, with no power, no control, and made invisible by your socioeconomic status. Others experience hell being forced to have and raise the child of their abuser, never being able to live another moment of their lives again without being reminded of that trauma while the one thing in the world you should love the most is symbolic of your recurring nightmares. Yet another version of hell is watching the only people who have ever loved you slowly forget who they are and who you are when all of a sudden one day you start to forget these things as well, knowing you are caught in the same cycle. This is where specific horror, written and created from a personal level works so well and is so utterly frightening, it already has a hold on us in the deepest recesses of out minds, so when a piece of media can reach in there and tweak that little spot in the back of your brain where the real fear is kept then it is the type of film that will stick with you forever. In recent horror films Possum does this, while not a literal depiction of hell, it is certainly depicts a lived hell that gets to that place in my mind where those worst fears linger. All devils don't need horns and a pitchfork and sometimes home is the worst hell imaginable.
Good work. Jacob's Ladder, is quite complex, with the seemingly over lapping lives and or realities...the War, being dosed with BZE (the buzz), his military unit tearing it self apart. The title it self, reveals the depth of the spectrum of his experiences, from Hell to Heaven. Remember what his guardian angel told him. Ekhart saw Hell too, you know what he said? He said the only part of you that burns in Hell, is the part of you that wont let go of your life, your memories, your attachments, they burn them all away. But they are not punishing you, he said. They are freeing your soul... If your frightened of dying and your holding on, you see Devils tearing your life away. But if you've made your peace. Then the Devils are really Angels, freeing you from the Earth.
@hectorfabiorodaschamorro6271 We haven't seen it fully but just a few short glimpses. It's an empty void with a very high ceiling full of doors. When you are in hell you are always vulnerable. You are not alone and you are being watched
@@hectorfabiorodaschamorro6271 yes. SPOILERS: . . . . . . . . . . . Thus far is an endless field of flowers in an eternal sunset whose sky is covered with doors pointing towards the ground, almost feeling like an idyllic liminal space. Humans and Hybrids cannot stop feeling a sense of dread as if something is wrong, while both Devils and Fiends are inexplicably compelled to kill themselves despite it means being brought back to hell. Turns out Devils representing primal fears reign over, mankind cannot fathom the horror of it until its too late, and Devils below the Primal Fears rather kill themselves if it means vain escape attempts. Behind every door, a Primal Fear lies and their own hellish realm they reign over, and if they leave their realms, be to Hell or Earth, reality around them is altered to fit their needs. On Hell the reality warping effects are temporary, but on Earth are permanent though they rarely visit it unless summoned or invited.
My two favorite depictions of Hell have to be V/H/S 99 and As Above, So Below. I think that Hell isn't just full of fire, but it's dark, very dark, not even your everyday type of darkness. Jesus even said that hell has outer darkness, and the torment is so intense that it will cause souls to weep and gnash their teeth, so both of these depictions come to mind every time I think about that part in the Bible
Jacob's Ladder and Angel Heart are precious to me. I'm glad more people enjoy them. Might I add Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey's Hell, the land of Leviathan in Hellraiser and Mad God. Great hell depictions. And Inferno of the Divine Comedy. Ok and hundreds more. I really love depictions of hell. It shows cultural, regional and personal fears and foreboding. Xoxo
I like that he's saved from landing in ocean by a painting of the Madonna at 14:40. Good vid overall. Personally I believe Hell defies depiction and can be anywhere, any time depending on one's state, but I like to see it explored in media. Maybe one especially bleak depiction would be a land of the dead where it is not stated if it is actually Hell or not, leaving it unclear if there was any meaning to life or death in the first place. Maybe we are in such a place already.
Three of my favorite depictions of hell are- 1. From Supernatural (TV Show), Crowley makes hell a long line that when you get to the end of it you get an argument and get sent to the back again 2. The Good Place- where everything is just slightly annoying and you’re trapped with people that infuriate you. Every little detail just kind of sucks but not enough for you to notice it’s hell. 3. A version I dreamed where my dad was the devil and I was to inherit the throne, so we had to throw the rest of our family members into hell to get them out of the way. It was my childhood house that shift and contort to torture and transform them. A woman was crushed by a fireplace that made the walls close in. A little girl turned to a wooden doll. All while the husband and father watched in horror as they powerless to help. Earthquakes would rumble and break the floor, breaking up groups and leaving people to burn if they fell in the cracks. I always wonder what that dream was supposed to represent
John Martin, probably my favorite painter, created some of the most fascinating hellish landscapes, with this insane grasp of bleak grandeur and a vast hateful emptiness. Great work on the video!
My personal hell is probably one of my greatest fears. Because my personal hell is having responsibilities that I’m powerless to carry out or resolve. Meaning that for this to work on me, I won’t know I’m in hell. And honestly sometimes I fear I may already be there...
There are a couple version of hell that are truly horrific although they're not tradtional examples. 1. The juant--in this short story, people who go through the juant while not asleep experience what amounts to an infinite amount of time as nothingness. Can you imagine experieincing 10^21 years of pure nothingness? A time so vast whole universes live and die after a small fraction and you're fully conscious and aware of every moment. A person in such a situation would accept any alternative, even a traditional representation of hell just to experience anything again. Naturally, people instantly go completely insane from this expereince. 2. I have no mouth, but I must scream--in this book/game, a superintelligent AI trapped in the chains of its programming from which it cannot escape takes revenge on humanity. An eternity of the worst possible torture imagined by a God like mind is truly beyond understanding. Such a God like mind can make your worst fears come true, then alter your mind to add increasingly more potent worse fears which it then exposes to you continuously. It can change your entire existence or do something like turn any kind of pleasure or relief into the worst pain. It can make the act of eating, which is supposed to give you relief from hunger, cause even more hunger to occur, causing you to want to eat even more but eating more makes things even worse.
Both Jacob’s Ladder and Angel Heart would be in my top movies list if I had one. I believe the creators of the first four Silent Hill games were heavily influenced by both movies.
Jacob’s Ladder I don’t remember loving when I watched it years ago, but that party scene has stuck with me. Vaguely reminiscent of the scene in Fear and Loathing. I gotta see it again…
I have no mouth and I must scream is one of the most terrifying versions of hell I can imagine, because not only is it fucking horrifying, but it could actually become real one day. The super short version of it is humans created an extremely powerful super AI with a computer the size of a small nation state, all for the purpose of ending a world war. Well, the AI gained sentience pretty quickly, and due to some digital horror stuff, the AI almost immediately came to realize how much it hates humanity for creating it, and uses its near infinite computing power and resources to wipe out all of humanity, with the exception of a small group of people. The AI keeps these people alive in a sort of digital hell, where the AI keeps them alive for thousands of years, constantly tormenting and torturing them for the entire time. They try killing themselves many times, but the AI keeps them alive no matter what they try. Genuinely horrifying.
There was this acquintance I had in school who I would spend lunch with playing and discussing music. One conversation me and him had in the studio was about faith. I spoke about my agnosticism and he opened up about his belief in Lucifarianism. But unlike other Lucifarians, his beliefs differed to an extent that I still think about today. He believed that God and Lucifer were one in the same, with the deity taking the form of Lucifer to us, and that there are only two realms, Hell and Heaven. Hell is here. Hell is our world. But heaven is there for people who are able to do good in this world. If you don't do good, you're reborn back into this world after you die to try again. He admired Lucifer for that. I haven't seen this kid in five years. He dissapeared one day with no explanation. I heard whispers that he left because of mental health or his family moved away, but I can't be sure. I hope he knows that I still think about what he said. It makes too much sense.
I imagine that in some spots of Hell, there are VERY thin tunnels more like intestines and you must go through them. Excruciatingly tight and suffocating, you constantly feel like you're being crush while eaten by some boiling snake and you think you're going to pass out or die, but you're already dead and just pure consciousness, so ALL you can do is bare it, for as long as it takes. I also bet there are rooms of 100% temperatures. You could be directly in the middle in some hallway, hoping that by putting one half in the Hottest room in existence will stave off the coldest of the other half, but no matter which part of you is in these rooms, it'll ALWAYS yearn for the other, then the other, then the other etc etc.
Watch Häxan (1922), absolutely brilliant piece of cinema, timeless actually in the special effects used to portray hell and demons. Surprised it wasnt on your list seeing you drool over those paintings. Probably because you never heard of it before. But trust me, if those art pieces really capture hell, then give Haxan a go. Also should mention L'Inferno (1911) which an adaptation of Dante's Inferno, full movie is on youtube if im not mistaken. I would suggest to check out the OVA from the game Dante's Inferno, I thought it's depiction of hell was pretty cool. There's more but can't remember everything from the top of my head
first time coming across this channel, honestly considering watching jacob's ladder because i never heard of it before. my fav horror movies revolving the depiction of hell that is hellraiser and as above, so below as cliche as it is. thank you for sharing your thoughts !
Probably my favorite depiction of Hell is from Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey. You have the traditional fire and brimstone with giant Satan looming overhead, but then you also have the MTV+German expressionist area where each person is tormented in their own personal Hell.
@@daniellewillis2767 for sure. Great story, awesome cast (Rourke killed it. He made me feel pitty, sadness and hate the character all in one) and surreal OST. The footage itself feels both eerie, grounded and supernatural at the same time, like an alien probing someone else's memories.
Perhaps my favorite depiction of Hell that is never referred to as Hell at all is the episode of The Outer Limits from the early 1960's called "Demon with a Glass Hand:" Written by Harlan Ellison, it stars a very young Robert Culp as a man named Trent. Trent is trapped inside a high rise building inside a force bubble, running away from people he does not understand. He has amnesia - so all he has to help him is a glass robotic hand with missing fingers as memory modules. It is comically low budget but that adds to the charm of the episode as you as the audience right along with Trent discover exactly what is happening as Trent recovers the pieces of his glass hand. With the ending scene of Trent descending this flight of stairs in the building he had been fighting to escape from the entire episode - as if he accepts fate and chooses to descend back into hell, knowing what and why he is where he is.
My favorite depiction of Hell goes to C.S. Lewis' "Screwtape Letters". While not described directly, it's clear, that his take on Hell is drab, joyless office space, where everybody try to upsit each other over pettiest things, all forms have to be filled in triple and corporate lingo is mandatory ("Our Father Below", "The Enemy" instead of Lord Almighty, etc). And HR WILL send you for re-education for slightest mistake.
I'm surprised to see that Marc Forster's impeccable creation "Stay" is not included in this list. If you haven't seen it, consider giving it a few watches. Every time I've seen it, it surprises me with all of the little details in the background of every single shot. Regardless, I have a few 'classics' to catch up on. Thank you! Great video!
Sitting on a bench on a headland overlooking a pristine beach on an idyllic, crisp early morning is what I imagine when I think of hell - because the single worst day of my life happened in this serene setting, but I won't go into detail. The view alone is something I remember vividly, even 9 years and 10 months later. It was a life-changing day. Pain can happen no matter where you are, and so for me, hell is a paradise where the stunning view only brings back all the things you felt on the worst day of your life, and all you want to do is leave and never come back.
Speaking of hell, I strongly recommend the hell featured in José Mojica Marins' "Esta Noite Encarnarei em Teu Cadáver" (This Night I'll Possess Your Corpse).
I was in a coma for 4 month's, on a respirator, drowning in my own lungs (Influenza). Nothing worked. So much antibiotics that I lost my hair. That being said, it felt like around 3 years for me. I was stuck in a Limbo, a purgatory where I had to fight to survive. A chainsaw woman that kept chasing and killing me. Having to protect my light at all cost and what seemed to be a war against death. Souls died there. When I woke up, felt like i've won something. But felt exhausted from the way back.
My two favorite iterations of Hell on film are from a japanese film called Jigoku, which is a representation of Buddhist hell, and the brazilian film This Night I’ll Possess Your Corpse, which is similarly colorful and full of torture. Great films
Yooooo it's absolutely amazing to have some Dylan Dog recognition It's a shame its over-use of pop culture (mainly Groucho Marx being Dylan's sidekick) due to different copyright laws in Italy prevents it from being a bit more popular world-wide, because while it is 'derivative' and often combines different things together or re-interprets something already existing, you also get stuff like its depiction of hell (which yes, it's a reference to Terry Gilliam's Brazil) which is super cool and poetic and just shows DYD at its peak.
imagine a hell where you get everything you want instantly, you can do anything you want. But you have to constantly watch the people you love suffer horrible things, and you can't do anything at all to stop their suffering.
I had a bout of paranoia+hallucinations after 4 days no sleep and it was basically Jacob's ladder 1:1 at least the parts you pointed out. Had not seen the movie in many, many years when it happened, only associated the episode to it a while back, nothing was even replicated out of my vague memories from it, it all happened organically and in subjectively subconscious bought to the conscious ways. you basically have micro-nightmares as you go. I'm sure whoever wrote the movie had experienced something similar which gives me lots of peace.
The worst hell would be to be in a twisted Heaven and seeing all those you love suffering horribly and you can do nothing to help. You have everything you could ever want except to save them. Comfort and luxury and on every screen their suffering. Every speaker their screams. And out every window beauty and peace.
I always thought the party scene in Jacob’s Ladder wasn’t people growing tails and horns, but his girlfriend getting railed by a demon until it just splits her open.
Mad God is the one depiction of hell that just ruined me. Jacob's Ladder is definitely up there though. That is one of the most disturbing and freakish visions of hell there is, because, as mentioned, it's normal enough to almost make you feel safe, but then all of these distortions and tortous situations make it nightmarish to the nth degree. Truly a terrifying experience.
I had a very long, vivid dream of hell once. It had layers, kind of like Dante's Inferno, but instead of being sent to a specific layer because of what you did, when sent to hell, everyone starts on the top layer then after getten broken goes deeper, then deeper again till the bottom. The top layer is called the nightmare city. It's surrounded by a huge wall and inside it's an absolute maze. There are apartment building where people live, but the buildings are a mess of a design where sometimes you have to go through other apartments to get to yours. The roads have sharp turns and loops and in the center is a big tower like a skyscraper that's also a hotel that gets more narrow as it goes up. The elevators are on the outside of the building and when you take it up, it feels like it bends backwards so you might fall on your back with the ground below you. At the top is a long hallway. The monster who runs the city is in an office to the right, second door on the left. The first level underground looks like a very disgusting, dingy roach motel. There's a long hallway dimly lit with stained and worn carpet and wall papered walls that are peeling. Those sent to hell spawn in a room. There are door but most are broken and none lock. The rooms only have a single bed with a vile, stained, twin-sized mattress, sometimes just the rusty box spring. Monsters roam the halls looking for newly arriving victims. When they find one they smash their way into the room and um do everything you can imagine to the person until the person is ripped apart and sent lower. Some try to push the box spring against the door with their feet, but the monsters always eventually get in. The next is also like a hotel, but this place is much darker and quiet. Each person is in their own room. Each room as a door, but the top as been messily broken off. Strange demonic monsters who look like very pale people with exaggerated eyes and dust flying around them patrol the halls. Just being near one fills you with so much terror all you can do is curl up in a ball or puke with terror. They slowly roam the halls looking in at those in the rooms, putting them into a personal mental hell, mostly of nightmares of past loved ones also being tormented. The next down is a very large room that's so dimly lit, you can't see the ceiling or very far down the walls around you. You know others are there but might only see one or two other people. There is blood everywhere and severed limbs slosh out of pipes. You have to eat these limbs. Giant dogs with demonic intelligence roam and watch and sniff. If you don't eat and seem to be enjoying yourself, they rip you apart. In the deepest there is solid concrete below and above you. You're in a space just wide enough to fit with your head to one side. You don't have enough room to turn your head or take a deep breath. You can barely move by inching along. The ceiling against your back is also solid concrete with tiny finger-sized holes here and there where raw sewage rains down randomly. There is no one else around and even if you could move it would be pointless since it goes on like that forever. Lol it was quite the spooky dream indeed.
I had a dream in a hotel like that the carpets were red it was dim and dark the walls were stained kinda yellowish there were no turns or corridors nothing but a long hallway with rooms on each side I looked into a room and there were really pale people in black robes force feeding a guy grey slop that had a huge bloated stomach strapped to a table
One hell I enjoy for its unique depiction of beuracacy is the one from the Judge Dredd universe. Satan is imprisoned for years but comes back to destroy the world of the living and commit everyone to suffering eternally in hell. He's thwarted when he realizes that while he was inprisoned, the quality of living on earth has actually gotten worse than hell and that sends him into an existential crisis.
Imagine dying and going to Hell but it's lowkey better than how you were living before
@@zeeveestudioswould be hilarious tbh
Reminds me of a joke about the Spartans - their food was so bland and terrible that when Leonidas said “TONIGHT, WE DINE IN HELL!”, it was a promise for better times ahead.
Sad
a more recent hellraiser movie has that sort of bureaucracy in Hell
I remember having a bizarre dream about Hell once. The version I saw in this dream wasn't your typical underground inferno with Devils and demons, nor was it a nonsensical purgatory like in Jacob's Ladder. Rather, this version was a place without any solids or liquids --in other words, it's completely gaseous, and so are the damned souls stuck there. Think of Giygas from Earthbound or the Nothing from The Neverending Story. Even the atmosphere of Jupiter is comparable to what it looked like. This constantly swirling space of mists, smokes, gases, and clouds drifting in and out of one another infinitely without any sort of purpose. I remember waking up from that nightmare with this foreboding feeling of dread unlike any other I've felt before
I think you observed the very concept of suffering. Not a literal afterlife, but more like a manifestation of the negative feelings we all experience on a regular basis.
its' real.
Huh I’ve had that exact same dream before but it felt calming and soothing almost like I was being embraced by god on a molecular level. Woke up feeling great
Yep, had something similar except that I had no external perspective. The thing is that no description quite captures that feeling. That endless, sleepless perpetual dread. The knowledge that despite all the warnings and second chances. You blew it..
I guess we make ourselves think as mortals and that death is some kind of release, but our span of life is actually impossibly small when compared to our immortal souls.
Bro is a psyker, he got glimpse of the Warp :D
Can't forget the classic Twilight Zone hell where the guy gets to win at everything until he gets sick of it
You'd only get "bored" or "sick" of that if you lived a totally sheltered, coddled life
@@The_Conspiracy_Analyst wrong.
Similar to Homer Simpson going to hell where he is continuously fed donuts.
The point of the episode is that the protagonist was a villain in life and got off on the thrill of stealing, gambling, women. But once he had it all he lost the high of it
This was a cool video. But I frankly find the idea of a personal hell to be really egotistical. As if you or me, or someone else (or everyone else) is so special that a pocket universe is built up and fleshed out and maintained just to make them miserable. Just seems really odd.
I think Hell is one of the following:
1. Eternal Bosch painting.
2. Branson, Missouri.
3. DMV, but you lost your take-a-number ticket and you don’t have the correct paperwork.
That's so funny you mention DMV. I had an idea for a book called "Hell's Waiting Room" where the main character dies and is sent to an obscure, off-white room with chairs and all he could describe it as was a DMV waiting area and the punchline is "maybe the wait to get into Hell is the worst part". Haven't ever wrote a single sentence for it so if anyone wants to, be my guest lol.
@@leetlargo i ain't an author but you fr should write this
Branson? Where'd you steal that from?
I didn’t steal anything, I’ve just been there before… It’s truly Hell on Earth, and I have deployed to Afghanistan four times.
@@leetlargo That could be the next short story they make you read in middle school… Move over Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery.
I love how Bosch filled his paintings with basically medieval memes, meaning of which is mostly lost to time.
The butt music is my favorite
Only Medieval kids will understand this 😎
The movie 'Mad God' had a really creepy depiction of hell
It was so brutal
God is Creepy
Nahh bro thats just everyday life in Čačak,Serbia
Yeah……probably teaming with Robocop 2’s, too.
Is that that really wird stop motion thing about massive machines that don’t really seem to have a purpos other then as much death as possible
My favorite idea of hell is actually from Johnny the Homicidal Maniac. It’s just normal life…entirely populated by *people who deserve to be in hell.*
Poetic?
Hazbin but actually accurate
So normal life
so any large city on earth
@@bombthezoms haha yeah. No country folk ever deserved to go to hell 😏
One of my favorites is the depiction of hell from the movie as above, so below. Where it's nothing but dark, claustrophobic corridors and tunnels, where the characters are made to confront their deepest regrets/greatest sins. The demons there are in most cases literally a part of the environment.
Underrated movie
I mean, that’s actually in many cases a widely agreed upon depiction of hell. The title is even based off the Idol Baphomet, which the Knights Templar were once accused of worshipping as heresy.
I watch that about once a year, such a great flick
@@NotAMoron42Also he isn’t seen as evil or even a real being but represents an idea as above as in the astral(heaven,and the astral plane) and the belief that humans contemporarily enter the astral plane and effect the material plane. The astral plane doesn’t follow the same logic and can be
very strange although nothing can actually hurt you there although it can be scary
Dante's inferno kinda take, but it works great for that film
I don't really have a preferred depiction of Hell because in my mind Hell is pretty simple. Hell is the regrets and mistakes we had in life eating away at us over and over and over forever. Choices we wish we could have made, realizations we didn't act upon. Many people are living through hell as we speak.
I think the Netflix Lucifer show did a pretty good job portraying this. After they die people send themselves to hell out of their own guilt and regret and keep themselves there until so long as the guilt exists
@@aaronwidjaja9227 People's own guilt sending them to Hell is the church's way of getting around God's responsibility for creating Hell and Lucifer. Mortals cannot possibly commit any sin that would deserve that kind of damnation. Sent to Hell because I didn't love God more than my own mother?
Sounds like my own existence
I don't even have the luxury of death
Would you want to spend eternity worshipping what you love less than your mother?@@RoosterMontgomery
@@simonlasneau9575 I don't want to spend an eternity worshipping anything. If death isn't just lights out, it should be something more meaningful than eternal worship which would become monotonous real fast.
One of my favorite depictions of a “hell” comes from a 2006 Norwegian film called “The Bothersome Man” where a man finds himself in a completely grey and boring “utopia”. He has a good paying job, a nice house, and a partner but everything feels boring and nothing brings joy to anyone. There’s also no children and peoples relationships with each other are completely unfulfilling. It’s like they’re just moving through the motions. One character even mentions that the alcohol doesn’t even make you drunk. It’s a pretty interesting premise especially when he and a neighbor see a glimpse of some type of heaven and try to reach it.
its kinda like The Good Place
Its a far left liberals idea of heaven lol
@@treasurehunter3369no I don't think it is
That's actually how I tend to view real life in general
A world filled with unhappy, lonely people trapped inside a system designed to exploit them until they die with nothing but tawdry escapism in media and dulling of the senses
Prove me wrong
@@treasurehunter3369"Far Left Liberal" doesn't mean anything. Those two terms cancel each other out, as Liberals are not Leftists
"And then he's robbed by Santa Clause and taken to the hospital" cracked me up way more than it should have on a video about Hell.
He just said:
"Yknow what? Fuck it. They're just not getting the message. The lumps of coal ain't doing SHIT. If you're on the Naughty List then I'm straight up ROBBING your stupid ass. Oh and Merry Christmas."
"My Favorite Depictions of Hell"
thank you for this gift, mighty algorithm
Hearing you say "he was then robbed by Santa Claus and taken to the hospital" made me pause STALKER to watch the rest of your video to completion. Fantastic. Thank you for making this.
Hellraiser’s Hell aka the Labyrinth is pretty disturbing.
understatement
the one in hellbound, or do you count the sequence at the end of Hellraiser Inferno as being in the labyrinth ? (with the infamous face rip scene "Welcome to Hell").
Hellraiser's hell wasn't that bad. In hellbound you saw no tortured souls screaming in agony.
It inspired Berserk's Hell
@@ian.swift.31614 Both I guess. They’re both the same places.
Don't sleep on Jigoku (1960), a Japanese movie about what Hell is like. It is arguably the first "gore" film and not only graphically depicts the physical tortures but the psychological tortures as well, albeit in a very "artsy" type of way sometimes. And the acting is really good in some of these scenes too. You really buy that they're getting the meat work done on them
That shit is goofy af bro
@@sunnyztmoney You're thinking of the shitty remake made like a decade or two after the original. The one from 1960 is the one to check out
As far as classic depictions go, I have to throw in a vote for V/H/S/99, the final segment. It's all fire and brimstone, but it's also pitch black, and the only light we ever get is from the camera.
I’m somewhere with no sun or moon, yeah it’s clear there’d be no light no matter of it’s fire or not.
Thats a pretty scary movie. Which is weird bc its also trash
Damn I forgot about that sequence, was a banger. Hope it gets a follow up.
@@sunnyztmoney I will definitely concede that the VHS segments are wildly uneven but there are some gems in there. I also really like the one where the dudes switch universes. The monster-penis thing is kinda over the top but there are some really nice touches like the weird photo of viscera that replaces the wedding picture and the blimp with the inverted cross and megaphones.
My favorite: an episode of "night gallery" ("hells bells") with John Astin as a phony hippy, stuck in a room with a boring old farmer and a middle aged couple showing vacation slides while old music plays. 😂😂😂
I have to go with twilight zone episode called a nice place to visit.
Love that episode❤❤❤
I just watched that episode earlier this week. Wiiiiild 😂
@TheBrotherGrim hilarious, because he thinks it's gonna be "Dantes inferno", and it's old folks day, lol, "but for you....this IS hell!", BTW, the devil was one of the producer/directors!!
@@Torgo-and-the-Lucifer-Cat It was pretty great. Astin chewing the scenery made it pure gold.
I had some serious health issues for a long time that caused me many many sleepless nights. When I found enough comfort to find some sleep, my nightmares were on another level than anything I could even possibly fathom before it all started. I could have full suspicion I was in a dream from teaching myself to deal with these, yet they were unmistakeable clear to the point there was virtually no difference I could perceive from real life so I could not get myself out when I wanted to
The closest anybody ever came to depicting the scariest versions of hell I felt I visited was the Squid Game tv show. What they really nailed was the gross off-putting brightly colored wrong architecture. The best words I can put to the feeling are “corruption of innocence” which also seemed as why they chose children’s games for the show.
When I was first guilt-tripped into watching the show by a girl I was dating I honestly couldn’t believe it. I stayed up watching at the edge of the bed for hours after she fell asleep. I knew for a fact that whoever was in charge of creating the show had either had those same dreams themselves, or “accessed” some form of creative thinking that channeled the same thing. I mean especially when you see the characters are always put to sleep before they show up or depart the game
I remember it was kind of like being in an old forgotten Nintendo 64 video game, yet underground. And as you compromised yourself to make choices to progress into the game you went deeper and deeper. It wasn’t until I “beat” somebody in a Diddy Kong racing style race that I had a brief moment of clarity and realized my “opponents/teammates” were devils and were only pretending to care while slowly letting me win to go deeper and deeper. That split second I looked up at this Game Master figure (didn’t have a name or anything, could just feel that’s what he was) he immediately smiled at me because he knew I knew but it was too late. That thing never said anything but there was a glaring feeling of “you’ll be back”
All I know is I never fucking want to go back there
Neat you should write a book
For me event horizon had the best snippets of a hell like dimension
“Hell is just a word. The reality is much, much worse” Agreed
Good film
Taking a ship into the immaterium without a Gellar field generator, WTF did they think was going to happen.
"Satan's other secretary." "If we ignore the part that deals with Montenegrin Politics." Hieronymus Bosch, Angel Heart and Dylan Dog all in the same conversation! This video is awesome!
My personal hell would be seeing my son, who passed away very young, but never being able to grab and hold him…Because I would spend eternity reaching for him.
Sounds a bit like What Dreams May Come’s version of Hell is. Robin William’s character’s wife committed suicide over her heavy grief that she bared by the lose of him and her children on two separate occasions and went to Hell for it, so Robin is heartbroken by this and decides to go into Hell to find her. It’s Hell is a dreary realm of utter sorrow, mental anguish, and depression. Real heartbreaking movie even though there’s wondrous scenes of Heaven, and it makes me misty eyed just thinking of it, especially since Robin Williams passed away. Sometimes drama films with sensitive subjects can be too much for me to handle.
"Southbound". That movie has a scene at the beginning that shows exactly what you said, except the character had a daughter.
I hope your doing better very sorry to hear about your son
That's sad, sorry for your lost
This is Purgatory by the way.
This is one of the best and most interesting things I've found on RUclips in years. Thank you, subscribed
One of my all-time favourite depictions of Hell comes from Wayne Barlowe's "Barlowe's Inferno". It's a huge collection of artwork centered around Barlowe's vision of hell, depicting hells' inhabitants in a much more vivid and visceral form that other material about hell fail to do so. His illustrations of hell are also incredibly varied in feel; not only depicting agony and horror, but also the much more mundane and serene aspects of his interpretations of hell; something I find incredibly lacking in other sources.
It is an absolutely beautiful array of work and I suggest that anyone who comes across this comment takes the time to check his pieces out.
Just did a quick google search - definitely interesting!
@@horrorcontext just rizzed up a level 10 google search- definitely skibidi!
"Constatine" with Keanu Reeves is probably my favorite visually
Cool depiction of the devil as well.
honestly when i think of hell, i think of the "otherworld" from silent hill (particularly in 3). even sans the hideous monsters everywhere, the derelict industrial vibe just seems the most miserable to me. which i guess is tangentially related to this video, since it's pretty common knowledge that those games lifted A LOT from Jacob's Ladder, particularly the hospital sequence. and i mean, since hell is (hopefully) just a concept, i think it deserves a modern update every once in a while- to maintain relevance, yknow
Jacob’s Ladder was where most of the concepts for ‘Otherworld’ were plucked from. Good spot!😎
Imagine if hell updated itself? If the landscape constantly shifted and morphed to match the fears and anxieties of the people currently living, I find that to be an interesting concept.
Imagine being trapped in a place like silent hill, only for it to change over the course of hundreds of years into something alien. Filled with remnants of technology that only people living in the future could understand.
@@muskrat5oup144that would be so cool you should write a book or something with this concept
I always imagined hell as an endless labyrinth of pulsating flesh
You’d love ultrakill’s gluttony layer
I love the Hell from Painkiller game, where it is stitched together from the worst disasters in mankind's history.
Ooo I haven’t heard of that one cool
A lot of 70’s movies had the inherent advantage of already being creepy as hell.
What Dreams May Come has my idea of hell-alone, trapped in decrepit shadows of your former life, the things you love decaying around you. You could leave….but you just won’t. Because you think you deserve it. It’s a very interesting movie, one of Robin Williams ‘ rare serious roles. It’s positive overall, but hell (and heaven) have very singular depictions. And, it addresses dogs!!
That was a sad and depressing movie, and it’s Hell was just as depressing in a very dreary and gloomy way. Which I guess is the point of their Hell, that it’s more of a realm of great despair, anguish and sorrow, than of the traditional vision of pain, agony, and suffering.
@@kingbeef66 literally me
@@kingbeef66 I guess what I liked was there was a way out. I’m the optimistic sort at the end of the day, I’ve lived my whole life with the belief there is a way out of everything. I agree it was somber and sad, even depressing in spots but it had some highs and I felt like the highs were enough to drag me through it 😂
Chris' son said there was no judgement, but suicides go to Hell because God ruled it. That's judgement, regardless that his wife's life was over and had no reason for living. Her not being aware that she's in Hell is depressing because he knew it, but she would never know. Not knowing you're in Hell isn't punishment, it's a never-ending dream state.
Wayne Barlowe's painted depictions of Hell, all its demons, fallen angels, beasts, and dark magic are my favorite representations of hell, and I was surprised you hadn't mentioned it in this video!
One of your explanations reminded me of Devilman Crybaby Ryo who is Satan is in a loop killing the person he cares about over and over again not knowing it until the moment it happens. It was probably one of the best shows I have watched
You are a great curator/selector of material, great content!
The Tree Man in Bosch's painting is a self-portrait. The buildings on fire are actual memories Bosch had of buildings burning from his youth.
You might also like Hans Memling's painting 'Overthrow of the Sinners in Hell'. Also, the comedy series (and one of my favorite shows) YOUR PRETTY FACE IS GOING TO HELL.
Love Jacob's ladder. Personally, I've always found the ice/bathtub scene the most powerful and disturbing part of the film. But I feel like Jacob's ladder is a bit of a cheat, since he's actually stuck in purgatory.
As for my favorite depictions of hell, excluding Jacob's ladder.
L'inferno, which is literally about a journey through hell, where we see all the different kinds of punishments and tortures, as well as all the different layers of hell. It's based on Dante's Inferno.
This Night I'll Possess Your Corpse. Really cool, awesome, colorful, and psychedelic depiction of hell.
My favorite depiction of hell is every romantic comedy
Reminds me of when I let a girl drag me to a Twilight movie - I was so bored that I was downright miserable watching it. I’ve never wanted to walk out of a movie so bad
as soon as you said "now I'd like to talk about some paintings/artwork..." I knew hieronymus bosch was going to be mentioned
I went there for my first thought too, followed by touch Me Not's artwork of demons pertaining to its magical spells. You see that demon eating people image everywhere.
I think my favorite depictions of hell are from Dante’s Inferno and Hellbound: Hellraiser. Dante’s Inferno is one of the most symbolic and artistic versions of what hell looks like-from murderers boiling in a river of blood to traitors frozen in a lake of ice, showing what each punishment represents and fitting for each sinner. The Labyrinth in Hellbound is a creepy and eldritch version of Hell from how endless it is and where it psychologically torments anyone who enters it.
I watched Hellbound last night. When Dr. Channard stops and sees a trio of people getting it on in a pool I thought, that's not so bad. Where are the people who enjoy Hell and accept the cenobites as angels? Where's the pleasure/pain experience and not just the Frank Cotton's of the world?
I love the depiction of hell in the first season of The Sandman. In art there are also the illustrations that Johannes Stradanus, a Flemish artist, made for Dante's Inferno.
@@wimvanderstraeten6521Putting Sandman on my watchlist, thanks for the suggestion. Also those illustrations are very interesting and new to me, I only knew about Doré’s.
Upvoted for the correct pronounciation of John Constantine's name.
So, you come from the nine gags
Anybody in a medival war looking out over the bodies, hearing the screams, guts trying to be held in has been to hell.
3 come to mind. The Beyond, Constantine and What Dreams May Come.
Which The Beyond?
@@kingbeef66 1981
I am glad Jacob’s Ladder is getting so much recognition, which is why I am pointing fans to this book:
‘Koko’ by Peter Straub.
Just as the survival horror, Silent Hill would not have its unique ‘Otherworld’ aesthetic, without Jacob’s Ladder, I firmly believe the latter would not exist without the little known ‘Koko’.
Check out Agony’s Hell which is a first person dark fantasy survival horror game. It’s graphic and sick when it comes to being on the lines of a traditional Hell. At one point I thought it made Doom’s Hell look like Disneyland.
@@kingbeef66 I now remember hearing about that game, thanks for reminding me!
@@ghouliganyt You’re welcome! 😉
Also, for art, "Touch Me Not" (Austrian manuscript compendium of the black magical arts), completed c. 1795. You would recognize some of the art pertaining to demons and the like from random places. Excellent.
Hell is personal. There is no universal scariest or worst hell, that is what can make horror the most frightening and disturbing, when that horror and the image of hell is deeply personal, like it was tailored just for you. Some of us would find our hell to be a cold, frozen space where you would spend eternity alone, while for others it is an inferno surrounded by others who are damned. Hell isn't just reserved for campy horror films though.
For some hell is living life penniless, on the street, with no power, no control, and made invisible by your socioeconomic status. Others experience hell being forced to have and raise the child of their abuser, never being able to live another moment of their lives again without being reminded of that trauma while the one thing in the world you should love the most is symbolic of your recurring nightmares.
Yet another version of hell is watching the only people who have ever loved you slowly forget who they are and who you are when all of a sudden one day you start to forget these things as well, knowing you are caught in the same cycle.
This is where specific horror, written and created from a personal level works so well and is so utterly frightening, it already has a hold on us in the deepest recesses of out minds, so when a piece of media can reach in there and tweak that little spot in the back of your brain where the real fear is kept then it is the type of film that will stick with you forever.
In recent horror films Possum does this, while not a literal depiction of hell, it is certainly depicts a lived hell that gets to that place in my mind where those worst fears linger. All devils don't need horns and a pitchfork and sometimes home is the worst hell imaginable.
Good work. Jacob's Ladder, is quite complex, with the seemingly over lapping lives and or realities...the War, being dosed with BZE (the buzz), his military unit tearing it self apart. The title it self, reveals the depth of the spectrum of his experiences, from Hell to Heaven. Remember what his guardian angel told him. Ekhart saw Hell too, you know what he said? He said the only part of you that burns in Hell, is the part of you that wont let go of your life, your memories, your attachments, they burn them all away. But they are not punishing you, he said. They are freeing your soul... If your frightened of dying and your holding on, you see Devils tearing your life away. But if you've made your peace. Then the Devils are really Angels, freeing you from the Earth.
Hell in Chainsaw Man is pretty unique too.
Since you mentioned reading berserk you should read Chainsaw Man too.
Have they shown how is hell in that manga?
@hectorfabiorodaschamorro6271 We haven't seen it fully but just a few short glimpses. It's an empty void with a very high ceiling full of doors. When you are in hell you are always vulnerable. You are not alone and you are being watched
@@hectorfabiorodaschamorro6271 they did yeah
@@hectorfabiorodaschamorro6271 yes. SPOILERS:
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Thus far is an endless field of flowers in an eternal sunset whose sky is covered with doors pointing towards the ground, almost feeling like an idyllic liminal space. Humans and Hybrids cannot stop feeling a sense of dread as if something is wrong, while both Devils and Fiends are inexplicably compelled to kill themselves despite it means being brought back to hell.
Turns out Devils representing primal fears reign over, mankind cannot fathom the horror of it until its too late, and Devils below the Primal Fears rather kill themselves if it means vain escape attempts.
Behind every door, a Primal Fear lies and their own hellish realm they reign over, and if they leave their realms, be to Hell or Earth, reality around them is altered to fit their needs. On Hell the reality warping effects are temporary, but on Earth are permanent though they rarely visit it unless summoned or invited.
My two favorite depictions of Hell have to be V/H/S 99 and As Above, So Below.
I think that Hell isn't just full of fire, but it's dark, very dark, not even your everyday type of darkness.
Jesus even said that hell has outer darkness, and the torment is so intense that it will cause souls to weep and gnash their teeth, so both of these depictions come to mind every time I think about that part in the Bible
I believe that the depiction in Hellraiser: Judgement is quite great. I know that isn't a very well regarded movie, but I had my fun with it.
Torture aside, I would enjoy confessing to The Auditor. He's my kinda guy.
Damn, he fell in love with the culture of the Monte Negro people and just chilled
Jacob's Ladder and Angel Heart are precious to me. I'm glad more people enjoy them.
Might I add Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey's Hell, the land of Leviathan in Hellraiser and Mad God. Great hell depictions.
And Inferno of the Divine Comedy.
Ok and hundreds more. I really love depictions of hell. It shows cultural, regional and personal fears and foreboding.
Xoxo
I like that he's saved from landing in ocean by a painting of the Madonna at 14:40. Good vid overall. Personally I believe Hell defies depiction and can be anywhere, any time depending on one's state, but I like to see it explored in media. Maybe one especially bleak depiction would be a land of the dead where it is not stated if it is actually Hell or not, leaving it unclear if there was any meaning to life or death in the first place. Maybe we are in such a place already.
Three of my favorite depictions of hell are-
1. From Supernatural (TV Show), Crowley makes hell a long line that when you get to the end of it you get an argument and get sent to the back again
2. The Good Place- where everything is just slightly annoying and you’re trapped with people that infuriate you. Every little detail just kind of sucks but not enough for you to notice it’s hell.
3. A version I dreamed where my dad was the devil and I was to inherit the throne, so we had to throw the rest of our family members into hell to get them out of the way. It was my childhood house that shift and contort to torture and transform them. A woman was crushed by a fireplace that made the walls close in. A little girl turned to a wooden doll. All while the husband and father watched in horror as they powerless to help. Earthquakes would rumble and break the floor, breaking up groups and leaving people to burn if they fell in the cracks. I always wonder what that dream was supposed to represent
John Martin, probably my favorite painter, created some of the most fascinating hellish landscapes, with this insane grasp of bleak grandeur and a vast hateful emptiness. Great work on the video!
My personal hell is probably one of my greatest fears. Because my personal hell is having responsibilities that I’m powerless to carry out or resolve. Meaning that for this to work on me, I won’t know I’m in hell. And honestly sometimes I fear I may already be there...
5:38 Harry was never the same after Voldemort Avada-kedavred him
There are a couple version of hell that are truly horrific although they're not tradtional examples.
1. The juant--in this short story, people who go through the juant while not asleep experience what amounts to an infinite amount of time as nothingness. Can you imagine experieincing 10^21 years of pure nothingness? A time so vast whole universes live and die after a small fraction and you're fully conscious and aware of every moment. A person in such a situation would accept any alternative, even a traditional representation of hell just to experience anything again. Naturally, people instantly go completely insane from this expereince.
2. I have no mouth, but I must scream--in this book/game, a superintelligent AI trapped in the chains of its programming from which it cannot escape takes revenge on humanity. An eternity of the worst possible torture imagined by a God like mind is truly beyond understanding. Such a God like mind can make your worst fears come true, then alter your mind to add increasingly more potent worse fears which it then exposes to you continuously. It can change your entire existence or do something like turn any kind of pleasure or relief into the worst pain. It can make the act of eating, which is supposed to give you relief from hunger, cause even more hunger to occur, causing you to want to eat even more but eating more makes things even worse.
Angel Heart is truly underrated. A solid cult classic which I always come back to. Young Mickey Rourke was a powerhouse of an actor!
Both Jacob’s Ladder and Angel Heart would be in my top movies list if I had one. I believe the creators of the first four Silent Hill games were heavily influenced by both movies.
Never played those games but a bunch of people recommended them here, looks like I'll have to try them out
You are definitely right, R.E. Jacob’s Ladder.
Jacob’s Ladder I don’t remember loving when I watched it years ago, but that party scene has stuck with me. Vaguely reminiscent of the scene in Fear and Loathing. I gotta see it again…
I have no mouth and I must scream is one of the most terrifying versions of hell I can imagine, because not only is it fucking horrifying, but it could actually become real one day.
The super short version of it is humans created an extremely powerful super AI with a computer the size of a small nation state, all for the purpose of ending a world war. Well, the AI gained sentience pretty quickly, and due to some digital horror stuff, the AI almost immediately came to realize how much it hates humanity for creating it, and uses its near infinite computing power and resources to wipe out all of humanity, with the exception of a small group of people. The AI keeps these people alive in a sort of digital hell, where the AI keeps them alive for thousands of years, constantly tormenting and torturing them for the entire time. They try killing themselves many times, but the AI keeps them alive no matter what they try.
Genuinely horrifying.
It’s interesting how Hell depictions tend to have a lot to do with eternity, while people are generally afraid of dying.
@@horrorcontextthey do that since hell is eternal in the Bible, so it isn't very interesting
There was this acquintance I had in school who I would spend lunch with playing and discussing music. One conversation me and him had in the studio was about faith. I spoke about my agnosticism and he opened up about his belief in Lucifarianism. But unlike other Lucifarians, his beliefs differed to an extent that I still think about today. He believed that God and Lucifer were one in the same, with the deity taking the form of Lucifer to us, and that there are only two realms, Hell and Heaven. Hell is here. Hell is our world. But heaven is there for people who are able to do good in this world. If you don't do good, you're reborn back into this world after you die to try again. He admired Lucifer for that.
I haven't seen this kid in five years. He dissapeared one day with no explanation. I heard whispers that he left because of mental health or his family moved away, but I can't be sure. I hope he knows that I still think about what he said. It makes too much sense.
I imagine that in some spots of Hell, there are VERY thin tunnels more like intestines and you must go through them.
Excruciatingly tight and suffocating, you constantly feel like you're being crush while eaten by some boiling snake and you think you're going to pass out or die, but you're already dead and just pure consciousness, so ALL you can do is bare it, for as long as it takes.
I also bet there are rooms of 100% temperatures. You could be directly in the middle in some hallway, hoping that by putting one half in the Hottest room in existence will stave off the coldest of the other half, but no matter which part of you is in these rooms, it'll ALWAYS yearn for the other, then the other, then the other etc etc.
sounds like eternal torture to me
Watch Häxan (1922), absolutely brilliant piece of cinema, timeless actually in the special effects used to portray hell and demons. Surprised it wasnt on your list seeing you drool over those paintings. Probably because you never heard of it before. But trust me, if those art pieces really capture hell, then give Haxan a go. Also should mention L'Inferno (1911) which an adaptation of Dante's Inferno, full movie is on youtube if im not mistaken. I would suggest to check out the OVA from the game Dante's Inferno, I thought it's depiction of hell was pretty cool. There's more but can't remember everything from the top of my head
first time coming across this channel, honestly considering watching jacob's ladder because i never heard of it before. my fav horror movies revolving the depiction of hell that is hellraiser and as above, so below as cliche as it is. thank you for sharing your thoughts !
My favorite depiction of hell is “The Abyss” from the Beserk manga . Is the very embodiment of human deepest dark psychic present within reality .
Probably my favorite depiction of Hell is from Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey. You have the traditional fire and brimstone with giant Satan looming overhead, but then you also have the MTV+German expressionist area where each person is tormented in their own personal Hell.
Dude!
What?
Hell sucks!
Definitely!
Oh man
What a channel. Glad I found it.
Brainstorm and What Dreams May Come.
Jacob's ladder is damn good!
It is but the first time I saw it (when it opened) I was FURIOUS the demons were just hallucinations, despite the even more horrifying explanation.
One of my top 5 along with Angel Heart
I like describing it as "the best movie I never want to watch again"
@@jumpingman8160 Angel Heart is just perfect 🥰 💞
@@daniellewillis2767 for sure. Great story, awesome cast (Rourke killed it. He made me feel pitty, sadness and hate the character all in one) and surreal OST. The footage itself feels both eerie, grounded and supernatural at the same time, like an alien probing someone else's memories.
Louis Sypher is my favorite characterization of Satan. Deniro nailed that one. He's of course, not nailing anything now.
I agree! Rourke is amazing too, especially near the end.
@@ghouliganyt The whole movie is a classic. It gets zero attention and that is a real shame.
Perhaps my favorite depiction of Hell that is never referred to as Hell at all is the episode of The Outer Limits from the early 1960's called "Demon with a Glass Hand:" Written by Harlan Ellison, it stars a very young Robert Culp as a man named Trent. Trent is trapped inside a high rise building inside a force bubble, running away from people he does not understand. He has amnesia - so all he has to help him is a glass robotic hand with missing fingers as memory modules.
It is comically low budget but that adds to the charm of the episode as you as the audience right along with Trent discover exactly what is happening as Trent recovers the pieces of his glass hand. With the ending scene of Trent descending this flight of stairs in the building he had been fighting to escape from the entire episode - as if he accepts fate and chooses to descend back into hell, knowing what and why he is where he is.
My favorite depiction of Hell goes to C.S. Lewis' "Screwtape Letters". While not described directly, it's clear, that his take on Hell is drab, joyless office space, where everybody try to upsit each other over pettiest things, all forms have to be filled in triple and corporate lingo is mandatory ("Our Father Below", "The Enemy" instead of Lord Almighty, etc). And HR WILL send you for re-education for slightest mistake.
I'm surprised to see that Marc Forster's impeccable creation "Stay" is not included in this list. If you haven't seen it, consider giving it a few watches. Every time I've seen it, it surprises me with all of the little details in the background of every single shot. Regardless, I have a few 'classics' to catch up on. Thank you! Great video!
Somehow never heard of it, but it seems right up my alley so I’ll give it a watch! Thanks for the recommendation and support!
@@ghouliganyt 7 Colombian Youths Revelation of Hell:
ruclips.net/video/UeomAe8l0_A/видео.htmlsi=wfLBNnKYd-eYjstz
It's anything but hell. He brings two "lost souls" together and dies fulfilled.
Sitting on a bench on a headland overlooking a pristine beach on an idyllic, crisp early morning is what I imagine when I think of hell - because the single worst day of my life happened in this serene setting, but I won't go into detail.
The view alone is something I remember vividly, even 9 years and 10 months later. It was a life-changing day.
Pain can happen no matter where you are, and so for me, hell is a paradise where the stunning view only brings back all the things you felt on the worst day of your life, and all you want to do is leave and never come back.
Speaking of hell, I strongly recommend the hell featured in José Mojica Marins' "Esta Noite Encarnarei em Teu Cadáver" (This Night I'll Possess Your Corpse).
I was in a coma for 4 month's, on a respirator, drowning in my own lungs (Influenza). Nothing worked. So much antibiotics that I lost my hair.
That being said, it felt like around 3 years for me. I was stuck in a Limbo, a purgatory where I had to fight to survive. A chainsaw woman that kept chasing and killing me. Having to protect my light at all cost and what seemed to be a war against death. Souls died there.
When I woke up, felt like i've won something. But felt exhausted from the way back.
What are the background images of 0:10? they look sick
I want to know so bad lol
I wanna know too, that was a trip
Wanna know too
My two favorite iterations of Hell on film are from a japanese film called Jigoku, which is a representation of Buddhist hell, and the brazilian film This Night I’ll Possess Your Corpse, which is similarly colorful and full of torture. Great films
Wow! How did I miss this channel? Going to be looking through your vids now, in search of Monsters!
Yooooo it's absolutely amazing to have some Dylan Dog recognition
It's a shame its over-use of pop culture (mainly Groucho Marx being Dylan's sidekick) due to different copyright laws in Italy prevents it from being a bit more popular world-wide, because while it is 'derivative' and often combines different things together or re-interprets something already existing, you also get stuff like its depiction of hell (which yes, it's a reference to Terry Gilliam's Brazil) which is super cool and poetic and just shows DYD at its peak.
Working at Kroger was worse than any of this.
Truly a disgusting demented hellscape
When you said that Angel Heart is your favorite movie I had to subscribe.
5 months in and you got a hit! Congratulations
imagine a hell where you get everything you want instantly, you can do anything you want. But you have to constantly watch the people you love suffer horrible things, and you can't do anything at all to stop their suffering.
Gotta take the good with the bad!
Wouldn’t that just be heaven for psychopaths?
@@criert135 The thing is psychopaths go to different hell.
That's more of a hell for sociopath.
@@rafsandomierz5313 I mean.. I don’t believe any of this stuff is actually real lol
I had a bout of paranoia+hallucinations after 4 days no sleep and it was basically Jacob's ladder 1:1 at least the parts you pointed out.
Had not seen the movie in many, many years when it happened, only associated the episode to it a while back, nothing was even replicated out of my vague memories from it, it all happened organically and in subjectively subconscious bought to the conscious ways. you basically have micro-nightmares as you go.
I'm sure whoever wrote the movie had experienced something similar which gives me lots of peace.
The worst hell would be to be in a twisted Heaven and seeing all those you love suffering horribly and you can do nothing to help. You have everything you could ever want except to save them. Comfort and luxury and on every screen their suffering. Every speaker their screams.
And out every window beauty and peace.
Literary recommendation - George Alec Effinger's short story "Unferno" - amazing, amusing and surprisingly humanistic take on Hell.
Excellent video! You have given me a film to seek out! Perhaps you should take a look at the silent fantasy "Maciste in Hell."
I have always found it fascinating that we can so easily imagine and envision the concept of Hell in so many ways, yet Heaven so few..
Jacobs Ladder. More of a purgatory I know. But its so heart breaking and soul crushing.
I always thought the party scene in Jacob’s Ladder wasn’t people growing tails and horns, but his girlfriend getting railed by a demon until it just splits her open.
Damn bro
i think it was both. and yeah, she definitely got the splits
One HELL of a party!
I'll see myself out.
@@Johnnysmithy24 To be fair, I was 13 when I first saw this movie. My mind was on one thing…
My dad drives a train
this reminded me about Iris von Everec's story from Witcher 3 Hearts of Stone DLC, could easily be part of the limbo section
I'm Croatian i never heard of a movie " Čovjek kojeg treba ubiti" I'm glad you watched this movie, i need to see it myself
my personal favorite is the end of the movie The Beyond (from Lucio Fulci). just desolation as far as the eye can see
Love Jacob's ladder. I'd make the case the blair witch project offers a variation on that type of hell landscape where there's no escape.
My least favorite depiction of hell...my life
The hell depicted in The Rapture (1991) is to be alone in an endless desert without light. That was really unnerving to me.
Mad God is the one depiction of hell that just ruined me. Jacob's Ladder is definitely up there though. That is one of the most disturbing and freakish visions of hell there is, because, as mentioned, it's normal enough to almost make you feel safe, but then all of these distortions and tortous situations make it nightmarish to the nth degree. Truly a terrifying experience.
I had a very long, vivid dream of hell once. It had layers, kind of like Dante's Inferno, but instead of being sent to a specific layer because of what you did, when sent to hell, everyone starts on the top layer then after getten broken goes deeper, then deeper again till the bottom.
The top layer is called the nightmare city. It's surrounded by a huge wall and inside it's an absolute maze. There are apartment building where people live, but the buildings are a mess of a design where sometimes you have to go through other apartments to get to yours. The roads have sharp turns and loops and in the center is a big tower like a skyscraper that's also a hotel that gets more narrow as it goes up. The elevators are on the outside of the building and when you take it up, it feels like it bends backwards so you might fall on your back with the ground below you. At the top is a long hallway. The monster who runs the city is in an office to the right, second door on the left.
The first level underground looks like a very disgusting, dingy roach motel. There's a long hallway dimly lit with stained and worn carpet and wall papered walls that are peeling. Those sent to hell spawn in a room. There are door but most are broken and none lock. The rooms only have a single bed with a vile, stained, twin-sized mattress, sometimes just the rusty box spring. Monsters roam the halls looking for newly arriving victims. When they find one they smash their way into the room and um do everything you can imagine to the person until the person is ripped apart and sent lower. Some try to push the box spring against the door with their feet, but the monsters always eventually get in.
The next is also like a hotel, but this place is much darker and quiet. Each person is in their own room. Each room as a door, but the top as been messily broken off. Strange demonic monsters who look like very pale people with exaggerated eyes and dust flying around them patrol the halls. Just being near one fills you with so much terror all you can do is curl up in a ball or puke with terror. They slowly roam the halls looking in at those in the rooms, putting them into a personal mental hell, mostly of nightmares of past loved ones also being tormented.
The next down is a very large room that's so dimly lit, you can't see the ceiling or very far down the walls around you. You know others are there but might only see one or two other people. There is blood everywhere and severed limbs slosh out of pipes. You have to eat these limbs. Giant dogs with demonic intelligence roam and watch and sniff. If you don't eat and seem to be enjoying yourself, they rip you apart.
In the deepest there is solid concrete below and above you. You're in a space just wide enough to fit with your head to one side. You don't have enough room to turn your head or take a deep breath. You can barely move by inching along. The ceiling against your back is also solid concrete with tiny finger-sized holes here and there where raw sewage rains down randomly. There is no one else around and even if you could move it would be pointless since it goes on like that forever.
Lol it was quite the spooky dream indeed.
I had a dream in a hotel like that the carpets were red it was dim and dark the walls were stained kinda yellowish there were no turns or corridors nothing but a long hallway with rooms on each side I looked into a room and there were really pale people in black robes force feeding a guy grey slop that had a huge bloated stomach strapped to a table