18 Films That Will Send You to Hell

By: DThompson | in: Movies |

Any old film can present you with a hellish scenario, but it’s the rare film that actually takes you to hell itself. It turns out that hell, like everything else, is pretty much what you make it. Sometimes hell is crowded and noisy, like the bus at rush hour, sometimes its full of terrifying beasts, er, like the bus after the sun goes down and sometimes it’s dull, dusty and mostly empty, like the new Speed Racer film. No matter what, it’s always fun to go to hell… As long as you can leave at the end of the movie. If you’d like to go to hell, and live to tell the tale, here are a few movies that will be more than happy to take you there.

1) Jigoku (1960): Japanese Hell is a place of great variety. It can be a river of boiling puss and efluvia that you’re forced to wade into or a place where you get cut to pieces with a band saw and if you scream they start all over again. It can be a field of shiny nails or a lake of boiling blood.Worst of all, Japanese Hell is a place where, just as you’re about to kiss your girlfriend, your mom shows up.

Spawn

2) Spawn (1997): Todd McFarlane Hell is a firey gelatinous pit designed on a computer where pudgy, bad-tempered, midget clowns morph into humongoid mosters from a Godzilla film.

3) The Frighteners (1996): Hell is the gullet of a giant hungry worm lunging up to eat you and your psychotic mudering girlfriend from the inside out. That’s OK, you both pretty much deserved it.

4) Event Horizon (1997): Hell is another dimension, accessibile by space ship where you vomit your own intestines while your captain recites from The Book of Common Latin Phrases and bleeds from his eyes.

Constantine

5) Constantine (2005): At first Hell appears to be New York aproxomately five seconds after a nuclear blast. But, that’s just the top floor, the next level down is a very Christian and very violent seething mass of screaming tortured bodies being randomly beaten by… things. Kind of like the 90’s re-do of Woodstock.

6) Hellbound: Hellraiser II: Hell is a generally empty and rather dusty maze where kinky demons in black leather bondage gear shout “Kirstie!” over and over again.

7) What Dreams May Come (1998): Hell is a rundown house in bad weather where you sit crying and feeling sorry for yourself until your husband comes along to tell you to snap out of it. But, you don’t. What’s your problem?

Coffin Joe

8) Coffin Joe-This Night I’ll Posses Your Corpse (1967): Hell is just SO Sixties. It’s all pink and green and yellow and it’s covered in fine white fluff because the devil, apparently, has some sort of Christmas flocking fetish going on. Hell is also filled with boiling puddles of what appears to be worchestershire sauce.

9) Angel On My Shoulder (1946): Hell is a Dante-esque cave where souls march on narrow concourses and Claude Rains, er, Satan, sits at a nice antique desk and complains it’s too darn cold.

10) SouthPark-Bigger, Longer & Uncut (1999): Hell is having Sadam Hussein as your gay boyfriend. I hear that.

Silent Hill

11) Silent Hill (2006): Hell is a rusted mining town where ash rains from the sky. It’s filled with demon nurses who move all jerky-like and spiky helmeted giants who rip the skin off anyone who doesn’t get into the creepy pagan church when the siren blares.

12) Wholly Moses! (1980): Hell is John Ritter in a red devil suit from your last Halloween party. (Coincidentally, hell is watching this movie).

13) Deconstructing Harry (1997): Hell is where the man who invented aluminum siding is punished. Hell is also Billy Crystal, er, Satan, in a pink lame turtleneck sipping a martini and turning up the air-conditioning.

14) Prince Of Darkness (1987): Hell is an alternate watery dimension accessible by mirror. Also, Satan and Jesus are outer space aliens.

The Other Side

15) The Other Side (2006): Hell is a dark stone hallway with water on the floor where they cover you in molasses and wrap you in saran wrap and force you to relive all the worst moments of your life.

16) Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992): Hell is a room lined with red curtains where bass-heavy soft jazz plays and a backwards talking midget dances and tells you arcane things like “She’s full of secrets.”

17) Angel Heart (1986): Hell is an interminably long ride in a dark squeaky freight elevator with blasts of free jazz saxophone screaming in your ear.

18) Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey (1991): Like, hell is a total bummer dude.

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Posted on June 8, 2008

Comments

14 Responses to “18 Films That Will Send You to Hell”

Kendall on June 8th, 2008 7:05 am

D, you are a funny man.

Peety on June 8th, 2008 7:45 am

I think there is one more film I would add to that list: The Shining

Brittany on June 8th, 2008 10:44 am

What about Little Nicky?
Half of that movie takes place in Hell.

Charbarred on June 8th, 2008 11:03 am

What an awesome write up! As I mentioned to you D., give the film Wristcutters: A Love Story a spin. It depicts a hell that is much like real life, only a little bit worse…oh and no one is able to smile there.

DThompson on June 8th, 2008 11:54 pm

Kendall: Why thank you.
Peety: Is Hell depicted in The Shining? Hmmm… Well, I guess if you considered the Overlook as a metaphor for hell itself. OK, The Shining (1980): Hell is a nice resort hotel where you get drenched in blood every time you try to take the elevator to your room. Hell is also your girlfriend, who’s stayed in the tub for way too long.
Brittany: Haven’t seen Little Nicky, is it funny as hell? (sorry)
Charbarred: The Shining, Little Nicky, Wristcutters: A Love Story, it is just SO COOL that I haven’t seen all the Hell the movie industry has to offer. Woot!

Andy Bailey on June 9th, 2008 1:27 am

excellent write up! hellraiser is the one that I like/dislike the shadow that passes over you in hell and subjects you to horrors until it leaves.. urrgh

Jenny on June 9th, 2008 5:46 am

Silent Hill actually kinda sucked.

Itax on June 9th, 2008 12:56 pm

I think, maybe, all those carbonated, malted, alcoholic, beverages you consumed in your turbulent youth are coming back to haunt you. It is with no small amount of smugness that I remind you of the hell in one of your god-forsaken(pun alert) Phantasm movies. I know, I know, you’ll hem and haw and parse like a pro but shocked, SHOCKED I am that you would not mention it, even in passing. And then there’s this tiny, little film called Time Bandits…….I told you drinking 17 pints a night for 4 years would eventually have a deleterious effect.

DThompson on June 9th, 2008 3:22 pm

Those were LITE, carbonated, malted, alchoholic, beverages! And, it wasn’t 17 pints a night for 4 years, it was 15 pints a night for five years, taking Sundays off! Sheesh! At least get your insults straight! And I considered Phantasm (of COURSE!) But Mike’s line in the first film is “They’re taking them to their PLANET.” Their PLAAAAA-NET! It might be a “hellish” planet, but it’s still a planet. Not hell.
As for Time Bandits. That’s… It’s…
OK, you got me.

DThompson on June 9th, 2008 3:29 pm

Andy: Oh yes, Leviathan, I believe it was called, the rotating, tall, skinny “diamond on a diet” thing sending out the rays of hell light or whatever they were.
Jenny: If you took “kinda” out of your comment we’d be in complete agreement. No, that’s too harsh. Silent Hill had its moments and I suspect a whole sub-plot about emotionally battered women was in there somewhere, screaming “Set my people free!”

The Movie Whore on June 14th, 2008 10:43 am

I dig your list. MAybe you can help me out. There was a movie I saw 15-20 years ago that had some guy go to hell and tell the devil “I am going to break out of here like a bat out of hell.”
To which the devil replies “You ever seen one of our bats?”

To this day I can not remember the name of the movie. I just remember that one scene.

DThompson on June 14th, 2008 12:51 pm

Always happy to help, er, Movie Whore, I believe the movie you’re thinking of is “The Devil And Max Devlin”.

Charbarred on June 14th, 2008 1:06 pm

Ooh, Bill Cosby, Elliott Gould classic stuff!

Hell Quiz on August 11th, 2008 11:32 pm

This is a very clever list of hellish films that will send you to hell. Do you ever wonder if you are destined for hell? Now you can find out by taking The Hell Quiz at http://www.thehellquiz.com