# Most horrific depictions of Hell **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 14, 2008, 10:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-horrific-depictions-of-hell/459960 "2008-08-14T10:57:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Dunderman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecb155/32.png) [@Dunderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dunderman)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2008, 10:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-horrific-depictions-of-hell/459960/1 "2008-08-14T10:57:35Z")
In the [Scariest Stephen King moment](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=479144) thread, King’s short story _That Feeling, You Can Only Say What It Is In French_ was mentioned as a depiction of Hell. This in turn kicked me into starting this thread. What are the most horrific depictions of Hell in fiction? Anyone can say “eternal lake of fire”, but what are the books/plays/films that made you actually fear ending up in the author’s version of Hell? For my money, it’s Harlan Ellison’s _[I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream](http://s93834343.onlinehome.us/ihnmaims.txt)_. I guess it’s not literally a depiction of Hell in the classic sense, but it’s close enough for me and so goddamn warped I can’t bear thinking about it. ---
**Author:** ![Illuminatiprimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/illuminatiprimus/32/11520_2.png) [@Illuminatiprimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Illuminatiprimus)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2008, 11:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-horrific-depictions-of-hell/459960/2 "2008-08-14T11:03:44Z")
Say what you want about the film (I loved it, millions didn’t) the hell depicted in _Constantine_ isn’t somewhere I’m in any rush to visit. ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2008, 11:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-horrific-depictions-of-hell/459960/3 "2008-08-14T11:15:43Z")
Go with the classics. Dante’s _Inferno_. I recommend the Dorothy Sayers translation as one of the most readable. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2008, 12:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-horrific-depictions-of-hell/459960/4 "2008-08-14T12:08:50Z")
I’ve always liked the Hells depicted by Hieronymous Bosch, myself. The most famous is the rightmost panel of the painting usually called **The Garden of Earthly Delights** \*, but he did plenty of others, not so well known. > **[The Garden of Eartly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch Art Print](https://www.123posters.com/art/b110.htm)** > > The Garden of Eartly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch Art Print - 123Posters: Art and Photography Posters. Fast shipping in the USA. Secure Online Shopping. [![](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:GardenED_edit1.jpg) ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:GardenED_edit1.jpg) Pieter Brueghel the Elder, who seems to be in the same style, also did some Hells, but in engraved forms. \*Nobody knows what it was called in Bosch’s time. The earliest name we have for it is **The Strawberry Plant** ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2008, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-horrific-depictions-of-hell/459960/5 "2008-08-14T13:06:47Z")
Yeah, Bosch is good. ---
**Author:** ![Chez\_Guevara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/aeb1de/32.png) [@Chez\_Guevara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chez_Guevara)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2008, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-horrific-depictions-of-hell/459960/6 "2008-08-14T13:11:32Z")
_A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man_. [Chapter 3](http://www.online-literature.com/james_joyce/portrait_artist_young_man/3/), circa one third down the page, beginning: ‘Now let us try for a moment to realize, as far as we can, the nature of that abode of the damned which the justice of an offended God has called into existence for the eternal punishment of sinners.’ Very depressing. ---
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2008, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-horrific-depictions-of-hell/459960/7 "2008-08-14T13:15:17Z")
In Terry Pratchett’s **Small Gods** , one character (a Bad Guy) dies and is brought by Death to an open, empty plain. Death says “YOU HAVE HEARD THAT HELL IS OTHER PEOPLE?” Dead guy says “Yes.” “YOU WILL FIND THAT IS NOT THE CASE.” (paraphrased from memory) An eternity alone, with no sensory stimulation. That frightens the heck ou tof me. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2008, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-horrific-depictions-of-hell/459960/8 "2008-08-14T13:21:58Z")
More recent analyses of Hieronymous Bosch’s work have concluded that he was having premonitory visions of the New York subway system. [QUOTE=DrFidelius] An eternity alone, with no sensory stimulation. That frightens the heck out of me. [/QUOTE] Just think of it as a long, refreshing nap. Bonus: no cellphone users around. ---
**Author:** ![Unauthorized\_Cinnamon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/bc8723/32.png) [@Unauthorized\_Cinnamon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Unauthorized_Cinnamon)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2008, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-horrific-depictions-of-hell/459960/9 "2008-08-14T13:23:16Z")
Yeah, Joyce is really good. Or bad. Depending on your point of view. For me, _Jacob’s Ladder_ is so effective, I can’t watch it a second time. Just looking at the Youtube clip to verify it had the full scene made me queasy. (NSFW, emotionally disturbing and gory [link](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GllX0kJKFCg) - it starts around 6:10.) “Home? This is your home - you’re dead.” _shudder_ ETA: yeah, DrFidelius, that is freaky. When I saw Star Wars as a kid, you know what frightened me most? The bit with C3PO and R2 traversing that wide expanse of desert. ---
**Author:** ![Ronald\_C.Semone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/cc9497/32.png) [@Ronald\_C.Semone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ronald_C.Semone)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2008, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-horrific-depictions-of-hell/459960/10 "2008-08-14T13:24:57Z")
Sartre’s \*\*No Exit \*\* will do until a bettr one comes along. ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2008, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-horrific-depictions-of-hell/459960/11 "2008-08-14T14:26:57Z")
Horrific is one thing- Dante’ probably has that one wrapped up. Most terrible because I regard them as being more accurate- C.S. Lewis’ The Great Divorce, Narnia VII: The Last Battle, the last page of Brian Caldwell’s We All Fall Down, the last scene of Mimi Rogers’ movie The Rapture. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2008, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-horrific-depictions-of-hell/459960/12 "2008-08-14T15:00:53Z")
[The Apocalypse of Peter.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apocalypse_of_Peter) ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2008, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-horrific-depictions-of-hell/459960/13 "2008-08-14T15:15:15Z")
[“The Future Punishment of the Wicked: Unavoidable and Intolerable,”](http://www.reformedsermonarchives.com/ed34.htm) by [Jonathan Edwards](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Edwards_(theologian)): > [@](#): > > V. To answer an inquiry which may naturally be raised concerning these things. > > Inquiry. Some may be ready to say, If this be the case, if impenitent sinners can neither shun future punishment, nor deliver themselves from it, nor bear it; then what will become of them? > > Answer. They will wholly sink down into eternal death. There will be that sinking of heart, of which we now cannot conceive. We see how it is with the body when in extreme pain. The nature of the body will support itself for a considerable time under very great pain, so as to keep from wholly sinking. There will be great struggles, lamentable groans and panting, and it may be convulsions. These are the strugglings of nature to support itself under the extremity of the pain. There is, as it were, a great lothness in nature to yield to it; it cannot bear wholly to sink. > > But yet sometimes pain of body is so very extreme and exquisite, that the nature of the body cannot support itself under it; however loth it may be to sink, yet it cannot bear the pain; there are a few struggles, and throes, and pantings, and it may be a shriek or two, and then nature yields to the violence of the torments, sinks down, and the body dies. This is the death of the body. So it will be with the soul in hell; it will have no strength or power to deliver itself and its torment and horror will be so great, so mighty, so vastly disproportioned to its strength, that having no strength in the least to support itself, although it be infinitely contrary to the nature and inclination of the soul utterly to sink; yet it will sink, it will utterly and totally sink, without the least degree of remaining comfort, or strength, or courage, or hope. And though it will never be annihilated, its being and perception will never be abolished, yet such will be the infinite depth of gloominess that it will sink into, that it will be in a state of death, eternal death. > > The nature of man desires happiness; it is the nature of the soul to crave and thirst after well-being; and if it be under misery, it eagerly pants after relief; and the greater the misery is, the more eagerly doth it struggle for help. But if all relief be withholden, all strength overborne, all support utterly gone; then it sinks into the darkness of death. > > We can conceive but little of the matter; we cannot conceive what that sinking of the soul in such a case is. But to help your conception, imagine yourself to be cast into a fiery oven, or of a great furnace, where your pain would be as much greater than that occasioned by accidentally touching a coal of fire, as the heat is greater. Imagine also that your body were to lie there for a quarter of an hour, all the while full of quick sense; what horror would you feel at the entrance of such a furnace! And how long would that quarter of an hour seem to you! And after you had endured it for one minute, how overbearing would it be to you to think that you had it to endure the other fourteen! > > But what would be the effect on your soul, if you knew you must lie there enduring that torment to the full for twenty-four hours! And how much greater would be the effect, if you knew you must endure it for a whole year; and how vastly greater still, if you knew you must endure it for a thousand years! O then, how would your heart sink, if you thought, if you knew, that you must bear it forever and ever! That there would be no end! That after millions of millions of ages, your torment would be no nearer to an end, than ever it was; and that you never, never should be delivered! > > But your torment in hell will be immensely greater than this illustration represents. How then will the heart of a poor creature sink under it! How utterly inexpressible and inconceivable must the sinking of the soul be in such a case! > > This is the death threatened in the law. This is dying in the highest sense of the word. This is to die sensibly; to die and know it; to be sensible of the gloom of death. This is to be undone; this is worthy of the name of destruction. This sinking of the soul under an infinite weight, which it cannot bear, is the gloom of hell. We read in Scripture of the blackness of darkness; this is it, this is the very thing. We read in Scripture of sinners being lost, and of their losing their souls: this is the thing intended; this is to lose the soul: they that are the subjects of this are utterly lost. ---
**Author:** ![Swallowed\_My\_Cellphone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9d8465/32.png) [@Swallowed\_My\_Cellphone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Swallowed_My_Cellphone)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2008, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-horrific-depictions-of-hell/459960/14 "2008-08-14T15:18:34Z")
[QUOTE=BrotherCadfael] Go with the classics. Dante’s _Inferno_. [/QUOTE] Actually for me Dante’s _Purgatory_ freaked me out a helluva lot more. Particularly the envious whose eyes are sewn shut. ::shudder:: ---
**Author:** ![TV\_time](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f17d59/32.png) [@TV\_time](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TV_time)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2008, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-horrific-depictions-of-hell/459960/15 "2008-08-14T15:24:54Z")
For me the most horrific example of Hell was the one in the **Twilight Zone** where everything was perfect for the petty crook. After I saw that, I realized how terrible that would be for eternity. The dice always hit seven, the wheel always hit his number, everyone agreed with him, tellers in banks always just handed him money. As I remember, Sabastin Cabot played Satan in that show. It was extremely well done, and very haunting. ---
**Author:** ![Pushkin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ee59a6/32.png) [@Pushkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pushkin)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2008, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-horrific-depictions-of-hell/459960/16 "2008-08-14T15:29:13Z")
[QUOTE=DrFidelius] An eternity alone, with no sensory stimulation. That frightens the heck ou tof me. [/QUOTE] Jim Carrey’s take on that was that hell to him was an eternal orgasm, leaving you with no chance of stopping to have any other feeling besides. My parents noted that as a kid I spent a lot of time examining Dad’s print of the centre panel to Bosch’s [The Last Judgement](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Judgment_(Bosch_triptych)). As horrific as it was probably meant to be, there was something captivating about the detail of the gleeful sadism on display that had me rapt in thought. And no, before you ask, I did not kill cats for kicks when I was a kid. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2008, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-horrific-depictions-of-hell/459960/17 "2008-08-14T15:35:22Z")
> [@](#): > > My parents noted that as a kid I spent a lot of time examining Dad’s print of the centre panel to Bosch’s The Last Judgement. As horrific as it was probably meant to be, there was something captivating about the detail of the gleeful sadism on display that had me rapt in thought. And no, before you ask, I did not kill cats for kicks when I was a kid. I think this is universally true. More people are interested in Hell than in Heaven. A lot more people, I think, read Dante’s Inferno than the Paradiso or the Purgatorio. Bosch’s “Hell” panel in TGoED gets more press than the Creation panel (The center panel gets a lot of press, too, mainly because of its idiosyncrasies, like all the black people there, rather odd for a 16th century Netherlands work). ---
**Author:** ![mudkicker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d6d6ee/32.png) [@mudkicker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mudkicker)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2008, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-horrific-depictions-of-hell/459960/18 "2008-08-14T16:19:35Z")
[QUOTE=Chez Guevara] _A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man_. [Chapter 3](http://www.online-literature.com/james_joyce/portrait_artist_young_man/3/), circa one third down the page, beginning: ‘Now let us try for a moment to realize, as far as we can, the nature of that abode of the damned which the justice of an offended God has called into existence for the eternal punishment of sinners.’ Very depressing. [/QUOTE] Yep. I was 17 when I read this and had just started having sex. I was agnostic even then but a Catholic upbringing meant there was still a lot of What ifs? That sermon really freaked me out. What if hell was real? What if there was a god after all? Aaargh I’m going to hell because I’m having premarital sex! I used to love debating about god, heaven, hell and the rest of it as only a nerdy 17 year old could, but after reading that book that was it. I’ve had my fingers in my ears going ‘lalalalalalala’ on the topic ever since. Damn Joyce. ---
**Author:** ![Illuminatiprimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/illuminatiprimus/32/11520_2.png) [@Illuminatiprimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Illuminatiprimus)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2008, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-horrific-depictions-of-hell/459960/19 "2008-08-14T16:21:31Z")
[QUOTE=BrotherCadfael] Go with the classics. Dante’s _Inferno_. I recommend the Dorothy Sayers translation as one of the most readable. [/QUOTE] Personally I think the Mark Musa translation is better - Sayer’s rhyming got in the way of me reading it. ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2008, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-horrific-depictions-of-hell/459960/20 "2008-08-14T16:43:12Z")
The one at the end of _Devil in Miss Jones_ is pretty bad. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-horrific-depictions-of-hell/459960.md?page=2)