T–SHIRTS One of the most popular GIFT NOVELTIES depicting scenes of the underworld is the printed T-shirt. Examples of the informal attire include JOKES and COMICS about hell, reprints of infernal paintings and sculptures, and images of DEMONS and DEVILS. HEAVY METAL MUSIC bands such as Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, and Black Sabbath also routinely use hell and its IMAGERY in promotional apparel sold at their concerts. Shirts parodying the afterlife are also common items of MOVIE MERCHANDISING.
Many flout the traditional notions of hell as a place of horrible torment, opting instead to make light of SATAN’s domain. Common epigraphs are, “Heaven doesn’t want me and Hell is afraid I’ll take over” or “My wife put me through Hell and all I got was this lousy T-shirt,” the latter complete with simulated singe marks. Another spoofs Christian HELLFIRE SERMONS, showing a black and white spotted dog pounding the pulpit amid raging flames. The text reads, “Hellfire & Dalmatians.”
Such comic representations comprise the majority of infernal T-shirts. A screened illustration of “Fisherman’s Hell” shows the devil standing beside two tables, one laden with beer, the other with bait. The fiend laughingly tells the sportsman, “Choose only one.” A 1988 episode of the new TWILIGHT ZONE television series features Ron Glass as an emissary of the “stygian depths” who appears in a variety of hellish T-shirts, including “Let’s Do Damnation,” “GEHENNA—More than a place: a way of life,” and “Hell is a city much like Newark.”
Reproductions of hellish FANTASY ART are also popular T-shirt decoration. These depict fierce demons, smoldering landscapes, and mutilated bodies of the damned. Such grisly garb is frequently worn by BIKERS, who sport the darkest fiends of the abyss on shirts and other apparel.
TAENARUS According to ancient Greek myth, the Path of Taenarus leads to the underworld of King HADES. It is a dark cavern that ends at the banks of the river STYX. Here the ferryman CHARON waits to take deceased souls across to the realm of the dead.
One story claims that the legendary hero HERCULES takes the Path of Taenarus to Hades and seizes the three-headed guard dog CERBERUS. Another recounts the famed mortal’s venture to the underworld to free Alcestis, who is killed while trying to save her doomed husband. In both stories, Hercules must travel the dark, treacherous pathway that serves as a portal between the land of the living and the realm of the damned.
TALES FROM THE CRYPT The 1972 British film Tales from the Crypt presents the misadventures of five tourists visiting the catacombs. A mysterious tour guide shows each character a “vision” of the future, which includes a variety of nefarious crimes that the visitors are destined to commit. Their imminent atrocities include deceit, adultery, and murder. After the final revelation, the guide reveals his identity: He is actually SATAN, and the evil acts he described have already occurred. The five are not visitors but newly dead souls arriving in hell to be punished for their sins.
Tales from the Crypt depicts the realm of the damned as an underground maze of caves enveloped in fire. A skeleton-faced DEMON is charged with their torment. However, part of their suffering lies in being forced to face their own reprehensible acts. The agony of reliving despicable memories reflects the DREAM MODEL of hell, an eternal nightmare of the damned’s own making.
Each story in the film was inspired by tales of the macabre in E.C. COMIC BOOKS of the 1950s. Tales from the Crypt was followed by VAULT OF HORROR and the urban update TALES FROM THE HOOD, which offer similar interpretations of hell.
TALES FROM THE HOOD Tales from the Hood, a 1995 update inspired by the 1972 British TALES FROM THE CRYPT, brings hell to the violent streets of the inner city. The movie is patterned closely after the original, consisting of separate episodes linked by a common theme: retribution.
The film unfolds as three black gang members enter a funeral parlor in search of stolen drugs. What they find instead is an eerie mortician (played by Clarence Williams III) who insists on showing them a variety of corpses being readied for burial. With each cadaver Williams relates a frightening story about the deceased’s life, death, and damnation. By the end of the tour, the teens suspect that they, too, are prisoners of the eternal abyss.
Hell’s agony has a mental as well as physical dimension in Tales from the Hood. The damned are psychologically tortured while their bodies burn in a raging fire. Writers Rusty Cundieff and Darin Scott equate this inner horror with the violence that infests modern society. Among the infernal characters are racist policemen, gang bangers whose only allegiance is to the almighty dollar, adults who brutalize children, and politicians who place power over principle. Tales from the Hood also makes a powerful statement against black-on-black violence, which is as odious and repulsive as any torment devised in hell.
Physically, the underworld of Tales from the Hood is a flaming pit where the damned burn for eternity. Ruled by a fearsome SATAN, the film has elements of CHRISTIAN HELL as well as allusions to the DREAM MODEL of the afterlife. In this theory, human spirits pass the aeons recalling the actions of their earthly lives, and evil acts carry abhorrent memories that sting the soul.
TANTALUS Tantalus is one of the sinners of Greek myth damned to TARTARUS, the lowest realm of the underworld HADES. He had once been a beloved mortal who was frequently invited to join the gods in their celebrations. Then Tantalus devises a cruel test for the deities: He cooks and serves his son Pelops at an astral banquet to see if the gods can discern that they are eating human flesh. The horrified deities restore the boy to life and damn the cruel Tantalus to the depths of hell.
In Tartarus, Tantalus suffers extreme hunger and thirst while delicious food and wine are just out of reach. (The word tantalize derives from this myth.) According to the ODYSSEY, Tantalus is one of only three men who have bodies in the underworld (along with SISYPHUS and TITYUS), since his suffering is physical as well as spiritual. All others exist in death as SHADES, murky residues of their former selves.
TARTARUS Tartarus is the lowest and most gruesome realm of HADES, the underworld of ancient Greek myth. It is reserved for the souls of evil people and for those who have angered the gods. Tartarus is surrounded by a bronze shield that keeps the damned from escaping. It is bordered on the west by the river STYX and marked on the north by a forest of black poplar trees. Said to lie far below the surface of the earth, Tartarus is a place of unending night where darkness reigns eternal.
Greek tradition includes mention of many sinners damned to Tartarus and describes some of its torments. SISYPHUS is sent to Tartarus for angering Zeus and outsmarting Thanatos, the deliverer of death. His punishment is to spend eternity rolling a boulder up a steep hill, only to have it roll back each night so that he must start his labor again.
TANTALUS is cast there after cooking his own son and feeding him to the gods to see if they could identify the unfamiliar meat. He is now eternally hungry, with a fruit-laden branch just out of reach, and thirsty, waist deep in a lake that recedes each time he tries to sip. (The word tantalize originates from this teasing tale.) The third man to retain his body in the underworld is TITYUS. In life, he rapes Zeus’s wife and is punished by having his liver continually ripped out by vultures. The organ immediately grows back so his torment can continue unabated.
There are many souls in Tartarus who suffer psychological agonies. The Greek mortal Ixion, who tries to rape the goddess Hera, is punished by being tied to a wheel of fire that spins in the air. Also in Tartarus are forty-nine of the fifty daughters of Danaüs, called the DANAÏDS. These women murdered their husbands (the fifty sons of their uncle) on their wedding night according to their father’s instructions. Only one renounced her father’s evil plot, so she was spared from torture in the afterlife. The damned Danaïds are condemned eternally to try to fill a vase with water using a sieve.
Greek legends tell of other nameless souls who languish in the pit of Tartarus. Their torments include being burned alive, mutilated, whipped, and eaten by monsters. Images of such agonies are found in Homer’s ODYSSEY and in Plato’s GORGIAS and REPUBLIC.
TARTARUCHUS Tartaruchus is a fallen angel who rules hell according to several early Christian texts. In the APOCALYPSE OF PAUL, an apocrypha dating back to the first days of Christianity, Tartaruchus is named as the DEMON who holds dominion in the underworld until the LAST JUDGMENT, at which time SATAN will return as overlord. He is spiteful and cruel and takes great enjoyment in tormenting human souls. Another apocrypha, the APOCALYPSE OF PETER, tells that when the damned beg for leniency, Tartaruchus responds by taunting them that they should have begged for Christ’s mercy, not his. The fiend gleefully reminds them that their fate is now sealed, and the days of finding relief are gone forever.
TATTOOS Among the most common graphics available at tattoo parlors are representations of SATAN, DEVILS, GHOULS, gravestones, and burning underworld landscapes. These are especially popular among BIKERS, who consider embracing the damned an integral part of their rebel image. Infernal symbols are also common among fans of HEAVY METAL MUSIC, as many bands and artists use demonic IMAGERY.
TERESA OF ÁVILA, SAINT A Spanish nun and mystic credited with reforming corruption in Catholic religious orders, Teresa of Ávila (1515–1582) had numerous supernatural encounters during her lifetime. Most of these were joyous meditations in which she communed with the divine. However Teresa of Ávila also experienced a horrifying vision of hell. Church scholars have speculated that this image is perhaps the most accurate description of the inferno known to humanity. She describes the terrifying underworld in her book Life, the story of her spiritual journey:
The entrance resembled a very long narrow passage, like a furnace, very low, dark and closely confined; the ground seemed to be full of water which looked like filthy, evil-smelling mud, and in it were many wicked-looking reptiles. At the end there was a hollow place scooped out of a wall, and it was here that I found myself in this close confinement.… I felt a fire within my soul the nature of which I am utterly unable to describe. My bodily sufferings were so intolerable that, though in my life I have endured the severest sufferings of this kind—the worst that is possible to endure, the doctors say, such as the shrinking of the nerves during my paralysis—… none of them is of the smallest account by comparison with what I felt then, to say nothing of the knowledge that they would be endless and unremitting. And even these are nothing by comparison with the agony of my soul.… To say that it is as if the soul were continually being torn from the body is very little … in this case, the soul itself is tearing itself to pieces.… I felt, I think, as if I were being both burned and dismembered; and I repeat that the interior fire and despair are the worst things of all.… There was no light and everything was in the blackest darkness … and any burning on earth is a small matter compared with that fire.
After experiencing this apparition, St. Teresa lost all fear of human pains and afflictions, since she had suffered far worse agonies.
THEOPHILUS The legend of Theophilus dates back to the sixth century and is believed to be the inspiration for the story of FAUST, a conceited scholar who enters into a pact with SATAN. Theophilus was an arrogant monk who sells his soul to the DEVIL, then repents his wicked deed.
According to the account, Theophilus is offered a bishopric, which he declines, believing the new job will be too much work. But when the new bishop arrives, Theophilus becomes jealous and resentful of his new superior. The bishop, sensing Theophilus’s hostility, treats him sternly and eventually forces him out of the abbey. The monk’s loathing and self-pity grow so intense that he loses all interest in his clerical duties and becomes obsessed with revenge.
With the help of a sorcerer, Theophilus conjures the devil, renounces God, and vows allegiance to the fiend. He signs a pact in his own blood surrendering his soul to Satan. In exchange, the devil promises to humiliate the bishop and elevate Theophilus to a position of honor. Theophilus returns to the abbey, declares that the bishop is a liar unworthy of his office, and demands a formal investigation. Church authorities examine both men and decide that Theophilus is a more worthy candidate for bishop, and the former is stripped of his title.
Almost immediately, Theophilus begins to regret his infernal bargain. When Satan arrives to drag him into hell, he calls out to the VIRGIN MARY, mother of Jesus Christ, for help. He begs her to plead his case before God. Mary takes pity on him and intercedes, then travels to hell to retrieve the contract. Based on her mediation, God grants Theophilus a pardon, on the condition that he make a public confession and vow to live a life of virtue.
The story of Theophilus was circulated throughout Christendom and became a powerful tool in motivating the faithful. Fragments of the tale were interwoven into the Faust legends, MORALITY PLAYS, and the thirteenth-century French drama Le Miracle de Theophile (The Miracle of Theophilus).
THESEUS Theseus is a figure of ancient Greek myth who is damned for his heroic attempt to rescue the beautiful PERSEPHONE from the underworld. According to the story, Theseus and his friend Pirithoüs descend to the infernal kingdom of HADES to retrieve Persephone, whom the king of the dead has kidnapped for his bride. But before Theseus is able to accomplish his mission, Hades discovers the plot and has him chained and impaled in the depths of hell.
Theseus is eventually rescued from this vile place by HERCULES, who travels to the underworld as one of his legendary labors. He defeats the monster CERBERUS, guardian of the gate, and returns Theseus to the land of the living. Hercules is, however, unable to free Pirithoüs, who remains eternally in the pits of Hades.
THESPESIUS The Vision of Thespesius is one of the few examples of VISION LITERATURE that predate the Middle Ages. It was written circa A.D. 100 by Plutarch, a Greek author living in Rome. Thespesius is a frightening work of fiction that reads like a factual account, leading many contemporary religious leaders to use the story in sermons about the horrors of the afterlife.
As the tale goes, Thespesius is believed by all to be dead; however, he is merely in a deep comatose state. While unconscious, he “wakes” to witness the judgment of the dead. He sees pure souls rise to heaven, while spirits covered with scars and blotches are swept into a black chasm. Thespesius wanders among the damned and is sickened to find his own father in the depths of hell. His father admits that he has lived an evil life, betraying, robbing, and even murdering those who trusted him. As his father speaks, Thespesius is surrounded by DEMONS who torture the accursed souls. Unable to bear the spectacle any longer, Thespesius revives and returns home to warn others about the terrors he has witnessed.
TITYUS According to Greek myth, Tityus is among the damned in TARTARUS, the realm of the underworld HADES reserved for the worst sinners. Vultures continually rip out his liver, which grows back repeatedly so that the torture can continue. This punishment is for the offense of raping Zeus’s wife.
In the ODYSSEY, an epic story involving a visit to the underworld, the hero Odysseus learns that Tityus is one of only three men in Hades who retain physical bodies. These three (SISYPHUS and TANTALUS round out the trio) are forced to keep their bodies in the underworld so that their agony can be felt in both the flesh and the soul.
TI YU Ancient Chinese myths describe the bleak underworld of Ti Yu, a subterranean prison for the dead. It is dark, cold, and barren. After death, souls are judged by supernatural magistrates, and the wicked are made to pay for the sins of their lives in this musty abyss. The dreadful abode of Ti Yu is located at the feet of T’ai Shan kun wang, the master of death, fate, and destiny. Like the Christian SATAN, T’ai Shan tortures the souls in Ti Yu’s seventh hell, a brutal land of agony.
Specific details of the legend are unclear, since the texts referring to Ti Yu have come through so many copies, translators, and interpretations. But scholars believe this underworld to be similar in many ways to the Greek HADES.
TORCELLO The Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta in Torcello in Venice offers several stirring compositions depicting CHRISTIAN HELL. A centuries-old mosaic shows SATAN as a fierce blue DEMON with unwieldy white hair and beard. Judas, the apostle who betrayed Christ, is seated on his lap, entwined in serpents. Around him in his hell, monstrous winged monsters torture the damned.
Also in the cathedral is a remarkable interpretation of the LAST JUDGMENT, the time of final reckoning prophesied in REVELATION. The work offers a legion of underworld fiends tearing at human souls. They are staging their last battle, determined to fill hell with accursed spirits.
TRADING CARDS In contemporary culture, trading cards depicting hell and the damned have become quite popular. Examples of these include pocket-sized pictures of FANTASY ART, television shows, movies, and GAMES relating to the underworld. Music buffs can likewise find hellish decorations on collector cards from HEAVY METAL MUSIC groups such as Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, and Ozzy Osbourne. Typical cards of this type feature DEMONS, Satanic IMAGERY, or grisly scenes of underworld chaos.
Still photographs from “supernatural” episodes of the classic series TWILIGHT ZONE and Outer Limits have also been adapted into cards patterned after traditional sports memorabilia. Each card features a picture from the original production as well as information about the plotline, writer, and cast. This format has become a component of MOVIE MERCHANDISING, with such abysmal villains as Freddy Kruger (NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET) appearing on cards purchasers are urged to “collect and trade.”
Assortment of trading cards incorporating underworld imagery.
The popularity of these infernal trading cards has led to a booming business. A 1995 show and sale in Boston drew more than twenty thousand patrons, many of whom came to view the supernatural wares. And periodicals such as Sci-Fi and Trading Cards Magazine regularly feature advertisements for memorabilia picturing the realm of the damned.
TREASURES OF SATAN Symbolist Jean Delville painted the Treasures of SATAN in the mid-1900s, a time when traditional notions of the underworld were being replaced by modern interpretations or outright disbelief. Delville’s vision of the underworld is one of utter despair, where all hope has indeed been abandoned.
Like many medieval visions of hell, Treasures of Satan incorporates heavy use of the familiar reds and oranges to suggest the unquenchable fire of the great below. Satan is portrayed as a loathsome monster with snakes for wings, gloating over his gain. The “treasure” of the beast is a myriad of damned humans, naked and writhing in agony. Hell itself, glowing in the background, is a jagged landscape of ruin that resembles an undersea wasteland, or perhaps the mangled remains of a countryside ravaged by modern warfare.
Treasures of Satan is important to the study of hell, as it blends traditional symbols of the abyss with contemporary images of nuclear devastation. The work suggests that the gap between the unseen horrors of hell and the demonstrable ugliness of humanity is closing. Perhaps in the third millennium, the atrocities of the two realms will become indistinguishable.
TRÈS RICHES HEURES DU DUC DE BERRY, LES Les Très Riches Heures, a BOOK OF HOURS composed for the Duke of Berry (brother of France’s king) in the early 1400s, is considered the most luxurious and beautifully illustrated manuscript of its kind. Composed by the Limbourg brothers, the book offers dozens of miniature pictures of biblical events, including LUCIFER’s fall from heaven and a frightening depiction of the DEVIL torturing souls in hell.
Unlike most portraits of the damned that use flaming reds and oranges to symbolize hell and SATAN, the Limbourgs employ heavy use of blues in their works. The miniature of Lucifer’s expulsion offers a turquoise heaven lined with a legion of sapphire-robed angels. Lucifer himself is draped in royal blue garments, as are the rebel spirits who descend with him. These sinning angels are achingly beautiful, even as they fall from heaven to the inferno below.
Hell is blue, too: a cobalt cavern against the indigo sky. In the Limbourgs’ vision, the devil reclines on a blazing grill, inhaling and exhaling the souls of the damned. A trio of DEMONS works the bellows to keep the flames burning. All around this infernal oven, winged blue and gray fiends strangle, mutilate, and choke their human prisoners. This horrific hell, inspired by contemporary examples of VISION LITERATURE, is considered a strong yet subtle warning to the infamous Duke of Berry, whose reputation for corruption was firmly established by 1413. He was encouraged to fear the underworld in this life so as not to experience it in the next.
TRICK OR TREAT The 1986 film Trick or Treat explores the relationship between hell and HEAVY METAL MUSIC. With cameos by such icons of the genre as Gene Simmons and Ozzy Osbourne, the movie vacillates between extolling the virtues of metal and condemning the whole industry as blatantly Satanic.
Trick or Treat opens with a passage from FAUST, the classic tale of deals with the DEVIL. The story then launches into the misadventures of an awkward teenager who seeks refuge from his miserable life in the music of heavy metal star Sammi Curr (played by Tony Fields). When the musician perishes in a hotel fire, the troubled teen conjures his spirit through a bewitched record album titled Songs in the Key of Death. What follows is a cinematic frenzy of hellish visions, gory mutilations, and demonic rape.
The hell of Trick or Treat is not a place for punishing moral offenses but instead a metaphor for teen angst and isolation. It is a realm that champions acts of cruelty and abuse, where the only sin is being “different.”
TUNDAL The Vision of Tundal (Tyndal, Tundale) offers one of the most grotesque descriptions of SATAN and hell found in VISION LITERATURE. The work describes the afterlife adventures of Tundal, a depraved knight who has spent his life pursuing carnal fulfillment. According to the text, the dark hedonist “dies” and goes on a supernatural tour of heaven, purgatory, and hell. In the abyss of the damned, Tundal must face the dire consequences of his actions.
The manuscript of the Vision of Tundal originates from the mid-eleventh century, and though the author’s name remains unknown, historians can trace the text to a medieval Irish monk living in Germany. Copies of Tundal were illustrated by hand and translated into at least a dozen languages, then distributed throughout medieval Christendom. Several of these early copies are still in existence, many of which contain elaborate pictures of the damned being tortured in hell.
The story opens as Tundal is bedridden with a severe illness. He soon falls into a comalike state and is believed dead. Tundal’s spirit leaves his body and travels to the gates of the afterlife. But instead of ascending to paradise, the shocked knight learns the horrific price that must be paid for his indiscretions.
Tundal is met at the eternity’s edge by a horde of DEMONS who prod and poke him, chiding, “Where are the good times now?” Terrified, Tundal tries to escape but is held bound until his guardian angel comes to claim him. The angel then takes Tundal on a tour of hell, showing him numerous monsters, torture devices, and pits of agony.
The angel explains that in the afterlife, souls must prove themselves worthy of salvation by negotating a number of obstacles. He takes Tundal to a narrow bridge over a fetid river. With great difficulty (and angelic assistance) he is able to cross. Tundal must then scale a treacherous cliff and face the demon ACHERON at its summit. As he clears the crest, the angel disappears, and Tundal falls prey to the fiends. He is chewed in the toothy mouth of Acheron, then torn at the loins as punishment for his sexual sins. A pack of mad beasts attacks him, and Tundal is further tormented by intense heat and cold that “no living man could stand.” As the waves of pain overtake him, Tundal’s angel reappears and retrieves him so that their journey can continue.
The next peril Tundal must face is a longer, narrower bridge spiked with sharp nails. He crosses, feet bleeding and scarred, only to be tortured by the demon Phristinus, who punishes those who have indulged in pleasures of the flesh. After this, Tundal is devoured by a steel-beaked bird and defecated in the form of a serpent into a lake of ice.
Tundal’s angel takes pity on the man and restores him to his human form. The pair then travels to a fiery village where Tundal is melted in a raging furnace. His soul is melded with those of other sinners, and demons gleefully toss the damned blob around. Once again, the angel saves Tundal so that the trip through hell can continue.
Finally, the angel delivers Tundal to LUCIFER, who resides in the lowest depths of the abyss. The lord of hell is a horrid monster with a bird’s beak, a beast’s body, and thousands of hands with nails like razor blades. As Lucifer writhes on his bed of hot coals, his limbs crush and mangle damned souls around him. The pit is so crowded with the condemned that Lucifer continually breathes them in and out like smoke. Tundal, horror-struck, recognizes family and friends among these “unhappy spirits.” While in the depths, he reports: “As the screaming souls were tossed into the cavernous pot, they bobbed and tumbled in the boiling mess … souls were suspended, impaled on hooks, lowered over the burning coals. Their piteous cries drowned out the sound of their sizzling flesh, as they begged the demons to release them.”
Before restoring Tundal to life, the angel takes him to purgatory to show what spirits must endure in the mystic realm. In this PURGATORIAL HELL, souls suffer only the human pains of hunger, thirst, sorrow, and longing for God. The angel tells Tundal that these souls will eventually ascend to heaven once they have purified themselves and rid their spirits of the residue of their sins.
Tundal then awakens and resolves to change his ways. He dedicates the rest of his life to prayer, preaching, and performing acts of penance. And though he loathes having to relive his horrific vision, he repeats his story again and again to serve as a warning to others.
The manuscript recounting this supernatural journey inspired numerous artworks, including the Vision of Tundal painted by a student of HIERONYMUS BOSCH. The picture, which now hangs in the Museo Lazaro Gadeano in Madrid, depicts the horrors described in Tundal’s account. Included are scores of snakes, rats, and other vile beasts torturing and eating the damned. Sinners are impaled on spikes, slashed with swords, and drowned in a pit of blackish green bilge. Others flail in a lake of fire. The painting’s background is an ocean of fire against which the damned writhe in utter agony.
These images have also been incorporated into HEROINE OF HELL, a 1995 film about a young artist who, after witnessing a terrible car accident, becomes obsessed with this medieval hell.
TWILIGHT ZONE, THE During its 156-episode run from 1959 to 1964, the classic television series The Twilight Zone offered numerous interpretations of hell. These ranged from religious concepts to pop culture references and offered the abyss as a realm of justice, retribution, and even vengeance. Overall, series creator Rod Serling’s message to viewers is that damnation is of our own making, and nothing conceived by saint or sinner is worse than the horrors of each person’s imagination.
The first underworld episode to air was “Escape Clause” in late 1959. This update of the FAUST story stars David Wayne as a self-indulgent sadist who sells his soul to SATAN in return for immortality. Wayne quickly realizes that life without risk is too boring, so when his wife accidentally dies he claims that he murdered her in order to “give the electric chair a whirl.” Confident that it will be unable to end his life, Wayne wants to satisfy his curiosity about what electrocution feels like. To his horror, however, his attorney is able to win him a sentence of life without parole, which in his case means an eternity of imprisonment. Defeated, he agrees to let Satan take his life and proceeds to the ultimate imprisonment: damnation in the depths of hell.
This story was followed a month later by “Judgment Night,” a tale of divine retribution against one of modern history’s greatest evils. It opens as a disoriented German, played by Nehemiah Persoff, finds himself aboard a British passenger ship in 1942 with no memory of how or why he is on an English boat. Persoff cannot shake the feeling of impending doom. When he spots a German U-boat about to torpedo the English cruiser, he looks through binoculars and sees himself at the helm of the Nazi submarine. The U-boat fires and sinks the British boat, gunning down the survivors as they scurry for the lifeboats. Suddenly, everything becomes clear: Persoff did indeed murder a boatload of civilians during World War II and now is damned to relive the fateful night for all eternity. His hell is having to face the reality of his own vile actions.
The philosophy of WILLIAM BLAKE is illustrated in a 1960 episode titled “A Nice Place to Visit.” This theory, that heaven and hell are simply a matter of perspective, is artfully explored when cold-hearted criminal Rocky Valentine (played by Larry Blyden) is killed in a shootout with police. In the afterlife he meets Pip (played by Sebastian Cabot), who is assigned his mystic “guide.” Cabot escorts Blyden to a world where the con man’s every whim is indulged. Beautiful women fight over him, each gamble he takes pays off, and his every desire is immediately fulfilled. Blyden realizes that being assured “a sure thing” every time takes all the fun out of life. He hates being in the “dull heaven” and asks Cabot to send him to the “other place.” Hearing this, Cabot laughs hysterically, telling him “this is the other place,” and Blyden is condemned to a hell of nihilistic monotony.
In “Deaths-Head Revisited” (an episode quite similar to “Judgment Night”), The Twilight Zone offers a portrait of hell adhering to the DREAM MODEL theory, contending that in the next world we simply relive the goodness or evil of our lives. Those who have been kind will spend eternity buoyed by cheerful memories, whereas evildoers will be mired in ugly recollections of nefarious deeds. In “Deaths-Head Revisited,” a former Nazi concentration camp commander must face the ghosts of those he tortured and killed during the Holocaust. The implication is that the soldier will be forever tormented by images of his hideous crimes.
Not all of The Twilight Zone’s forays into the inferno were so somber. In “The Hunt,” Arthur Hunnicut plays an aging woodsman who drowns while hunting raccoon. He then travels, his faithful hound Rip at his side, along a bucolic road to a gate guarded by a smiling gentleman. The gatekeeper tells Hunnicut that this is the entrance to heaven and that the hunter is welcome but Rip cannot enter. Unwilling to abandon his canine companion, Hunnicut refuses the invitation and continues down the road.
The deceased hunter soon meets an angel who explains that first gate was actually the entrance to hell, and that a clever DEMON was trying to fool him into joining the damned. Rip smelled the FIRE AND BRIMSTONE, as can all innocent beasts, and was not allowed in since he surely would have barked a warning to his master. The winsome episode ends with Serling advising travelers to “take along the family dog” to unknown places to “save you from entering the wrong gate.”
In addition to the previously mentioned episodes, The Twilight Zone probed hell in such segments as “The Howling Man,” “Shadow Play,” “The Thirty-Fathom Grave,” “Of Late I Think of Cliffordsville,” and a dozen other unique interpretations of the supernatural and its various creatures. When the show was dropped by CBS in 1964, Serling refused to continue the project—in slightly altered form—with NBC, telling Daily Variety, “I don’t want to be hooked into a graveyard every week.”
But the series was far from over. All but four episodes have been alive in syndication for decades. Creator-writer Rod Serling went on to numerous other screen projects, including the NIGHT GALLERY series that also featured numerous shows on the underworld. A new, slick color version of the classic series enjoyed a moderately successful run in the 1980s, often using material from collaborators who worked on the original Twilight Zone project. Many of these episodes likewise focused on hell, DEVILS, and damnation. TWILIGHT ZONE—THE MOVIE, released in 1983, was a commercial and critical success, although it lacked the eerie atmosphere that flavored the black-and-white TV series.
The cult classic spawned a number of literary projects as well. In 1982, Marc Scott Zicree published The Twilight Zone Companion, a comprehensive guide featuring detailed descriptions of each show, photographs, behind-the-scenes production anecdotes, information on the writers and guest stars, and an epilogue listing Serling’s later television credits. A million-selling COMIC BOOK series and TWILIGHT ZONE MAGAZINE were also outgrowths of this phenomenally popular television accomplishment.
The Twilight Zone has recently been immortalized at MGM Studios in Orlando, Florida. One of the park’s most technologically advanced additions is the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, a high-tech haunted house that boasts allusions to many of the series’s scariest episodes. The Tower takes patrons on a ghostly ride into the next dimension, while props, pictures, and other memorabilia of original programs adorn the interior. In the few years since its opening, the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror has become one of the park’s most popular attractions.
Anthologies of Twilight Zone SHORT STORIES continue to be written, inspired by the original series. The show likewise has generated both serious and humorous copycats. Now a fixture of the American experience, The Twilight Zone has been parodied on everything from the Jack Benny Show in the 1960s to contemporary sketches on SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE and even the children’s educational program Sesame Street.
TWILIGHT ZONE MAGAZINE In April of 1981, almost two decades after THE TWILIGHT ZONE television series ceased production, Rod Serling’s Twilight Zone Magazine premiered on newsstands. It was the brainchild of Carol Serling, widow of the series’s creator, assisted by many of the talented artists who had made the show such a success. Montcalm Publishing’s bimonthly periodical featured original SHORT STORIES of the macabre, supernatural movie reviews, interviews with horror mavens, synopses of cult classic television programs, and a wealth of spooky advertisements offering everything from “Voodoo Kits” to “affordable weaponry.”
The prestige of the Twilight Zone name attracted some of the biggest names in contemporary fiction, including Stephen King, Joyce Carol Oates, CLIVE BARKER, Robert Bloch, Dean Koontz, Peter Straub, and Anne Rice, all of whom contributed to the magazine during its decade-long run. These writers, and many gifted newcomers, offered a variety of fascinating interpretations of the underworld, accompanied by FANTASY ART and eerie illustrations depicting the damned. Their visions were as unique as the authors themselves, and each issue painted new and innovative pictures of what terrors await the condemned in the world to come.
One of the first infernal stories published in Twilight Zone was Jonathan Carroll’s “Jane Fonda Room.” Carroll envisioned the great below as a multiplex cinema where damned souls could choose a favorite movie star and spend eternity viewing the actor’s works. At first, this seems quite an enjoyable way to pass the aeons, until ticketholders begin realizing how monotonous this will soon become. As the reality of the situation sinks in, one condemned soul shudders at the thought of watching “Barbarella, Klute, all the others … over and over again” forever.
Over the years, hell tales covered a broad range of interpretations. Stories borrowed concepts of damnation inspired by the works of such philosophers as WILLIAM BLAKE, ST. AUGUSTINE, and EMANUEL SWEDENBORG. These compelling works ran the gamut between depicting the realm of the damned as an icy pit of desolation to sketching the dark abyss as a mystic supermarket where lost souls would pass eternity demonstrating cleaning products and offering samples of cheese spread. It was not uncommon for such mythical underworld figures as ORPHEUS, CERBERUS, and Sedna (goddess of Eskimo hell ADLIVUN) to appear in these modern afterlife tales, usually with updated bios and a wry sense of humor.
In addition to containing numerous short stories about Hell, Twilight Zone featured nonfiction articles about VAMPIRES, werewolves, and other supernatural creatures, as well as interviews with top names in horror films and fiction. The magazine devoted considerable space to the works of deceased supernatural artists such as H. P. Lovecraft, Edgar Allan Poe, and HIERONYMOUS BOSCH. With an eye on supporting the future of horror as well as the past, Twilight Zone sponsored an annual fiction-writing contest to identify new talent, in memory of an award won by then-student Rod Serling that helped launch his illustrious career. Winners routinely used hell as a backdrop for their eerie compositions.
Portraits of the grim realm of the damned were further developed in another Twilight Zone feature: the movie preview. POLTERGEIST, HELLRAISER, NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, ANGEL HEART, TRICK OR TREAT, and a host of other grisly cinematic forays into the unknown made their print debut in the magazine. These early behind-the-scenes looks included advance stills; interviews with the films’ actors, directors, and writers; and anecdotes about production gaffes. (Because this was a preview and not a review, on several occasions Twilight Zone profiled a movie that died before release and never made it to the big screen. The only glimpses of these ill-fated projects ever seen by the public were contained on the magazine’s pages.)
Fans of surreal productions could further feed their hunger by reviewing the “Show by Show” guide to supernatural programs in each issue. The magazine printed synopses of episodes of the original Twilight Zone series, NIGHT GALLERY, Outer Limits, and WAY OUT, all of which regularly dealt with “otherworldly” subjects. Descriptions of each program (many of which have never been seen in syndication) were accompanied by photos and filming credits. In some cases, the entire script—complete with stage directions—was reprinted.
Fascinating as all these features were, the most remarkable element of Twilight Zone Magazine was its truly bizarre assortment of advertisements. “Harness the power of witchcraft” a typical notice reads, “learn to place or remove spiritual curses.” In addition to promoting an ocean of infernal MOVIE MERCHANDISING, the publication peddaled supernatural GAMES, underworld fantasy art and horrific GIFT NOVELTIES. One ad offered “Monster Paper Dolls” of Frankenstein’s Monster, Dracula, and the Wolfman. The characters came in traditional garb but included football uniforms, Shakespearean theatrical costumes, and even Santa suits. Another pitch declared “Aliens Want Earthling Pen Pals” and listed an address to write for “space creature profiles” and “alien correspondence.” Paranoid readers could even send away for “Halley’s Comet Insurance,” guaranteed to pay all expenses for anyone killed, dismembered, or severely disfigured in a mishap with the streaking comet.
Despite fierce loyalty of devoted readers, Twilight Zone Magazine began to falter by the late 1980s. The once-bimonthly gazette appeared erratically, sometimes months passed without a new issue. By 1989, publication ceased altogether.
TWILIGHT ZONE—THE MOVIE Twilight Zone—The Movie tries to recreate the suspense and drama of the classic TWILIGHT ZONE television series. However, the 1983 film falls somewhat short. A compilation of four segments bound by riveting opening and final sequences, the anthology takes up the subject of hell and DEMONS with mixed results.
One segment stars Vic Morrow as a disgruntled bigot who blames minorities for his many problems in life. He vehemently denounces Jews, blacks, and Asians with ugly racial slurs. According to Morrow, they are responsible for his stalled career, his declining social status, and his overall malaise. But, as narrator Burgess Meredith explains, he has no idea what suffering is until he is “catapulted into the darkest corner of the Twilight Zone” from which there is no escape.
After loudly extolling his racist theories at a local bar, Morrow stumbles out onto the parking lot. But as he leaves the place, he is transported into realm where he is the target of hatred and hostility. Morrow becomes the innocent black man beaten by the Ku Klux Klan and the frightened Vietnamese refugee gunned down by trigger-happy soldiers. The segments ends as Morrow, now marked as a Jew during the height of the Nazi reign of terror, is loaded into a metaphysical railcar headed for the ultimate concentration camp. He peers out to see his friends leaving the bar; however, they can neither see nor hear him. Morrow has departed their realm. (In a sadly ironic twist, this film about departure to the next world was Morrow’s last work; he was killed in a helicopter accident during filming.)
Other supernatural sections feature a depiction of hell in ANIMATED CARTOON form and the transformation of one of the main characters into a flesh-eating demon.
TYMPANUM RELIEF French sculptor GISLEBERTUS led a team of artists in carving the Tympanum Relief, a massive artwork above the doorway to the Cathedral of St. Lazare in Autun, from 1130 to 1135. Using images from the Bible as well as symbols from ancient myth, the composition shows the LAST JUDGMENT, the event prophesied in REVELATION when all will be consigned to heaven or hell. During the artist’s time, paintings, mosaics, and sculptures depicting this theme became a common element in CHURCH ART AND ARCHITECTURE.
The Tympanum Relief shows the underworld and its many agonies. Gislebertus includes a hell littered with huge snakes, dragons, and DEMONS gnawing on human souls before thrusting them into a gaping HELLMOUTH. At Christ’s left hand, the fiends use a scale similar to the one described in the Egyptian BOOK OF THE DEAD to weigh each spirit. Demons lean into the scale, trying to shift the balance in favor of damnation. A gallery of anguished faces surrounds the spectacle, as the accursed plead for relief that will never come.
The Tympanum Relief is one of the first artistic compositions of the Middle Ages that can be positively linked to its creator. Earlier depictions of this theme are anonymous or otherwise unidentifiable by artist. Gislebertus, who signed his tympanum relief, had a flair for creating ruffled textures and often depicted humans as elongated and out of proportion. His unusual style and innovative technique are easily identifiable.
This unique blend of underworld images from Christian doctrine, apocrypha, and pagan IMAGERY, greatly contributed to the advancement of religious art in medieval Europe.