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Hellevator: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
{{quote|''"I walked into a hotel... I say, 'Listen, could you direct me to the elevators?' ''(in a snooty voice)'' 'You mean, the elevators to the rooms?' 'No, I mean the elevator to Hell!'"''
|'''[[Tom Waits]]''', ''Big Time''}}
{{quote|''"We're on an express elevator to Hell -- going down!"''
|'''Private Hudson''', ''[[Alien]]s''}}
The '''Hellevator''' is an elevator that serves as a bridge between the world of the living and that of the dead. And that's really about it.
The main advantage of the Hellevator in fiction, particularly visual fiction, is that's it's an obvious way of letting the audience know that they're going deep beneath the surface of the Earth. A mystical hell-traveling elevator is surprisingly plausible because people, especially children, often don't understand how elevators work. This was certainly more true back when the trope was first introduced with early film (back then only employees of elevator buildings were even allowed to operate them) than it is today, but the trope lives on largely because of its obvious visual appeal. When an elevator goes down for several hundred floors, it's pretty difficult to come to any other conclusion as to where it's going. Even better, it's cheap to make the set.
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{{examples}}
== Anime
* An elevator ride to a mysterious place miles underground features in ''[[The Big O]]'''s ending, but oddly the elevator continues going down for several seconds ''after'' the floor counter is shown to reach B666.
==
* One [[Jack Chick]] comic has two demons goofing off so that one guy ends up being converted to Christianity. As punishment, Satan forces them to go down another level of Hell for every time this guy ends up converting someone else. They end up going down several thousand, using the elevator to get there. And the operator is [[Josef Stalin]] in a hazmat suit.
* One recent{{when}} spoof of ''[[Journey to the West]]'' has the Hellevator overshooting and ending up in outer space.
* The "Springfield in Hell" segments in ''[[The Simpsons (animation)|Simpsons Comics]] Heebie-Jeebie Hullabaloo'' feature one of these.
* In [http://www.jtillustration.com/nil Nil: A Land Beyond Belief]" an express elevator goes from Nil to the Infernal Realm; the entrance is surrounded by protesters denouncing eternal punishment as unfair.
== Fan Works ==
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== Literature ==
* Several on ''[[The Holders Series]]'', both down and up, but in particular [
* A nightmarish variation of this trope's explored in the classic short story "Descending", featuring a mysterious escalator that goes down... and down... and down.
* [[Piers Anthony]] 's ''[[Incarnations of Immortality]]'' novels feature a Hellevator which connects Hell, Earth, and Purgatory, but not Heaven (God wouldn't allow that).
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== Theme Parks ==
* Disney gave us ''[[The Twilight Zone]] -- Tower of Terror'', a semi-nightmarish ride which takes the classic freefall ride, turned it into one of these, and randomized it so that each ride has a different drop pattern. The story of the ride (except for the Tokyo version) is that back in the 1930s five passengers
* In [[wikipedia:Playland (Vancouver)|Playland]], a theme park in Vancouver, BC, there is a "drop tower" type ride actually called the Hellevator. It's still standing and operating as of 2011, despite an accident in which a girl lost her feet.
* [[The Haunted Mansion]] in Disneyland has an example of this, even though you're supposed to think the room is stretching.
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* Used in the pilot episode of ''[[Cow and Chicken]]''.
* Appears at the end of ''[[The Simpsons (animation)|The Simpsons]]'' episode "Simpson Bible Stories" where the Simpson family find themselves in the Apocalypse, and while everyone else goes to heaven, they go to hell. According to Homer, there's a buffet in hell.
* A cat-shaped cave (resembling the Cave of Wonders from ''[[Aladdin (Disney film)|Aladdin]]'') actually serves as the entrance to Hell in
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Religion Tropes]]
[[Category:Infernal Tropes]]
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[[Category:Just for Pun]]
[[Category:Afterlife Tropes]]
▲[[Category:Hellevator]]
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