History Main / Hellevator

* In the third story arc of ''Manga/SailorMoon'' / ''[[Anime/SailorMoonCrystal Crystal]]'', Sailor Moon, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto get on an elevator in the Infinity College to find the BigBad. While the elevator doesn't actually take them to Hell, the trip down is incredibly dark and creepy, and Sailor Moon ''feels'' like it's taking them there. The other three senshi, who are used to quiet and isolation, don't seem quite as bothered.

And yes, this trope title and StairwayToHeaven could both be considered FridgeBrilliance since [[EvilIsEasy it's easier to be immoral]] (and stand lazily in an elevator as it descends) than it is to [BeinggGoodSucks be moral and virtuous]] (and climb thousands of stairs to heaven).

And yes, this trope title and StairwayToHeaven could both be considered FridgeBrilliance since it's easier to be immoral (and stand lazily in an elevator as it descends) than it is to be moral and virtuous (and climb thousands of stairs to heaven).

* There is a game called ''The Elevator'' in which an attendant accompanies you on your elevator trip. During the trip, she makes banter with you in various ways, and your choices determine which stop you get off at. [[spoiler:The floor count is decreasing in the negatives, each of the stops represent a deadly sin and your punishment for getting off at those floors, and the second to last floor, -666, is actually Hell yet is not a floor you can get off at. The very last floor is 0, which is reincarnating back on Earth and is considered a worse punishment in-universe.]]

* ''LightNovel/OthersidePicnic'': One of the Otherside entrances that Toriko discovered is via a specific floor combination of a particular elevator. The floors that they visit in between aren't normal floors (later revealed as being in interstitial space), and some contains monstrous beings. In a filler episode, an elevator in a different building takes them to a fiery landscape implied to be Hell.

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. Additionally, an enclosed elevator provides a sense of being trapped as it descends -- you can always stop going down a tunnel or staircase, or even climb back up an escalator, but if the elevator starts plunging down you can't do anything but wait until it opens... and pray. Even better, it's cheap to make the set. Animated works will sometimes depict the Hellevator as an escalator or a roller coaster. Expect to see floor numbers passing by at an increasingly rapid rate, only pausing to [[NumberOfTheBeast blink on the six a few times]].

And yes, this trope title and StairwayToHeaven could both be considered FridgeBrilliance since it's easier to be immoral (and stand lazily in an elevator) than it is to be moral (and climb stairs).

* There is a story about an old lady waiting for an elevator at an A-kon in Dallas and the elevator opens up to reveal only one guy cosplaying as Manga/{{Devilman}}, who looks at her and asks "Going down?"

* There's something of a metaphorical example in ''WesternAnimation/MissionHill'' where Andy has been loafing on unemployment and visits friend Jim at work, who turns out to have a good prestige job. As Andy rides down the elevator he's listening to professionals younger than him discussing their comfortable lives, and ends up at a gloomy sub-basement with a scuzzy maintenance man who looks like an older version of himself.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/TomAndJerry'' "Heavenly Puss", Tom goes down the Hellevator. Except it was more of a hole in the ground. After he went through that hole, he fell quite a long fall to hell.

* In ''WesternAnimation/TomAndJerry'', Tom goes down the Hellevator. Except it was more of a hole in the ground. After he went through that hole, he fell quite a long fall to hell.

* ''Wiki/SCPFoundation'':

* There's actually a song called [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdfIfFGCqgo "Hellevator"]] sung by {{Music/Stray Kids}}, a K-Pop group.
--> ''I'm on a hellevator.''