History Main / Hellevator

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

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

* There's actually a song called [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdfIfFGCqgo "Hellevator"]], sung by a K-Pop group.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheCupheadShow'': In "Roll the Dice", after King Dice fails at capturing VideoGame/{{Cuphead}}, Henchman is sent to retrieve Dice in an elevator going down towards the underworld to receive a YouHaveFailedMe punishment from The Devil.

* In ''WesternAnimation/AdventuresOfSonicTheHedgehog'' episode "Robotnik-Land", while on the Franchise/{{Sonic}} Ride, Robotnik, Scratch and Grounder run into an elevator that takes them to a FireAndBrimstoneHell.

* [[http://www.scpwiki.com/scp-636#:~:text=Description%3A%20SCP-636%20is%20a,sub-basement%20beneath%20the%20building SCP-636]] is a hotel elevator with a magnetic card reader that unlocks a [[MissingFloor "non existent"]] third sub-basement of the building. All personnel who have attempted to access this floor have disappeared, including a two-man exploration team whose helmet cameras later turned up disassembled with [[CorruptedData their memory cards wiped]].

--> ''I'm on a hellevator''

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, probably pausing to [[NumberOfTheBeast blink on the six a few times]].

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.

* Several portals to the Netherworld in ''TabletopGame/FengShui'' take the form of elevators. The Netherworld is just a rather weird PortalNetwork, though -- the Underworld is what you would actually refer to as Hell.

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. Animated works will sometimes depict the Hellevator as an escalator or a roller coaster.

* ''VideoGame/DarkSouls'' has one of these as a shortcut unlocked after killing the Demon Firesage, which leads from Quelaag's Domain to the entrance of Lost Izalith. Not an entirely straight example, as Lost Izalith isn't actually implied to hell, it just really matches the [[FireAndBrimstoneHell aesthetic.]]
** While [[VideoGame/DarkSoulsII the sequel]] has an elevator that goes ''up'' into the Iron Keep which is also not, strictly speaking, Hell but is still full of fire and ruled over by the Smelter Demon and demonic-looking Old Iron King.

* In one of the story arcs of ''Manga/SailorMoon'', Sailor Moon, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto get on an elevator in the Infinity College, to try 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.
* In the manga version of ''Manga/ElfenLied'', Chief Kakuzawa has an elevator that runs to an area incredibly far below the surface of the Diclonius Research Institute. The air pressure becomes close to unbearable before you even exit the car. Once you get to the destination, you find such charming things as [[spoiler: the massive graveyard of the Kakuzawas' supposedly Diclonius ancestors, who fled there after lives of intense persecution in Medieval Japan. The hideously mutated gigantic body of Kakuzawa's own daughter, Anna. The thousand-plus clones of Kurama's daughter Mariko, most of whom have no real faces and live in boxes with bags over their heads, there to have their spines harvested for a military boondoggle that ends up not achieving its goal. It's also where Kakuzawa and Lucy at last have it out, with her dismissing all his plans and telling him he wasn't like her--after she kills him. And did we mention its radioactive?]] So yeah, Hell.
* An episode of ''Anime/YamishibaiJapaneseGhostStories'' has a stressed out father taking a mall elevator to get away from his family for a while. Said elevator takes him to [[FourIsDeath B 4]] instead of B3 like he asked, a floor that isnt supposed to be in the building. The floor opens up into a dark, unlit section of the mall, and the remaining passengers silently shuffle out into the darkness, leaving him behind. The elevator attendant next takes him to [[ThirteenIsUnlucky B 13]], which opens up into a creepy, red-lit area where a bloodied humanoid figure suddenly rushes towards the elevator, though the door closes before the audience can see clearly exactly what it was. Now terrified, the father demands to be returned to his original floor, only for the attendant to be revealed to be a mannequin, despite moving and talking earlier. He's finally returned to the original floor... only to notice that there is suddenly nobody around, as the mall's PA system announces that opening hours are over, and the lights go out...

* One spoof of ''Literature/JourneyToTheWest'' has the Hellevator overshooting and ending up in outer space.
* The "Springfield in Hell" segments in ''[[WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons Simpsons Comics]] Heebie-Jeebie Hullabaloo'' feature one of these.

* An ImagineSpot in ''Film/DeconstructingHarry'' features one of these...albeit a slow-moving one with [[ElevatorFloorAnnouncement floor announcements]].

* In The beginning of ''VideoGame/CryOfFear'', the pedophile rendered the apartments elevator unusable for everyone without an access code. The children had to bear it and take the stairs, where he would wait and pull them into his apartment. When Simon finally finds the code and take the elevator, it goes down. Deep in the earth it stops, forcing Simon to take the stairs even deeper.

* The Giant Elevator stage in ''VideoGame/MegaManZero 3'' is a nod to this. You take a massive elevator deep into the earth, and the boss at the end of the level is based off [[HellHound Cerberus]].
* Some fans have referred to the elevator to Tourian in ''VideoGame/{{Metroid}}'', ''VideoGame/SuperMetroid'', and ''Metroid Zero Mission'' as the "Elevator to Hell".

* ''Franchise/SilentHill''

** ''VideoGame/SilentHill1'' had an UP Elevator to Hell. [[spoiler:It takes you to [[FourIsDeath the fourth floor]] [[MissingFloor of a three-floor hospital.]]]]
** Don't forget the elevator that takes you to the final level (appropriately named "Nowhere").
** Literally ALL the elevators in the franchise could be considered Hellevators, though they usually lead from lesser hell to a worse one. And Silent Hill 2 even has Stairway to Hell.
** Also in ''Silent Hill 2'', don't forget that one elevator that suddenly stops, followed by the hero's radio making him participate to a game show [[spoiler:(the right answers are the code to a box that contains ammo and health bonuses)]]. As if that wasn't unsettling enough, the host promises a very bad punishment if you get the answers wrong.

* In the WebAnimation/{{Eddsworld}} video "Hello Hellhole" the gang summon an elevator straight to hell because their T.V. broke. Funnier still they summon it by Googling 'How to get to hell.'

* The title card for WebVideo/TheNostalgiaCritic's review of ''Devil'' has elevator doors closing on terrified Critic with hell behind him. Scarier than anything in the movie.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'' short "Satan's Waitin", it was not an elevator that took Sylvester to Hades, but an escalator which seemed to go in an endless downward helix. In a movie adaptation of the episode, Yosemite Sam is already in hell and tries to take an elevator that would bring him back to the land of the living, but instead finds out that it takes him further down into hell.

* There's an urban legend/stock horror-story plot that goes like this:
** Someone has a recurring nightmare that a horse-drawn carriage driven by Death stops in front of her house. Death opens the door to show that the carriage is packed with people and leers, "There's room for one more." But the protagonist doesn't get on and the death carriage of doom goes on its way. One day, the protagonist is waiting for an elevator. One stops that is packed with people and the operator, of course, says there's room for one more. All the little hairs stand up on the back of our protagonist's neck and she shakes her head vehemently. As she waits for the next elevator she hears a terrible crash; the cable's snapped and everyone's dead. The end!
** In another version, she went to an amusement park and it was a ride (the ones that spin you around really fast so you stick to them and lift you up in the air) that there was room for one more on.
** In another version, the ride wasn't at an amusement park but merely on a boardwalk.
** The origin of this story is probably the short story "The Bus Conductor" by E. F. Benson (first published in 1906). In Benson's story, though, the protagonist is male, and it's a bus rather than an elevator that he refuses to board.

* Sarah Ruhl's ''Theatre/{{Eurydice}}'', a modern stage version of the Orpheus and Eurydice myth, features characters descending into the Underworld via elevator.

* Sarah Ruhl's modern stage version of the Eurydice myth features characters descending into the Underworld via elevator.

* During the ''ComicBook/{{Inferno}}'' crossover arc, where the layer between reality and the supernatural is breached, a group of people are trapped in an elevator that turns into one of these. The viewer isn't shown what happens inside, but ComicBook/EmmaFrost has a telepathic vision, and is severely traumatized.

* An episode of ''Anime/YamiShibai'' has a stressed out father taking a mall elevator to get away from his family for a while. Said elevator takes him to [[FourIsDeath B 4]] instead of B3 like he asked, a floor that isnt supposed to be in the building. The floor opens up into a dark, unlit section of the mall, and the remaining passengers silently shuffle out into the darkness, leaving him behind. The elevator attendant next takes him to [[ThirteenIsUnlucky B 13]], which opens up into a creepy, red-lit area where a bloodied humanoid figure suddenly rushes towards the elevator, though the door closes before the audience can see clearly exactly what it was. Now terrified, the father demands to be returned to his original floor, only for the attendant to be revealed to be a mannequin, despite moving and talking earlier. He's finally returned to the original floor... only to notice that there is suddenly nobody around, as the mall's PA system announces that opening hours are over, and the lights go out...

* ''Literature/PercyJacksonAndTheOlympians'': The main way into the Underworld is an elevator in an LA recording studio, which magically transitions into the ferry across the Styx from the myths. The ferryman Charon still requires payment before any soul is allowed to board the elevator.

* The Kirstie Alley TV movie ''Toothless'' features one. Kirstie ends up riding it [[spoiler:back onto the mortal coil.]]

* The premise of the ''VideoGame/{{Doom}}'' mod ''Going Down''. You begin from the rooftop of a regular corporate bulding and head down in the elevator. Initially you visit normal-looking, if a bit twisted offices, laboratories etc., but later the elevator takes you to an underground necropolis, a Satanic cathedral, and finally, yup, Hell itself.

* On the ''WesternAnimation/RockosModernLife'' episode "Carnival Knowledge," the Hellevator (called "Elevator to Hell" [[GettingCrapPastTheRadar with no use of weak euphemisms like "heck" and "Hades" or a scenery censor to cover up the last word]]) was shown as an amusement park ride that Rocko and Heffer try to get on, but are turned away when the carny tells Heffer he's too heavy for the ride.

* [[http://www.scpwiki.com/scp-636#:~:text=Description%3A%20SCP-636%20is%20a,sub-basement%20beneath%20the%20building. SCP-636]] is a hotel elevator with a magnetic card reader that unlocks a [[MissingFloor "non existent"]] third sub-basement of the building. All personnel who have attempted to access this floor have disappeared, including a two-man exploration team whose helmet cameras later turned up disassembled with [[CorruptedData their memory cards wiped]].

* [[http://www.scpwiki.com/scp-636#:~:text=Description%3A%20SCP-636%20is%20a,sub-basement%20beneath%20the%20building. SCP-636]] is a hotel elevator with a magnetic card reader that unlocks a [[MissingFloor "non existent"]] third sub-basement of the building. All personnel who have attempted to access this floor have disappeared, including a two-man exploration team whose helmet cameras later turned up disassembled with their memory cards wiped.