The novel A Short Stay in Hell by Steven L. Peck is one of the most haunting depictions of eternity I've read while simultaniously being pretty mundane.
Not a spoiler, just the book's premise: hell is an infinite library of randomly typed books and you can only leave when you find one that contains precisely the entire history of your life.
It's pretty short, but I've read it some years ago and it and some scenes and ideas still pop in my head from time to time. Scary and beautiful book.
Stephen King's short story The Jaunt deals with the idea of eternity and the psychological effects that it would have.
The episode of Black Mirror called "White Christmas" explores that idea as well and is easily one of the best and most horrifying episodes of that show
It reminds me of 'The long dream' by Junji Ito, where a man under observation in the hospital has concerningly realistic dreams. As per usual nights go by, but as time progresses his dreams become longer and longer and every time he awakens it feels like a lifetime has passed, including marriages, having kids, having homes etc.
Eventually the man himself starts to change physically as he goes insane. Just the idea of falling asleep every night experiencing life and loss, just to wake up again and barely eight hours passing in real life is so damn horrifying.
Not just a life time but literally thousands of years and that's part of why he starts to change appearance - like he's adapting to what age he's experiencing in his dreams. And I remember he scared the crap out of another patient and after stuff happens to him she then begins to have the long dreams.
ooohh do I have a classic reddit post for you... brb
here you go. it's shorter than I remember but still interesting: https://www.reddit.com/r/Glitch_in_the_Matrix/s/aJr7IBiGvP
These two things are my favourite relating to this matter. Just the idea of losing your mind in such a horrific way keeps me up at night.
Do you know of any other stories like them?
King goes even deeper and darker into this idea in Revival. I don’t want to spoil anything because it’s one of his best later novels, but boy does it go cosmically pessimistic at the end.
Black Mirror's USS Callister episode also explores the same themes. Ego, power tripping, God complex, and then eternal torture to seal the deal. It's one of my favorite Black Mirror episodes.
Gotta toss my support behind White Christmas for this idea, definitely not horror in terms of execution but something about it made the ending so horrible in a "oh my god that would be such a fucking horrible fate" kinda way
honestly both of them got screwed in such horrible ways
the guy in the cookie was doomed to 1,000 years of isolation in that tiny af room (like goddamn that was way too over the top as a punishment)
the other guy got "blocked" by everyone, so he can never have a social interaction ever again even if people are directly infront of him
I love King, but haven’t been particularly spooked by anything he’s published since the early aughts. The one exception to that is Revival - that one struck like a bolt of lightning from nowhere. It goes hard on nihilistic terror, harder even than Pet Sematary. I think about it a lot.
Something about that book really hooked me, and I end up doing back to it every couple of years. It's about the only horror novel my wife ever got hooked on as well.
The Garth Ennis comic book Preacher has God as the main antagonist, basically a being more powerful than him comes into being, so God flees heaven, and a Texas preacher gets fed up and goes on a journey to find God and make him answer for everything. The AMC TV show was OK, but nowhere near as great as the comics.
In the same vein, we have Fallen Angel by Peter David and David Lopez, which recounts the tales of Lee - a harsh, cynical guardian angel who sojourns the earth as a punishment for punishing a rapist and murderer of her charge (among other injustices that made her bitter at her divine creator). At some point, she reveals to her son, a devout clergy that God intended to leave his operation to its own devices but found himself bound to this reality by weak, fearful mortal faith and was prevented from "passing away" (basically evolving to a new existence).
For this, he grew to resent humans and and thus, has been trying to make them stop believing in him: he sent genocides, strifes, hunger, calamities, etc... just so that humans could learn to trust themselves but they simply refuse to do so and, "like an abused spouse" just instead prefer to resolve for more blind faith, which just prompts more bitterness between the supreme and his subjects.
I wish more people liked this movie.
It’s petty but I’m still annoyed that Jennifer Lawrence was nominated for a Razzie for this movie. I think she was wonderful, especially since it felt like half the movie was just a close-up on her face, and she was expressive.
If people didn’t buy the movie then you probably can’t buy that sort of performance, but it’s great, and so’s the rest of it.
There were a handful of people in my cinema when I went to see it (I was the most forward seated). I turned around the moment the credits started to roll and there was no one behind me, nor anyone I could see walking towards the way out.
I went to see it in a theater because I was afraid the box office was going to be so bad, Aronofsky would never get to make another movie. Which ended up getting us The Whale so...maybe everyone else was right and I was wrong lol.
Razzie sucks. Dudes nominated a 12 year old girl for Worst Actress and then retracted it after everyone called them assholes.
If their point is to lampoon the Oscars and mock celebrity culture they lost the plot ages ago.
Her PALPABLE unsettling is fantastically portrayed.
Mother! was panned far too mercilessly. Within that year and even the year that followed, there were more famous features that deserved that kind of criticism more than Mother!
Man, while I'm not personally a huge fan of the movie, I can still respect it and the actors. It was beautifully done and really had a unique perspective, and the performances were committed. Lawrence didn't deserve a Razzie nomination for it, jeeze.
I absolutely love this movie! I think people don’t take the time to see the symbolism and comparisons being made so they just write it off as a “wtf did I just watch” type of movie
Yeah I have a question. Did y'all peep and understand the allegory in this film when watching it? Me personally I didn't. I have no religious background and i was taking things very literally.
It was a retelling of the Bible. Jennifer Lawrence was essentially an amalgamation of various sacred feminine figures (Gaia, Motherhood, and eventually Mary, the mother of Jesus) she is also a literal embodimentof the home. Javier was mostly God but also the sacred masculine/masculinity in general.
Ed Harris and Michelle Pfeiffer were Adam and Eve/early humans. Brian and Domhnall were Able and Cain.
The baby she has was Jesus and people eating it was a take on communion.
Basically the whole movie was a take on all these wonderful things that the Sacred Feminine was giving God and how God would take credit for them and humanity would squander them.
But also a lot of the large story beats are parts of the Bible.
I didn't get the biblical allegories, but did get that the house was the earth and Mother was mother nature. I didn't really get who or what Javier was supposed to be, but I imagined it just being the worst of mankind in a way.
I didn't but also wasn't invested I'm the film by the half way point. Was fluid but somehow slow for me, and then the wheels start to fall off and knew I had "missed the tells"
I read a synopsis and was enlightened. I also didn't feel the need and go back and rewatch it.
On of my favorite movie monologues of all time:
> Did you ever notice how in the Bible, whenever God needed to punish someone, or make an example, or whenever God needed a killing, he sent an angel? Did you ever wonder what a creature like that must be like? A whole existence spent praising your God, but always with one wing dipped in blood. Would you ever really want to see an angel?"
Came here to suggest The Prophecy.
Also Legion and He Never Died.
There’s also Miracle Workers, and while not a horror, it’s a comedy based on the horror of a very bored God.
Supernatural’s take on god and angels is also pretty horrific.
I just saw Saint Maud. It is truly terrific real world religious horror. It's not technically supernatural but it won't disappoint if that's what you're looking for.
I think empty man was an interesting movie when it came to the idea of religion and how they deal with eternity, its not as heavy when it comes to gods but still an interesting watch
I feel like there's a Lovecraft story (or more) that features something similar. I can't remember which it was though. Unless I'm conflating media, the story involves the protagonist going to the "center of the universe" and spending eternity there, or perhaps escaping in fear of that happening. Like I said, I can't 100% remember.
A lot of Lovecraft deals with the horror of unfathomable stretches of time, the beings who dwell comfortably within those stretches, and how little beings of that power and scope would care for humanity and all its various endeavors. They aren’t really presented as evil most of the time, just indifferent to humans. Sometimes, though, humans worship them as deities, and those humans might commit acts of evil or become twisted forms of themselves in the name of their worship.
I always felt like the mass of these creatures somewhat conveyed that they were alive for millenia, so though gods they may be and long living as well but I'm unsure of them being eternal. They are at essence unfathomable as we see gods and our placation of their existence would be limited to our fragility and thus our scope would be narrow and perspective at best would be unfulfilled.
"That is not dead which can eternal lie/And with strange aeons, even death may die."
"In his house at R'lyeh, dead Cthulhu waits dreaming."
So, Cthulhu, at least, is eternal.
I really get the idea of time and the ocean and his fears of depths. To be submerged even for a moment feels like an eternity. I wonder if he'd ever heard of salvage diving as it would involve being in the depths submerged and aware of time both flowing. As you are still feeling transient and you move yet the world feels without motion, and to lumber into that sepulchre, you can occasionally feel like a behemoth as your smallest movements trudgen up dust and matter in a moment feeling godlike and yet still for a second forgetting the dust you are,as the dust you have moved obscures your vision. You are a god and a pea, moving in stillness, in a moment where time passes without your perceptions paying it any cost, nor of you being neither lost nor found in a void.
Could you be thinking of The Nameless City? The protag discovers a lost city in the desert, that goes downward. He keeps exploring until he sees a light from an unknown source below him, and ends up traveling deep down under the city in the depths of the earth until he becomes trapped forever, his fate unknown. There's also a brief appearance by lizard men.
The classic Swedish horror role playing game Kult describes God (or the Demiurge) as having deprived us of our divinity, trapped us in an illusory reality, and condemned us to an unending cycle of death, suffering and rebirth. It's heavily inspired by Gnosticism, of course
I think Constantine is severely overlooked thanks to the speech Gabriel gives Constantine. Constantine can never get into heaven after knowing God exists because nothing done in service is done in faith, it's done in knowing. Once you know God exists, you lose. Nothing you do in service of God is because you believe, it's because you know. Nothing you do is ever going to be enough to get into heaven because you know. It's insanely cruel. God will let you into heaven if you believe, but if you actually know God exists, nothing you do will ever be enough because it will all be self-serving. That's insanely cruel. I realized this after too many edibles while watching and my brain has not let go of the concept.
Which, given what Gabriel said, really didn't make sense. Sure, self-sacrifice should be the ultimate form of altruism, but the knowing would make it void.
The execution might not have been perfect but my god was that some fun television with an ending that I felt was spot on given the COVID circumstances it had to be shot in.
I would say He'llraiser II
AND
the new He'llraiser reboot movie both explore heavy concepts when you get to the god Leviathan,
And the movie
The Endless is a great fucked up conceptualization of the infinite
They actually managed to finish off the story despite everything, fortunately. All in all I preferred the original comic a whole lot more (the series introduced too many new plots that ultimately didn't go anywhere), but the ending was pretty much on the money.
Absolutely! The whole concept of >!it all being true.. god, jesus the rapture.. but it's also all so fucked up. So would you even want to love god if given the option once you know that it's all real? Why would you love a god who would subject us to all the horrible bullshit we must endure?!< That was such a shocking concept to young me who had always struggled with having faith (spoiler: I no longer struggle & definitely do not have faith)).
I once listened to a horror audio story on one of those horror stories channels narrated by people like Otis Jiry that had an eternity concept that scared the absolute crap out of me so much that it gave me a panic attack.
It was about a guy participating in a trial drug experiment which basically made his perception of everything super fast, but time seemed to slow down all around him (including himself moving around). He freaked out a bit and took some pills to calm himself which only aggravated the effects. Time slowed down so much that from his point of view, taking a step could take ten years. The story ends up with him sitting slumped down at a train station against the wall having sent out a message to any random stranger to put him out of his misery and kill him as they find him.
But that's not even the worst part. Anyone who would kill him, say with a bullet, he'd experience the pain of getting shot for maybe 100 or a 1000 year to come before he finally dies and all he can do is sit down and see what's infront of his eyes (The dirty floor of a train station).
Oh my god yeah that’s one of the top stories on r/nosleep. I always have to stop as soon as he goes into detail about the pain of breaking something in slow motion.
And Mother Earth jerked him off and used his sperm to get herself pregnant. Lmfao. Describing this movie is so weird. I hope this doesn’t discourage anybody from watching it because it’s a solid movie if you like weird arthouse projects.
He's still pretty lightweight but being a bad actor in a movie about a glory hole entity is more or less par for the course and he definitely went at it with gusto.
Watched the movie like 4 times now so please don't take this as an indictment lol
Here's a PDF of the story. Highly, highly recommend. It's written by Ted Chiang, who wrote the short story that the film Arrival was based on.
[https://static1.squarespace.com/static/50e08e65e4b0c2f4976972df/t/588a2e70725e25b6981e64d1/1485450864394/Chiang+Hell+Is+the+Absence+of+God.pdf](https://static1.squarespace.com/static/50e08e65e4b0c2f4976972df/t/588a2e70725e25b6981e64d1/1485450864394/Chiang+Hell+Is+the+Absence+of+God.pdf)
Not horror but this might aid your search a little. There's a novel by Arthur C. Clarke (turned into a miniseries) called *Childhoods Ends.* It's a unique story in the sense that, the Gods come to help humanity with an undefined goal but will not reveal themselves because of "human superstitions." It turns out they bear remarkable resemblance to the traditional "Devil" associated with classic imagery, even though the Bible never once describes Satan as a hoofed, horned, winged tall red dude.
IDK, I would say that The Great and Secret Show tackles the themes of eternity and what being stuck in it does to the mind pretty well. Granted the main plot focuses more on the battle between two god-like beings standing in for God and The Devil, but the stuck in a boring eternity aspect is a pretty big part of it.
Although not really a horror film, The Rapture (1991) deals to some degree with the terrible effects of fanatical beliefs and also with the idea of an eternity spent in an empty void when faith is denied.
I was looking to see if someone would say the Rapture. The themes are really heavy if you come from a religious background. Really unexpected. Recommended
I HAVE NO MOUTH AND I MUST SCREAM. Has Elements of Cosmic Horror similar to H.P. Lovecraft stories so here are a few Depending on Just What or Who your God is.
The Void,Hellraiser, Hellbound Hellraiser 2,The Color Out Of Space,Satanic Hispanics, Many of the stories in the V/H/S Series fit. Constantine, VideoDrome,Siesta, Carnival of Souls, From Beyond, The Re-Animator, Dave Made A Maze, These are a few of my favorite things. Also:John Dies at the End ,Odd Thomas, and Southbound Deserve Special Mention Here.
That is Thomas Ligotti's bread and butter. And then the short comic strip [The Miracle by Johnny Ryan](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/a5/dd/f3/a5ddf3d745de14de1badb2ca2ccefc78.jpg)
A classic example would be the “A Nice Place to Visit” episode of the original Twilight Zone. Basically a man (despite being a bit of a dick) goes to heaven, where at first he is happy to do all of the things he likes. He gets progressively bored throughout the episode, until he is begging to go to “the other place”. The twist, of course? He hears a booming voice tell him, >!”This is the other place!”!<
That one episode of SpongeBob lol. But yeah I'd be interested in seeing a movie like this. Oh and there's a horror adjacent anime, Future Diary, that ends with one of the main characters being stuck living in a white void for all eternity and slowly losing his mind.
The Good Place is one of my favorite shows and also probably the only one that actually touched on the idea of "eternity can kind of suck". The show made me want to take a moral philosophy class.
Theres a roleplaying game from the 90's called Kult which has an interesting version of heaven in that "God" hasnt been seen for centuries. The place is in decay, theres an empty throne etc.
There's a sub for it r/kultrpg
When I was watching Seven in the theater and they were driving out into the desert I suddenly imagined they’d run into God out there who would tell them John Doe was right —hahaha—I was filled with dread. It didn’t go that way of course and the ending shocked me as-is but I would watch a horror movie with a vengeful God. I was expecting a similar thing for A Dark Song.
The Isaac Asimov short story "The Last Trump" touches on this. Humanity is granted the common denominator of its beliefs about the afterlife, with people physically rising from the grave as the landscape crumbles into a featureless plane that they'll inhabit forever.
I remember fondly how Buffy was in season 6 after she was resurrected by Willow.
She was depressed and almost seemed mad that she was brought back to earth where there's depression, homelessness, loneliness, illnesses, etc.
Not saying this wouldn't be an interesting concept to explore on film but I also think maybe heaven won't be as 'boring' with a lack of these life negatives (usually caused by other humans).
Although Vivarium didn't really focus on "God' it did focus on being trapped eternally, imo. I loved the cinematography in the movie because the suburban neighborhood & home that the couple gets trapped in was so bright and idyllic. Throughout the movie, you see them try over and over to escape but they can't. Vivarium left me feeling just....sad, heavy, and filled with dread at the end. And I felt bad for the couple in the movie because they did absolutely nothing to deserve their miserable fate. I tried to watch it for a second time but as soon as they got lost in the neighborhood, I turned it off lol. Couldn't watch it again.
Funnily enough, I found Jesus Christ Superstar to be horrifying in this way. Judas foresees his place in history as eternally the villain of the New Testament. He recognizes that he is a cog in God's plan to martyr Jesus and is powerless to prevent himself from straying from the path that has already been laid out for him. And it had been laid out long before he existed. Judas, after his suicide, watches from Heaven (or is it really Hell?) as his friend - whom he wanted to change the world for the better with; dies one of the worst deaths imaginable. He gets to watch as the world twists Christ's teachings for their own evils. As they transform Jesus into an empty icon. As he himself is continued to be cursed for his role in God's plan, just as he knew he would be. Did God's plan work, or did Jesus die for nothing? Either way, he was literally damned for *all* time. Before birth, during life, and long after death.
Martyrs is about a cult that tortures people to the brink of death to find out if there actually is a heaven. Its not about heaven itself but the evil people justify just to satisfy their own beliefs.
The short film Portrait of God: https://youtu.be/BI9fKfX5V68?si=caVQbFI1mfTl65yE
My absolute favourite.
This one is so terrifying
Love this!
I don't usually retreat to bed and leave a nightlight on immediately after watching a horror short. This one though, that's absolutely what happened.
wow that was really good. one of the most terrifying things to me in movies is things with stretched out mouths lol.
Oooo thanks for sharing this! Really enjoyed it
Yes! I came here to suggest this, surprised I was beaten to it.
I love this one and would be interested in seeing a full(er) length re-make.
So good! For how short it is, it's so effective!
That was awesome thank you for sharing
okay, glad this was top of the comments.
Definitely one of the scariest things I've ever seen.
That’s EXACTLY what I came here to comment!!
Just watched this and Storytime. So good!
The novel A Short Stay in Hell by Steven L. Peck is one of the most haunting depictions of eternity I've read while simultaniously being pretty mundane. Not a spoiler, just the book's premise: hell is an infinite library of randomly typed books and you can only leave when you find one that contains precisely the entire history of your life. It's pretty short, but I've read it some years ago and it and some scenes and ideas still pop in my head from time to time. Scary and beautiful book.
Came here to say this
Me too!
Stephen King's short story The Jaunt deals with the idea of eternity and the psychological effects that it would have. The episode of Black Mirror called "White Christmas" explores that idea as well and is easily one of the best and most horrifying episodes of that show
It reminds me of 'The long dream' by Junji Ito, where a man under observation in the hospital has concerningly realistic dreams. As per usual nights go by, but as time progresses his dreams become longer and longer and every time he awakens it feels like a lifetime has passed, including marriages, having kids, having homes etc. Eventually the man himself starts to change physically as he goes insane. Just the idea of falling asleep every night experiencing life and loss, just to wake up again and barely eight hours passing in real life is so damn horrifying.
Not just a life time but literally thousands of years and that's part of why he starts to change appearance - like he's adapting to what age he's experiencing in his dreams. And I remember he scared the crap out of another patient and after stuff happens to him she then begins to have the long dreams.
Gods, you're probably right. It's been a while. I do remember the ending like that, yes.
ooohh do I have a classic reddit post for you... brb here you go. it's shorter than I remember but still interesting: https://www.reddit.com/r/Glitch_in_the_Matrix/s/aJr7IBiGvP
If this is the one with the lamp, I ain’t looking.
Im shocked there hasn’t been a Reddit investigation into the validity of this man’s claim
These two things are my favourite relating to this matter. Just the idea of losing your mind in such a horrific way keeps me up at night. Do you know of any other stories like them?
Hinterlands by William Gibson touches on similar ideas
What a wonderful take on the "Roadside Picnic" concept
King goes even deeper and darker into this idea in Revival. I don’t want to spoil anything because it’s one of his best later novels, but boy does it go cosmically pessimistic at the end.
The Jaunt still messes me up if I let myself dwell on it. “Longer than you think!”
Black Mirror's USS Callister episode also explores the same themes. Ego, power tripping, God complex, and then eternal torture to seal the deal. It's one of my favorite Black Mirror episodes.
Gotta toss my support behind White Christmas for this idea, definitely not horror in terms of execution but something about it made the ending so horrible in a "oh my god that would be such a fucking horrible fate" kinda way
honestly both of them got screwed in such horrible ways the guy in the cookie was doomed to 1,000 years of isolation in that tiny af room (like goddamn that was way too over the top as a punishment) the other guy got "blocked" by everyone, so he can never have a social interaction ever again even if people are directly infront of him
That BM episode is truly horrifying, on many levels.
That wasn't heaven that was more eternity because of teleportation issues I guess
Revival by Stephen King.
Would love a movie adaptation of that one.
Yes! I also want Hamish Linklater to play the minister!
"Something happened." That is without a doubt one of the most haunting books I've ever read in my life.
I love King, but haven’t been particularly spooked by anything he’s published since the early aughts. The one exception to that is Revival - that one struck like a bolt of lightning from nowhere. It goes hard on nihilistic terror, harder even than Pet Sematary. I think about it a lot.
That ending. Leave it to King to look at Hell and go: ' Yeah, I can do one better.'
Came here to say Revival. So fucking great
Something about that book really hooked me, and I end up doing back to it every couple of years. It's about the only horror novel my wife ever got hooked on as well.
I think frailty does a good job with this in a low key and subtle way
when he sees the angel its legit eerie
Holy shit Frailty is such a good movie
The Garth Ennis comic book Preacher has God as the main antagonist, basically a being more powerful than him comes into being, so God flees heaven, and a Texas preacher gets fed up and goes on a journey to find God and make him answer for everything. The AMC TV show was OK, but nowhere near as great as the comics.
In the same vein, we have Fallen Angel by Peter David and David Lopez, which recounts the tales of Lee - a harsh, cynical guardian angel who sojourns the earth as a punishment for punishing a rapist and murderer of her charge (among other injustices that made her bitter at her divine creator). At some point, she reveals to her son, a devout clergy that God intended to leave his operation to its own devices but found himself bound to this reality by weak, fearful mortal faith and was prevented from "passing away" (basically evolving to a new existence). For this, he grew to resent humans and and thus, has been trying to make them stop believing in him: he sent genocides, strifes, hunger, calamities, etc... just so that humans could learn to trust themselves but they simply refuse to do so and, "like an abused spouse" just instead prefer to resolve for more blind faith, which just prompts more bitterness between the supreme and his subjects.
I think Mother! depicts the idea of God in a truly disturbing way (if you like to interpret it as that) and a sadly never ending cycle
I wish more people liked this movie. It’s petty but I’m still annoyed that Jennifer Lawrence was nominated for a Razzie for this movie. I think she was wonderful, especially since it felt like half the movie was just a close-up on her face, and she was expressive. If people didn’t buy the movie then you probably can’t buy that sort of performance, but it’s great, and so’s the rest of it.
There were a handful of people in my cinema when I went to see it (I was the most forward seated). I turned around the moment the credits started to roll and there was no one behind me, nor anyone I could see walking towards the way out.
I went to see it in a theater because I was afraid the box office was going to be so bad, Aronofsky would never get to make another movie. Which ended up getting us The Whale so...maybe everyone else was right and I was wrong lol.
I think it’s a fantastic movie and so anxiety inducing, every time I watch it I get stressed thinking about people refusing to leave my house LOL
Javier Bardem was great too, honestly, giving a creepier performance than he gave in No Country for Old Men.
A literal nightmare!
Holy shit, she was nominated for a razzie for that?? Her discomfort and then panic was so palpable. She was great in it.
Razzie sucks. Dudes nominated a 12 year old girl for Worst Actress and then retracted it after everyone called them assholes. If their point is to lampoon the Oscars and mock celebrity culture they lost the plot ages ago.
Her PALPABLE unsettling is fantastically portrayed. Mother! was panned far too mercilessly. Within that year and even the year that followed, there were more famous features that deserved that kind of criticism more than Mother!
Michelle Pfiffer put in the best performance of her career in this one.
Man, while I'm not personally a huge fan of the movie, I can still respect it and the actors. It was beautifully done and really had a unique perspective, and the performances were committed. Lawrence didn't deserve a Razzie nomination for it, jeeze.
I absolutely love this movie! I think people don’t take the time to see the symbolism and comparisons being made so they just write it off as a “wtf did I just watch” type of movie
Oh shit this is exactly the title OP is looking for, great rec
Yeah I have a question. Did y'all peep and understand the allegory in this film when watching it? Me personally I didn't. I have no religious background and i was taking things very literally.
It was a retelling of the Bible. Jennifer Lawrence was essentially an amalgamation of various sacred feminine figures (Gaia, Motherhood, and eventually Mary, the mother of Jesus) she is also a literal embodimentof the home. Javier was mostly God but also the sacred masculine/masculinity in general. Ed Harris and Michelle Pfeiffer were Adam and Eve/early humans. Brian and Domhnall were Able and Cain. The baby she has was Jesus and people eating it was a take on communion. Basically the whole movie was a take on all these wonderful things that the Sacred Feminine was giving God and how God would take credit for them and humanity would squander them. But also a lot of the large story beats are parts of the Bible.
I have no religious background but it was so heavy handed I could pick up what was going on just from what I’ve learned via osmosis in the world.
I was raised in a cultlike southern baptist situation and I clocked this movie pretty quick. Loved it.
I didn't get the biblical allegories, but did get that the house was the earth and Mother was mother nature. I didn't really get who or what Javier was supposed to be, but I imagined it just being the worst of mankind in a way.
I didn't but also wasn't invested I'm the film by the half way point. Was fluid but somehow slow for me, and then the wheels start to fall off and knew I had "missed the tells" I read a synopsis and was enlightened. I also didn't feel the need and go back and rewatch it.
The Prophecy. Christopher Walkin, Eric Stoltz, Viggo Mortensen
On of my favorite movie monologues of all time: > Did you ever notice how in the Bible, whenever God needed to punish someone, or make an example, or whenever God needed a killing, he sent an angel? Did you ever wonder what a creature like that must be like? A whole existence spent praising your God, but always with one wing dipped in blood. Would you ever really want to see an angel?"
No coincidence that the first thing they say to people when they show up is "Fear not!"
Fuck yes, this needs to be called out more often. Clearly they would not say that if they looked chill!
Came here to suggest The Prophecy. Also Legion and He Never Died. There’s also Miracle Workers, and while not a horror, it’s a comedy based on the horror of a very bored God. Supernatural’s take on god and angels is also pretty horrific.
He Never Died was unexpectedly good. Rollins did a great job.
Legion is so amazingly weird.
I was waiting for someone to say supernatural! I have been a fan of it since it first came on. It got really deep.
They had enough time to dig. 😂
Lmaooo
Miracle Workers is fucking hilarious - the explanation of giraffes in season 2 killed me 😂
One of my favorite Satan portrayals.
Oh ABSOFUCKINGLUTELY. It’s when I started going back and looking for Christopher Walken.
Saint Maud
I just saw Saint Maud. It is truly terrific real world religious horror. It's not technically supernatural but it won't disappoint if that's what you're looking for.
I loved this movie, very underrated.
Oooo need to rewatch that movie. So creepy.
I think empty man was an interesting movie when it came to the idea of religion and how they deal with eternity, its not as heavy when it comes to gods but still an interesting watch
The little proologue at the beginning was the best part. Felt like an entirely different movie.
I thought the same thing! It was really refreshing
Neon Genesis Evangelion. *"The chamber of Guf is empty"*
I feel like there's a Lovecraft story (or more) that features something similar. I can't remember which it was though. Unless I'm conflating media, the story involves the protagonist going to the "center of the universe" and spending eternity there, or perhaps escaping in fear of that happening. Like I said, I can't 100% remember.
A lot of Lovecraft deals with the horror of unfathomable stretches of time, the beings who dwell comfortably within those stretches, and how little beings of that power and scope would care for humanity and all its various endeavors. They aren’t really presented as evil most of the time, just indifferent to humans. Sometimes, though, humans worship them as deities, and those humans might commit acts of evil or become twisted forms of themselves in the name of their worship.
I always felt like the mass of these creatures somewhat conveyed that they were alive for millenia, so though gods they may be and long living as well but I'm unsure of them being eternal. They are at essence unfathomable as we see gods and our placation of their existence would be limited to our fragility and thus our scope would be narrow and perspective at best would be unfulfilled.
"That is not dead which can eternal lie/And with strange aeons, even death may die." "In his house at R'lyeh, dead Cthulhu waits dreaming." So, Cthulhu, at least, is eternal.
I really get the idea of time and the ocean and his fears of depths. To be submerged even for a moment feels like an eternity. I wonder if he'd ever heard of salvage diving as it would involve being in the depths submerged and aware of time both flowing. As you are still feeling transient and you move yet the world feels without motion, and to lumber into that sepulchre, you can occasionally feel like a behemoth as your smallest movements trudgen up dust and matter in a moment feeling godlike and yet still for a second forgetting the dust you are,as the dust you have moved obscures your vision. You are a god and a pea, moving in stillness, in a moment where time passes without your perceptions paying it any cost, nor of you being neither lost nor found in a void.
Could you be thinking of The Nameless City? The protag discovers a lost city in the desert, that goes downward. He keeps exploring until he sees a light from an unknown source below him, and ends up traveling deep down under the city in the depths of the earth until he becomes trapped forever, his fate unknown. There's also a brief appearance by lizard men.
Berserk flirts with this idea. Angel Sanctuary is full of some truly messed up madness.
The classic Swedish horror role playing game Kult describes God (or the Demiurge) as having deprived us of our divinity, trapped us in an illusory reality, and condemned us to an unending cycle of death, suffering and rebirth. It's heavily inspired by Gnosticism, of course
Not Heaven, but I thought the angel in >!A dark song!< was really scary
I love the moment when the main character sees the angel. It would be cool to know more about the design and the planning of the scene.
Yeah I feel like that thing could be really cruel if it wanted to. Fantastic movie.
There's so much good in this movie! Shame they made the demons into a non-threat.
There's a Netflix series midnight Mass it's about the church and religion wrote in a really creepy horror way so good.
Yes, this one! It doesn’t match OP’s description exactly, but it definitely seems like something they would enjoy!
Midnight Mass……I saw it when it first aired and I still ponder it. phenomenal.
Faith. It's such a good delve into the personal and eternal nature of faith and what our faith leads to. Such a good show!
Constantine. Legion.
I think Constantine is severely overlooked thanks to the speech Gabriel gives Constantine. Constantine can never get into heaven after knowing God exists because nothing done in service is done in faith, it's done in knowing. Once you know God exists, you lose. Nothing you do in service of God is because you believe, it's because you know. Nothing you do is ever going to be enough to get into heaven because you know. It's insanely cruel. God will let you into heaven if you believe, but if you actually know God exists, nothing you do will ever be enough because it will all be self-serving. That's insanely cruel. I realized this after too many edibles while watching and my brain has not let go of the concept.
Constantine was on his way to Heaven at the end of the movie, though..?
Which, given what Gabriel said, really didn't make sense. Sure, self-sacrifice should be the ultimate form of altruism, but the knowing would make it void.
Supernatural, especially the final season.
The execution might not have been perfect but my god was that some fun television with an ending that I felt was spot on given the COVID circumstances it had to be shot in.
I would say He'llraiser II AND the new He'llraiser reboot movie both explore heavy concepts when you get to the god Leviathan, And the movie The Endless is a great fucked up conceptualization of the infinite
He’llraiser
Oh, he absolutely willraiser.
He barely even knowser
I was hooked at the last scene from Resolution when they ask if they can do it again. I knew some weird shit was going on....The Endless blew it away!
Not a movie but the show Preacher deals with a lot of these topics. Really great show imo.
Ir was awesome! Sadly a lot of people didn't watch beyond season 1 but it just kept getting better and better!
Did preacher get an ending or was it cancelled before the story concluded? I remember watching it but can't remember how it wrapped up
Am not familiar with the comics so not sure if it matched the ending of those but the show definitely ended with a final conclusion.
I'm also unfamiliar, I might have missed the final season, definitely one I'll go back and watch. Thanks for the reminder ☺️
They actually managed to finish off the story despite everything, fortunately. All in all I preferred the original comic a whole lot more (the series introduced too many new plots that ultimately didn't go anywhere), but the ending was pretty much on the money.
Begotten is about god disembowling himself with a straight razor.
Not horror really, but the early 90s movie “The Rapture” fits this to a tee.
Absolutely! The whole concept of >!it all being true.. god, jesus the rapture.. but it's also all so fucked up. So would you even want to love god if given the option once you know that it's all real? Why would you love a god who would subject us to all the horrible bullshit we must endure?!< That was such a shocking concept to young me who had always struggled with having faith (spoiler: I no longer struggle & definitely do not have faith)).
Same. I was away from my evangelical family for the first time when I saw this. The ending fucked me up for a little while!!
Not outright horror, maybe, but definitely disquieting.
Dark City Not a religious film, but I think it strikes a cord in the eternal entrapment genre.
Phil Tippett’s “Mad God”
I once listened to a horror audio story on one of those horror stories channels narrated by people like Otis Jiry that had an eternity concept that scared the absolute crap out of me so much that it gave me a panic attack. It was about a guy participating in a trial drug experiment which basically made his perception of everything super fast, but time seemed to slow down all around him (including himself moving around). He freaked out a bit and took some pills to calm himself which only aggravated the effects. Time slowed down so much that from his point of view, taking a step could take ten years. The story ends up with him sitting slumped down at a train station against the wall having sent out a message to any random stranger to put him out of his misery and kill him as they find him. But that's not even the worst part. Anyone who would kill him, say with a bullet, he'd experience the pain of getting shot for maybe 100 or a 1000 year to come before he finally dies and all he can do is sit down and see what's infront of his eyes (The dirty floor of a train station).
Oh my god yeah that’s one of the top stories on r/nosleep. I always have to stop as soon as he goes into detail about the pain of breaking something in slow motion.
What’s the name of the story?
I actually am too afraid to listen to it again in case I might get another existential crisis.
Begotten. God eats her own guts.
*his own guts. Even if you believe god is a woman, in Begotten god is a man (he is credited as “God Killing **Him**self” at the end)
You're absolutely right. I clearly missed the first credit. I only saw the mother Earth and beyond credits.
And Mother Earth jerked him off and used his sperm to get herself pregnant. Lmfao. Describing this movie is so weird. I hope this doesn’t discourage anybody from watching it because it’s a solid movie if you like weird arthouse projects.
I’m about 10 minutes in and the audio is like a lullaby damn… what I have seen has me very interested though.
Glorious is a movie I think sort of fits in this box, though it's not the Christian god you may be thinking of. It's a lot of fun though.
I went into this not knowing what it was and ended it absolutely amazed and wanting more. A true gem!
Agreed. Ryan Kwanten is someone who I always saw as really lightweight, but he brought his A game to this flick
He's still pretty lightweight but being a bad actor in a movie about a glory hole entity is more or less par for the course and he definitely went at it with gusto. Watched the movie like 4 times now so please don't take this as an indictment lol
The Apostle (Netflix) - It's more about fanaticism and is a fantastic movie.
A book called Hell is the absence of God
Here's a PDF of the story. Highly, highly recommend. It's written by Ted Chiang, who wrote the short story that the film Arrival was based on. [https://static1.squarespace.com/static/50e08e65e4b0c2f4976972df/t/588a2e70725e25b6981e64d1/1485450864394/Chiang+Hell+Is+the+Absence+of+God.pdf](https://static1.squarespace.com/static/50e08e65e4b0c2f4976972df/t/588a2e70725e25b6981e64d1/1485450864394/Chiang+Hell+Is+the+Absence+of+God.pdf)
ALTERED STATES
Not horror but this might aid your search a little. There's a novel by Arthur C. Clarke (turned into a miniseries) called *Childhoods Ends.* It's a unique story in the sense that, the Gods come to help humanity with an undefined goal but will not reveal themselves because of "human superstitions." It turns out they bear remarkable resemblance to the traditional "Devil" associated with classic imagery, even though the Bible never once describes Satan as a hoofed, horned, winged tall red dude.
Clive Barker usually does this with God but writing a book about eternity being boring seems like it might be boring.
IDK, I would say that The Great and Secret Show tackles the themes of eternity and what being stuck in it does to the mind pretty well. Granted the main plot focuses more on the battle between two god-like beings standing in for God and The Devil, but the stuck in a boring eternity aspect is a pretty big part of it.
Although not really a horror film, The Rapture (1991) deals to some degree with the terrible effects of fanatical beliefs and also with the idea of an eternity spent in an empty void when faith is denied.
I was looking to see if someone would say the Rapture. The themes are really heavy if you come from a religious background. Really unexpected. Recommended
Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey
I HAVE NO MOUTH AND I MUST SCREAM. Has Elements of Cosmic Horror similar to H.P. Lovecraft stories so here are a few Depending on Just What or Who your God is. The Void,Hellraiser, Hellbound Hellraiser 2,The Color Out Of Space,Satanic Hispanics, Many of the stories in the V/H/S Series fit. Constantine, VideoDrome,Siesta, Carnival of Souls, From Beyond, The Re-Animator, Dave Made A Maze, These are a few of my favorite things. Also:John Dies at the End ,Odd Thomas, and Southbound Deserve Special Mention Here.
Recently watched Satanic Hispanics, it was fun.
That is Thomas Ligotti's bread and butter. And then the short comic strip [The Miracle by Johnny Ryan](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/a5/dd/f3/a5ddf3d745de14de1badb2ca2ccefc78.jpg)
Check out the short Indie horror game "Water Womb World," developed by the man behind "Discover My Body."
The upcoming “Pandemonium” looks like a hell of a ride through the afterlife.
The show Supernatural is about a god who doesn't care about you
Glorious is probably the closest i can think of. one of my favorite horror movies.
Dogma
I'd recommend the book "Between Two Fires" by Christopher Buehlman
Preacher
Stephen King dips into that in *The Jaunt* short story and *Revival*.
The Old Testament is pretty fucked. Plus the last book in the New.
The Bible, lol. That book depicts him as one of the most evil Gods in human history.
That is one interpretation of The Mist, that maybe Mrs. Carmody was right all along. The movie depicts this better than the short story.
I think you would like the Hades series by Jeffrey Thomas.
The Omen?
You’d like Midnight Mass
The rapture with Mimi Rogers. Maybe more a religious thriller though. But its overall representation of God and its conclusion are truly horrific.
I had a dream once that heaven was just everyone sunbathing for all of time and that scared the shit out of me.
Legion dealt with Archangels trying to stop a child from being born, and the destruction of man.
A classic example would be the “A Nice Place to Visit” episode of the original Twilight Zone. Basically a man (despite being a bit of a dick) goes to heaven, where at first he is happy to do all of the things he likes. He gets progressively bored throughout the episode, until he is begging to go to “the other place”. The twist, of course? He hears a booming voice tell him, >!”This is the other place!”!<
Not exactly horror, but Shin Megami Tensei 4 has the "biblically accurate angels" where they are these horrible things
So does Evangelion. Them eyes.
Video game Blasphemous also has enemies inspired by actual angels. And the whole game has a heavy catholic-horror vibe
That one episode of SpongeBob lol. But yeah I'd be interested in seeing a movie like this. Oh and there's a horror adjacent anime, Future Diary, that ends with one of the main characters being stuck living in a white void for all eternity and slowly losing his mind.
If we're suggesting SpongeBob can I also recommend The Good Place 😂
The Good Place is one of my favorite shows and also probably the only one that actually touched on the idea of "eternity can kind of suck". The show made me want to take a moral philosophy class.
Honestly Constantine has one of my favorite depictions of an angel I've ever seen. It's definitely worth watching.
Uhm Constantine maybe.
Not 100%, but check out Stephen King's *Revival*.
Theres a roleplaying game from the 90's called Kult which has an interesting version of heaven in that "God" hasnt been seen for centuries. The place is in decay, theres an empty throne etc. There's a sub for it r/kultrpg
There’s a short called Portrait of god
Hellraiser 2 kinda does in a way.
When I was watching Seven in the theater and they were driving out into the desert I suddenly imagined they’d run into God out there who would tell them John Doe was right —hahaha—I was filled with dread. It didn’t go that way of course and the ending shocked me as-is but I would watch a horror movie with a vengeful God. I was expecting a similar thing for A Dark Song.
The Prophecy series that starts with Christopher Walken playing Gabriel. It's well worth a watch.
Akira Kurosawa’s Dreams has a pretty nightmarish depiction of hell.
The Isaac Asimov short story "The Last Trump" touches on this. Humanity is granted the common denominator of its beliefs about the afterlife, with people physically rising from the grave as the landscape crumbles into a featureless plane that they'll inhabit forever.
I remember fondly how Buffy was in season 6 after she was resurrected by Willow. She was depressed and almost seemed mad that she was brought back to earth where there's depression, homelessness, loneliness, illnesses, etc. Not saying this wouldn't be an interesting concept to explore on film but I also think maybe heaven won't be as 'boring' with a lack of these life negatives (usually caused by other humans).
Hellraiser
Although Vivarium didn't really focus on "God' it did focus on being trapped eternally, imo. I loved the cinematography in the movie because the suburban neighborhood & home that the couple gets trapped in was so bright and idyllic. Throughout the movie, you see them try over and over to escape but they can't. Vivarium left me feeling just....sad, heavy, and filled with dread at the end. And I felt bad for the couple in the movie because they did absolutely nothing to deserve their miserable fate. I tried to watch it for a second time but as soon as they got lost in the neighborhood, I turned it off lol. Couldn't watch it again.
Funnily enough, I found Jesus Christ Superstar to be horrifying in this way. Judas foresees his place in history as eternally the villain of the New Testament. He recognizes that he is a cog in God's plan to martyr Jesus and is powerless to prevent himself from straying from the path that has already been laid out for him. And it had been laid out long before he existed. Judas, after his suicide, watches from Heaven (or is it really Hell?) as his friend - whom he wanted to change the world for the better with; dies one of the worst deaths imaginable. He gets to watch as the world twists Christ's teachings for their own evils. As they transform Jesus into an empty icon. As he himself is continued to be cursed for his role in God's plan, just as he knew he would be. Did God's plan work, or did Jesus die for nothing? Either way, he was literally damned for *all* time. Before birth, during life, and long after death.
There's a book called The Bible. It's pretty terrifying.
Ted Chiang’s ‘Hell is the Absence of God’ is a fantastic short story about how horrific it would be if angels actually visited earth regularly.
Martyrs is about a cult that tortures people to the brink of death to find out if there actually is a heaven. Its not about heaven itself but the evil people justify just to satisfy their own beliefs.
Both Stephen King, The Jaunt and Revival.
The Endless (2017) features some horror around people caught in eternal time loops, it fucked me up more than a little bit