Last night some friends and i went to a Hell House just to see if it was really as messed up as it sounded1. All I can really say is, wow. The messaging and imagery is nothing short of baffling. Let me take you through a quick tour. Oh, I should mention that the event had sold out for the next two days, but one look at us and they were quick to usher in the unsaved. And this whole thing was being put on my a Christian biker gang church. Like I said, wow. Now on with the tour.
It starts off at a funeral in a church with nothing but red lighting. There are actors mourning the dead guy in the caskets. They hand you a black rose, you sit down, then your demon guide (who looks a lot like Darth Maul) first appears - sinister yet jovial. He informs you that the guy in the casket died of AIDS. How did her get AIDS? Well, he’s gay, of course. And as they are sure to point out, all Queers die of AIDS. Don’t worry, though. The demon points out that the whole “its not a choice” argument is a lie that he personally made up. The whole time the demon is laughing, telling us how much smarter he is than God, and pointing at us telling us to continue our “alternative life style.” He particularly likes to taunt my friend, J, who can’t help but laugh at the demon. J, the demon informs us, is welcome in Hell.
From there, we walk outside to what my friends and I agree is the most confusing scene: about a dozen full-robed Klan members standing around a burning car while one of the Klan members beats a Black man with a cross. This is probably the shortest part of the tour as the demon just makes a comment about how the Klan members have bought into “one of his greatest lies” of racial hatred. After that, the Black man being beaten dies and the White guy doing the beating proclaims, “we got another one.” The demon then asks whose next and then we walk on to the next room. The first question was, where did they get such official looking Klan robes? Can you rent those now? Considering how much money they obviously spent on this whole ordeal, my friend, N, suggested that they rented the Klan. Perhaps. The other confusing thing is the who “who’s next” question. If we are supposed to be the unsaved, then wouldn’t the demon be asking us to join the Klan and not to be the ones being killed by the Klan? I know, I know, how much can you really expect from community theater?
After our encounter with the Klan, we move on to a scene of domestic violence. This one was only slightly longer than the Klan scene, but more straight to the point. A womyn says thanks to what I assume was their server at dinner. Her husband gets jealous and hits her. She threatens to leave so he strangles her to death with their daughter in the other room. When the daughter asks for mommy, the demon assures her that mommy is just fine and that he’ll be sure to hook her up with a man just like dear old dad when she gets older. I can agree that domestic violence is a real problem with very serious consequences (physically and psychologically), but I’m still not a fan of the sensationalist imagery and messaging they use to recruit you to their church. Just to spoil the tour for you, their is no scene telling us that bombing an entire country to rubble will send us to hell. My guess is that if the husband was simply trying to beat the Jew out his wife, then it might have been ok. But that’s just my jaded guess.
While standing there looking at the scene, a green light is emitted over the wall from the next room. Metallica then begins to play. The demon gets excited and says that we are about to visit one of his oldest friends. I’m expecting the RIAA. I was wrong. It was actually teen suicide. Who happens to be very similar to the character from the Scream movies, but with a cooler, though more limited, vocoder. This scene pissed me off. The teenager, who is apparently still stuck in the 90s (or are the 90s back?), is torn up over the fact that his girlfriend dumped him, he didn’t make the team, and he lost one of his shoes. Ok, i made that last part up, but I had to make up a story for why there was a random shoe sitting on his nightstand. Both the demon and his friend suicide taunt the kid until he eventually pulls out a gun and shoots himself in the head. This scene pissed me off because it makes light of a very serious issue. We are to believe that this kid is now going to hell for killing himself. What they fail to do is to look at why suicide rates among teenagers have risen over the years. Why are Queer people more likely to commit suicide? Are the parents or anyone else also going to hell for not seeking psychological help? Perhaps the kid was dealing with Manic Depressive Disorder or Chronic Depression. Will God really condemn chemical imbalances in the brain? If so, is anyone making money off of the mining companies that are dumping lead and mercury into our water also going to hell? Eh, lets keep moving.
The next room was quick. It was a psychic with a crystal ball, a Ouija board, and a hotline. Apparently if you get your fortune read, you are going to hell. Or by getting your fortune told, you are allowing the devil to control your future, thus signing a deal with the devil. Something like that.
Next is the room that started the crying. That’s right, the abortion clinic. Now, when I say started the crying, I don’t mean among my friends and I. I mean among the Christians who couldn’t handle the idea that someone would actually go to an abortion clinic. One womyn was so distraught she couldn’t even enter the room. This, of all rooms, is the one that put me on the verge of violence. You walk in to find a womyn on an operating table with her legs spread (facing away from the onlookers, of course) and blood covering everything below her waist. She is screaming about the pain and the doctors are yelling at her telling her to shut up. They remove what looks like a baby rabbit’s leg with the skin removed and the demon picks it up and starts carrying it around. He started walking towards me and i was convinced that if he tried to hand it to me or shove it in my face, I was going to hit him in the face. Violence may not solve anything, but sometimes its hard to keep it bottled in. Luckily, he turned a couple feet from me and the situation was avoided. The demon walked around talking about how abortion was his plan to kill off the Christians and that this particular fetus was perhaps going to be a preacher. You could tell that this was the most emotional room for character playing the demon, as well, because he fell out of character a bit by sympathizing with the anti-choice sentiment for a moment. But there was enough blood, screaming, and images of aborted fetuses that no one seemed to notice. Oh, and the pregnancy was supposedly the result of two teenagers have pre-marital sex “in the backseat of mommy’s minivan.”
From there, we go to a drunk driving accident. The scene involves a car smashed into a telephone poll. The driver (dad) is thrown from the vehicle and lying on the ground calling for his girl. I assumed his girl meant his daughter in the back seat, but the demon clarified that he was referring to his wife. The guy’s daughter was his “baby girl.” I don’t want to think about the implications of linguistics right now. So dad is on the ground with what I assume was a broken leg. His wife and daughter are in the car and, as the demon informs us, dead. I wasn’t sure if dad is going to hell for driving drunk or for killing his wife and daughter. Perhaps a little of both.
The next room, my friends and I agree, was the best. But of course we would think that; the next room was Hell. Hell, unlike the other rooms, was warm. It was also the best stage for a metal band that I’ve ever scene. I can’t tell you much about what went on in the room. I was too busy checking out the costumes and playing metal guitar riffs in my head. The room looked like a cave full of skulls, fake flames, and a throne upon which sat the head of a mountain goat. In front of the thrown were two additional demons, one on stilts (brilliant!) and the other one calling us names like stupid. Then from behind the thrown came the devil. I was glad to see they used some imagination in this area. Rather than just your usual red guy with horns, he is a hairy beast with a head that stands about three feet tall. Basically, the devil is metal as fuck.
Again, I can’t really tell you what they were saying to us cuz my senses were overloaded. But then a really bright light appears beside us and one of God’s warriors appears saying something very biblical and ushering us into a room so bright and White that it took a moment to adjust. In this room stands nine people: two angelic warriors of God (both men, one White, one Black); four women (all White, thin, and covered in make-up); two children (both White girls under the age of 8); and a hippy Jesus on a cross. We all cram into the room, music begins to play, and Jesus steps down from the cross. He is mostly naked at this point, so the women dress him and then kneel behind him. The children then take his hands, walk him up to the group, then kneel beside him. A plant in the crowd then comes up to have a good cry with Jesus. As he does this, one of the angel warriors starts reciting John 3:16-17. He then talks about how we can be saved if we pray with him right then and there. Not just recite the words, but believe them. Sorry, but I couldn’t believe them when i visited my family as a kid, and i still don’t know. So I didn’t pray. Neither did my friends. With the exception of the little girls, who were busy looking at everyone, we were the only ones who didn’t. After that they shook our hands and led us into a room filled with literature and comment cards. We took some of the literature about the evils of homosexuality, ouija boards and witches. J filled out a comment card saying he didn’t realize that all Queer people die of AIDS. As we left, they singled us out and asked us if we had learned anything. N was very diplomatic and avoided actually answering any of the questions. They informed us that we may not feel anything yet, but that the power of the message will overcome us one day. I’ve had Christian fundamentalists in my life since birth. Luckily I haven’t held my breath waiting for the message to overcome me.
I think the most disturbing part of all of this were the number of parents that were bringing their tween and teenage kids (no one under the age of 11 was allowed in). Something about indoctrinating youth with fear and hatred seems wrong to me. But then again, I’m going to Hell, so what do I know.
I hope you enjoyed your tour.
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Footnotes:
1. I’m not going to link to the particular Hell House we attended because i don’t really want more people to give them money and I don’t care to increase their PageRank.
Puppy mills face greater scrutiny [USA Today]
