The idea of an animatronic version of eighteen levels of hell sounds funny, and for the first five or six levels, it is. But repetition nudges comedy into absurdity, which can quickly descend into horror.
Like the sinners it torments, Madou Daitian Temple is trapped in time. Built in 1979 for the present-day equivalent of $12 million, its sun-bleached paint, shuttered rooms, and lonely vending machines evoke the same tender melancholy I felt while visiting Coney Island on a February afternoon or Circus Circus on a Tuesday morning. The memory of families with a picnic basket, wowed by the crowds. The ghosts of honeymooners spending more than they should. Madou’s eighteen levels of hell occupy a similar zone of dark curiosity, its heyday etched in the face of the ancient woman who collects $1.20 for admission to hell and another $1.20 to visit heaven.
Each level of hell is ruled by a king who governs demons that specialize in tongue ripping, boulder crushing, disembowelment, and gouging. Although they could do with some fresh oil in their gears, their squeaky joints and janky gestures pay dividends in hell. (Anyone with a memory of Chuck E. Cheese knows animatronics are high-octane nightmare fuel.) But the eeriest quality belongs to the contemporary clothes of the sinners. Blue jeans and khakis conjure a local fever dream rather than a remote otherworld.
Video seemed like the best way to capture the relentlessness of this hell, so I made this inventory.
And here's a list of the sins and punishments:
- Sinners are put on trial and sentenced to different levels of hell to be punished.
- Corrupt officials who abuse their power and torment the people shall be decapitated by the “tiger head” torture.
- Those who bully the defenseless are ground into a bloody pulp.
- Rapists and women who kill their husbands are tied to a large metal cylinder with a fire lit at its base.
- Those who are after their own gains will have their eyes gouged.
- Drug dealers and makers of adulterated pharmaceuticals will be fried in cauldrons of oil.
- Those who swindle women and children will have their hearts gored by a stone bore.
- Those who cut corners shall be eaten by predators and snakes.
- Those who show no respect for elders shall be subject to disembowelment by a giant scale.
- Rapists and murderers will be dismembered by the five demons.
- Thieves, kidnappers, and con artists will be put into a grinding machine and ground to a bloody pulp.
- The limbs of bandits, murderers, and highwaymen shall be hacked off.
- Women who disobey their mothers and fathers-in-law will be crushed by giant rocks.
- Human traffickers and those who take advantage of vulnerable women will have their faces disfigured and skinned by metal blades.
- Swindlers of money and those who cause their victims to commit suicide shall have their bowels removed.
- Gamblers, fraudsters, and those who sell counterfeit products will have their guts cut open.
- Rumormongers shall have their tongues pulled out and their cheeks gored.
- After sinners drink Meng Po’s tea of oblivion, they are given a certificate to return to the world of mortals in the form of an infant.
Level 13 feels like a personal gripe, and it's striking that the sellers of counterfeit products occupy a deeper level than rapists and murderers.
But who is this for?
Is this place a cautionary tale for the believer who might take a wrong moral turn? A godsend for frazzled parents who want to tame their children? Or is it the equivalent of rubbernecking at a wreck, an attraction that offers the cheap rush of self-righteousness, an opportunity for those who aren’t selling adulterated pharmaceuticals to feel smug in knowing this suffering will not be theirs?
And what is hell for?
I think it speaks to a craving for justice, the need to know the monsters among us, even if they have escaped the punishment of our earthbound institutions, will pay what’s owed in the afterlife. And it’s hard to imagine a rougher hell than being trapped with a squeaky mechanical demon performing the same mindless gesture until the end of time.
As for heaven? Lots of tea and board games. The human brain is endlessly inventive when it comes to suffering, but the prospect of eternal salvation seems to leave us at a loss.
