In the story, a floating angel raises its sword and parts a legion of demons to allow Dante to pass, naked sinners burn in boiling tar and suicides are transformed into living trees in a forest in Hell.

Judd is plunged into a frightening dream in which he is tried for murder and executed, and is afterward taken by demons to Hell where he will spend the rest of eternity.

Actress Pauline Starke is completely nude in the Hell sequences, with the exception of a large flowing black wig that covers her nether regions.

[1][self-published source] For his 1980 sci-fi thriller Altered States director Ken Russell intercut borrowed footage from this film with his own digital effects to create a hallucination sequence.

Critic Christopher Workman writes "Despite some massive striking sets and a few truly magnificent moments....the repeated red-tinted shots of bodies writhing in flames get old quick.