By engraving images from Gustav Doré's 19th-century woodblock engravings of Dante's Divine Comedy directly onto the surface of 35mm filmstock the film follows the poet Dante as he is taken through the gates of the city of Desolation and into the centre of Hell.

What he sees is not simply an apocalyptic vision of the punishment that awaits sinners after death, but also the very real horrors committed by human hands on Earth.