El Ray is a fictional Mexican village that acts as sanctuary for expatriate American fugitives, first used by author Jim Thompson

Jim Thompson (writer)

James Myers Thompson was an American author and screenwriter, known for his pulp crime fiction....

 in his 1959 pulp novel, The Getaway

The Getaway (novel)

The Getaway is a 1959 crime novel by Jim Thompson that begins with a bank robbery and the later life of the robber and his wife.The novel has been adapted into film twice. The first version was a Steve McQueen vehicle: see The Getaway , and the second was a remake starring Alec Baldwin: see The...

, and again referenced in the 1996 Robert Rodriguez

Robert Rodriguez

Robert Anthony Rodríguez is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer, editor and musician. He shoots and produces many of his films in his native Texas and Mexico. He has directed such films as Desperado, From Dusk till Dawn, The Faculty, Spy Kids, Sin City, Planet...

 film, From Dusk till Dawn

From Dusk Till Dawn

From Dusk till Dawn is a 1996 horror film directed by Robert Rodriguez and written by Quentin Tarantino. The movie stars Harvey Keitel, George Clooney, Quentin Tarantino and Juliette Lewis.-Plot:...

. In both stories, El Ray possesses a near-mythic reputation and represents the protagonists' ultimate objective. On the DVD commentary, writer Quentin Tarantino

Quentin Tarantino

Quentin Jerome Tarantino is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer and actor. In the early 1990s, he began his career as an independent filmmaker with films employing nonlinear storylines and the aestheticization of violence...

 reveals that the city is in fact hell

Hell

In many religious traditions, a hell is a place of suffering and punishment in the afterlife. Religions with a linear divine history often depict hells as endless. Religions with a cyclic history often depict a hell as an intermediary period between incarnations...

.