Hell University is a 2026 Filipino action-horror series. It stars Heart Ryan as Zein Shion, a young woman who gets peer-pressured into entering a shady, seemingly abandoned school literally called Hell University. Surely nothing could go wrong, right? RIGHT?
Zein and her friends are forced to enroll in HU, where everything from food to accommodation is free. But at 7 PM each night, all acts are legal, including killing, which is, well... exactly what most of the students do. Yup, it's The Purge but in college.
The show is a produced by Studio Viva and Wattpad Webtoon Productions. It is based on a Wattpad web novel of the same name by KnightInBlack, later formally released in print by Filipino publishing house Psicom. Hell University made its international premiere on the streaming app Viva One in February 2026, with new episodes premiering weekly each Thursday or Friday (depending on your timezone).
Character-specific tropes go in the character sheet.
Theme song: "Yugto
" (Stage) by ALAMAT
Hell University contains examples of:
- Art Deco: The university is designed in this style.
- Crapsack World: The students enjoy sumptuous food and comfortable accommodations inside a lavish school all for free. But they also have to survive the Bloody Night every day.
- Cluster F-Bomb: Interestingly, unlike many shows where the women are demure and soft-spoken while the men cuss, Zein, Nicky, and Vanessa (major female characters) are probably tied for being the most foul-mouthed characters in Hell University. All three girls like to say "fuck" and "bitch."
- Disproportionate Retribution: In HU, the students' go-to revenge for even the pettiest of slights is beating each other up so hard that they draw blood, if not downright killing.
- Names to Run Away from Really Fast: The titular university does not have a very welcoming name.
- Whole-Plot Reference: The plot is pretty much The Purge in a school setting. The author of the original book confirmed that he, a college student himself at the time of writing, was directly inspired by the films.
- Wrong Genre Savvy: Before entering the school, the newbies lampshade that it seems like a slasher horror movie. Vanessa even claims the Final Girl title. Well, it's horror alright... just not that kind of horror.
Once you enter, there's no turning back.