Much of the horror genre revolves around outside threats - demons, ghosts, assassins, and vengeful ex-lovers who dream of revenge. But the psychological horror seems to run much deeper. If being a devoted lover is bad, how much worse is betraying your own brain?
Beginning in the 1800s, it became known that psychiatric institutions are hotbeds of abuse and sadism that can drive a perfectly normal person crazy. The following films deal with the double horror of their own minds being tormented while being held captive in mental hospitals where the workers seem to be obsessed with the idea that you will never get well.
Joker (2019)
In this harrowing exploration of mental illness, we only see the protagonist in the mental hospital in the last minutes of the film, when it's too late - he's already set off a killing spree and may actually have killed his therapist at the asylum.
Bottom - Heart of Madness (2015)
This Brazilian docudrama is based on the true story of Dr. Nise da Silveira, a doctor who joined a psychiatric hospital in 1944 but refused to perform electroshock therapy and lobotomy because he considered them inhuman.
Instead, he wins the trust of patients by treating them like human beings, not like animals, and seeks to free them from their psychological torment through compassion and artistic expression.
House of the Damned (2014)
Oscar-winning actor Ben KingsleyGandhilisten)) is shown as the director of a psychiatric hospital whose unorthodox treatments are suspected by an Oxford graduate who comes to the hospital to complete his medical education. Although the treatment seems to help the patients, all it takes is the sound of screams from the basement one night to convince the medical student that something is wrong.
Shutter Island (2010)
Leonardo DiCaprio plays a white-haired US Marshal who is sent to investigate the disappearance of a patient in a mental hospital.
Martin Scorsese's Shutter Island is a trippy film filled with conspiracies and stinking paranoia that makes you question reality. As always, when Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio collaborate, the film is a masterpiece of American cinema.
Chamber (2010)
Horror maestro John Carpenter directed this thriller about a beautiful but troubled young woman (Amber Heard) who finds herself in a psychiatric hospital who slowly comes to realize that she and other patients are being physically abused by unseen forces.
To her horror, she realizes that the invisible force is the ghost of a previously institutionalized woman named Alice.
Gothic (2003)
The film tells the story of a woman who turns from a doctor into a mental patient.
Halle Berry narrowly avoided Razzie's Worst Actress nomination for playing a female psychiatrist who wakes up one day in a mental hospital with no memory of what she was doing or how she got there.
Ninth session (2001)
When an asbestos removal team wins a tent to work in an abandoned psychiatric hospital, they accidentally stumble upon a tape recording of a former patient with multiple identities. After listening to the recording, the commander of the film crew begins to behave strangely.
Interrupted Life (1999)
Winona Ryder and Angelina Jolie play two girls in a psychiatric hospital who become friends in order to survive the rigors of institutional life. Jolie, who won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress, plays a sociopath who manipulates Winona Ryder's character throughout.
Based on Suzanne Kaisen's novel about her 18-month stay in an orphanage in the late 1960s, the rights to "Interrupted Life" were bought by Winona Ryder, who worked on the script for seven years before finding someone willing to produce it.
Asylum Massacre (1987)
It's a true '80s slasher - and just about anyone with a sense of humor will enjoy the gonzo, funny and terribly vulgar plot - that is, if you're a person who loves bad movies.
A group of teenagers break into an abandoned mental asylum, but what do they find there? Lesbian punk band with communist symbols on their instruments. What will happen in this crazy skirmish of annoying people?
Fifth Floor (1978)
A perfectly sane college student named Kelly (Dianne Hull) accidentally overdoses while dancing at a disco, is misdiagnosed as suicidal, and then is taken to the fifth floor of a mental hospital, where a perverted male orderly takes dubious interest in her.
The worst part is that a woman knows she's sane, but no one - not even her boyfriend - will believe her.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)
Louise Fletcher plays the ice cold nurse Ratched, who mentally brutalizes and humiliates the male patients in her care until she runs into Randall McMurphy (Jack Nicholson), a cheerful and cheerful man who feigned mental illness to avoid prison.
One of only three films in Hollywood history to win all five Oscars for Best Picture, Director, Actor, Actress and Screenplay."Cuckoo's Nest" based on a novel by Ken Kesey that uses psychiatric abuse as a metaphor for government brutality.
Hospital of Horrors (1973)
This British horror comedy involves a group of people who are sent to Brittlehurst Manor, which is ostensibly a wellness retreat but is actually a "Hospital of Horror" where an evil doctor lobotomizes kidnapped hippies.
A Clockwork Orange (1971)
Based on a novel by Anthony Burgess, this dystopian futuristic drama is set in a world where England has been conquered by Soviet Russia and Russian slang has slowly infiltrated British vernacular.
Malcolm McDowell plays Alex, a young sociopathic gang member who enjoys "ultra-violence" and ends up in jail, where he becomes a candidate for a new state-sponsored medical procedure that makes him feel nauseous whenever he encounters violence.
When he is released, he becomes easy prey for those who are not physically ill with violence. Although technically located in a prison rather than a mental hospital, the aggressive "treatment" methods are reminiscent of over-the-top psychiatric methods.
Snake Pit (1948)
Olivia DeHavilland plays a schizophrenic girl whose condition worsens after she is institutionalized.
Considered to be the first Hollywood film to deal seriously with the subject of mental illness, The Snake Pit is based on Mary Jane Ward's novel about her own negative experience in a mental institution.
The book's title refers to the ancient practice of throwing the mentally ill into pits filled with snakes, the "reasoning" being that since such an experience would drive any normal person insane, throwing a lunatic into a pit full of snakes would have the opposite effect.
The film had such a colossal effect that soon 13 states changed their laws regarding psychiatric institutions.
Other films set in psychiatric institutions
- Doctor Caligari's office (1920) is a German Expressionist silent classic set partly in a psychiatric institution.
- Spellbound (1945) - thriller by Alfred Hitchcock in which Gregory Peck plays an impostor who aspires to become the new director of a psychiatric hospital.
- The action of the film "Bedlam" (1946) takes place in London in the 1760s at the Royal Hospital of Bethlem, a real mental institution colloquially referred to as "Bedlam".
- Harvey (1950) based on the popular 1944 play in which James Stewart plays the role of the only person who can see a six-foot-tall rabbit named Harvey.
- Three faces of Eve (1957) is a black-and-white film that depicts a woman with multiple personality disorder with supernatural realism.
- "Splendor in the Grass" (1961) features Natalie Wood as a girl who slowly goes insane after her love for a handsome young man (Warren Beatty) goes unrequited.
- David and Lisa (1962) tells the story of a young couple who meet in a psychiatric hospital and fight to break free.
- "Shock Corridor" (1963) is about a reporter investigating a murder in Japan who feigns mental illness in order to gain access to an orphanage and solve a murder.
- Straitjacket (1964) stars Joan Crawford as a mother who returns home to her daughter after 20 years in an asylum for murder.
- asylum (1972) is centered around a young doctor seeking employment in a psychiatric hospital who, as part of an application process, must interview and diagnose four patients whose stories eerily converge at the end.
- "Don't Look into the Basement" (1973) talks about a nurse who was recently hired in a psychiatric hospital, and gradually she understands that this institution is run by truly crazy people.
- Seven Beauties (1975) is a film by independent author Lina Wertmüller starring an ordinary man sent to an orphanage for killing a pimp who was torturing his sister.
- "I Never Promised You a Rosary" (1977) based on a bestselling book about a schizophrenic girl from a wealthy family who, after a suicide attempt, spends three years in an institution. It was also the title of a popular Lynn Anderson country and western song.
- "Halloween" (1978) was a reimagining of the genre by the John Carpenter classic, whose villain Michael Myers wreaks havoc in his hometown after escaping from an orphanage.
- Ninth configuration (1980) - is a horror comedy about former Marines who live in a castle that is also a government mental institution. It was directed by William Peter Blatty, who is best known as the author of the novel "Exorcist".
- Sender (1982), an amnesiac, is rescued from a suicide attempt and ends up in a psychiatric hospital.
- Francis (1982) stars Jessica Lange as famous Hollywood actress Frances Farmer, who suffered a mental breakdown after being blacklisted.
- A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987) features the character Nancy Thompson as a dream therapy psychiatrist assigned to treat children in a mental institution whose dreams are haunted by Freddy Krueger.
- Dogra Magra (1988) is a surreal masterpiece by Japanese director Toshio Matsumoto, featuring a mentally unstable young man who is frustrated that the doctors at his orphanage are trying to treat him with Eastern philosophy.
- Don Juan DeMarco (1994) plays Johnny Depp as a man convinced that he is the Don Juan of Shame. Marlon Brando plays a psychiatrist who tries to cure him of his delusion.
- In film "In the Mouth of Madness" (1995) tells of a mentally ill psychiatric institution who tries to convince his therapist that the novels of a famous author drive people crazy.
- "Good burger" (1997) in this outrageous and surreal children's film, the film's characters Ed and Dexter Reed are sent to an insane asylum called the Crazy Hills after being tricked into betraying them by their enemies. Through dance routines, naïve hugs from the clinically insane, and cartoon violence, they escape their facility. It's one of the funniest plots in a film filled with bizarre tangents. The importance of this movie in the cinematic cannon was mostly highlighted by Netflix when they bought the license to stream it on their platform in 2014.
- "Angels of the Universe" (2000), based on a novel called The Icelandic Onet flying over the cuckoo's nest ", the film follows the downward trajectory of Paul, a failed artist who loses his mind after being romantically rejected. In the orphanage, he finds strange friends - one thinks that he is Hitler, and the other believes that he telepathically wrote a song for The Beatles.
- "Madness" (2005) is a Czech film set in a lunatic asylum that borrows from the works of Edgar Allan Poe and the Marquis de Sade, blurring the lines between a psychiatric hospital and the mental patient's inner world.
- I'm a cyborg but that's ok (2006) is a South Korean romantic comedy film set in a mental hospital.
- Ward No. 6 (2009) - Russian film, the name of which means "Ward No. 6". It tells the story of a psychiatrist in a psychiatric hospital who slowly goes insane after listening to a patient's thoughts on philosophy.
- Reel Evil (2012) tells the story of three filmmakers who want to make a documentary in a mental hospital, only to realize it's haunted.
- In the collection "Silver Linings" (2012) stars Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence who believe that love is a way to help them escape from the prison of mental illness.
- Play "Hooks" (2014), this manly film shows five teenagers breaking into an abandoned psychiatric home and its aftermath.
- Ratched (2020), while this Netflix and Ryan Murphy series is a TV series and not a movie, it does feel like a movie and explores a mental hospital and includes way too many lobotomies.
