Last Updated on August 3, 2021
So when you feel like the pressures of the week are about to send you postal, check out some of the folks who have really lost it, and feel better about the fact that even though you might snap and take out your boss or that dude that cut you off in traffic, you’re far more sane than any of the denizens in these places.
As always, spit those bullets if you’ve got shite to say!
1. Smith’s Grove Warren County Sanitarium, HALLOWEEN
How can the top spot not go to the Sanitarium where evil grew up? Here is where Dr. Loomis famously started off trying to reach Michael Myers, and then simply tried to keep him locked up. As important as it is, the place is a largely off screen player in the original movie, but gets moved to the center in Rob Zombie’s remake. In fact the most interesting part of the remake revolves around Myer’s devolution while locked down. Plus there’s the boobies and the killin’.
2. THE ASYLUM
Can’t talk about great asylums without giving due props to The Asylum Films. You know ’em. These are the clever/larcenous bastards that bring us gems like MEGAPIRAHNA, SNAKES ON A TRAIN, and so on. As production companies go this has the enviable asset of being genius crazy, and great at driving the major Hollywood studios nuts as well.
3. Danvers State Mental Hospital, SESSION 9
The concept of an abandoned mental facility is used a lot, but rarely this effectively. The set up is handled great with lots of large empty rooms and daylight slipping through cracks, somehow making everything all the more creepy. To be able to use a space to create this kind of sense of isolation, even though the setting isn’t physically blocked from the outside work, is impressive as hell.
4. Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, SILENCE OF THE LAMBS
Given what we know about Hannibal Lecter, it’s actually amazing that any institution was able to hold him for more than a week or two, much less years. So they’re effective at keeping the smartest man you’re likely to encounter down, and on top of that feature a rogues gallery of weirdos, including Miggs the semen tossing suicide-to-be. So yeah, not a place I’d want to spend much time in.
5. Vannacutt Psychiatric Institute for the Criminally Insane, HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL
It’s never good news when you discover that a doctor and his staff used to experiment on the inmates. I mean that’s just a massive accumulation of bad juju ya know? So no surprise that the shenanigans at play in this bad boy are largely of the oh no you didn’t variety.
6. Channard Institute, HELLRAISER II
I really hope that I never end up going insane, because my media fueled perception of the doctors that run the damn things isn’t good. I mean, handing a dude with bug hallucinations a couple razor blades so that he can cut himself up in order to bring a psycho chick back from Hell? And that’s just the start of the plan? Jeez. How f*cked up can you get?
7. Paragon Clinic, THE FURY
Government agents are always screwing things up when somebody’s got super cool powers. And they are way too dense about how to “safely” deal with people who can kill you with their minds. Me personally, instead of even sending them to a “clinic”, I’d make sure they thought they were hanging at a vacation resort/spa. Otherwise people start exploding and shite.
8. Westin Hills, NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 3
The only thing cooler than Dokken’s theme song is the setting of the only NOES flick that Craven wrote, yet did not direct. Watching these eager Dream Warriors run around trying to avoid getting off’d by hot nurses and aggressive TV’s is a blast that is made all the more fun/frustrating because whose going to believe the stories of a bunch of crazy kids?
9. Dr. Seward’s Lunatic Asylum, DRACULA
One great thing about grabbing the assistance of nutters is that they generally possess a certain moral flexibility that their more sane counterparts do not. Good ole Renfield has been spending some QT in a legit insane asylum when the dark prince Dracula comes a callin’. Since being stuck in such a place sucks, he not surprisingly agrees to play.
10. Psychiatric Hospital, BAD DREAMS
Cynthia has to be thanking her lucky stars that she’s got a dreamy doctor to focus on, because other than that she’s stuck in a pretty f*cked up situation. Nearly get burned to death, spend years in a coma, get visited by the angry spirit of a disenfranchised cult leader, and then all your crazy buds start offing themselves. Welcome back chica.
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