Last Updated on August 3, 2021
#1 – THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS
Through this list, we have had doctors who were imprisoned against their will and hospitals where insanity spread from the patients to the staff. THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS blends all of those elements together to give us the epitome of movie villains in the form of Dr. Hannibal Lecter. Anthony Hopkins has never been better than as the manipulative cannibal who is too smart for his own good. Plus, the fact that he is able to get out with such a flair for the dramatic has made me mistrustful of any sort of hockey mask or dolly carts.
#2 – HELLBOUND: HELLRAISER II
Another sequel to a horror franchise that helped elevate the original, this film upped the sexual aspects of the Cenobites and even put them into medical scrubs. The sheer idea of Pinhead operating as any sort of doctor is enough to scare even the most hardened individual. This movie is responsible for my mistrust the medical profession for a long, long time.
#3 – A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 3: DREAM WARRIORS
My personal favorite of the ELM STREET franchise, this is a quintessential 80s film that even used THE BREAKFAST CLUB for some of the marketing material. Setting Freddy Krueger loose on teens in a hospital was a genius and bold move after the critical and box office failure of FREDDY’S REVENGE. This is the film in the franchise that revolutionized the special effects for the series and truly makes for a scary as hell experience.
#4 – RE-ANIMATOR
Miskatonic University is a staple in the writings of H.P. Lovecraft and this film brings to life the great Dr. Herbert West who discovers how to bring the dead back to life. While in reality this would redefine medicine as we know it, in RE-ANIMATOR it just ends badly and leads to zombies and buckets of blood. A great, fun movie that should have launched way more sequels.
#5 – SHUTTER ISLAND
Martin Scorsese sure knows how to f*ck with viewers. SHUTTER ISLAND gives us the creepiest big screen mental hospital ever seen. Led by Ben Kingsley, Leonardo DiCaprio and Mark Ruffalo investigate a murder that may not have even taken place. Twists and turns abound with an ending many didn’t see coming. While not one of Scorsese’s best films, the atmosphere and cinematography more than make up for the vanilla script.
#6 – HALLOWEEN II
One of the best sequels ever made, HALLOWEEN II picks up right after the end of John Carpenter’s first film. A good portion of the film is set at the hospital where Laurie Strode is taken after her encounter with Michael Myers. To say the staff are unprepared for the mask wearing psychopath is an understatement as blood and guts ensue.
#7 – ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST
One of the more critically acclaimed films on this list, ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST has become part of pop culture in countless ways thanks to the stellar cast led by Jack Nicholson. While the film has become something of a humorous point in cinema history, the film is actually quite scary. The brutal Nurse Ratched tortures the patients as if they were criminals in prison. This is probably the funniest and scariest film on this list.
#8 – SESSION 9
Brad Anderson’s psychological film is set at an abandoned mental hospital but the crew of workers on a job there are subject to worse trauma than the patients that roamed the halls. Not quite the gory horror film you would expect, SESSION 9 is an underseen cult classic that features one doozy of a twist ending.
#9 – ANATOMY
This German horror film starring Franke Potente was released during the traveling tour of the Body World exhibit across the globe which featured human cadavers treated with a material that allowed their bodies to be taken apart in bizarre and grotesque ways. While this film gives us a fictional medical school that uses those bodies, this is not an institute of higher learning you would ever want to attend. The young students are like the cast of a typical American slasher film but armed with scalpels.
#10 – GOTHIKA
Back in 2003, GOTHIKA represented the latest definition of the word “bomb”. The atrociously bad horror film came on the heels of Halle Berry winning the Best Actress Oscar and signaled her continual decline from the spotlight. Still, a film about a psychiatrist becoming a patient in her own hospital is terrifying for countless reasons but even this hospital setting struggles with making Halle or co-star Penelope Cruz look less than sexy.
Honorable Mention: THE ROAD TO WELLVILLE
You may not have heard about this film despite the huge cast that includes Anthony Hopkins, Matthew Broderick, Jennifer Jason Leigh and Dana Carvey but you are missing out. This comedy about the early days of breakfast cereals focuses on John Harvey Kellogg, inventor of corn flakes, who had some unusual ideas about health and sanity. Come for the nudity but stay for the enemas, heat baths, and orgasmic bicycle rides.
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