Psychiatric hospitals have always been frightening and attractive at the same time. The idea that a normal person can be within the walls of mental hospitals, many shudder, because there is a perception that in these hospitals, the most terrible monsters are not the neighbors in the wards, and the staff.
In this selection, we have collected the best films about mental hospitals and the horror that goes on in them. The films in this list will tell you what happens with the mentally ill people and how the brutal hospital staff treat and subdue the creepy monsters of other people’s subconscious, forgetting about their own.
Shutter Island
- Rating IMDB – 8.2
- Genre: Thriller, Detective, Drama
- USA production / 2009
- Budget: $80,000,000
- Worldwide gross: $294,804,195
- Directed by Martin Scorsese
- Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley, Max von Sydow, Michelle Williams, Emily Mortimer, Patricia Clarkson, Jackie Earle Haley, Ted Levine, John Carroll Lynch
The 54th year of the last century. U.S. Marshal Edward Daniels and his colleague Chuck Owl are sent to a mental hospital-prison on Shutter Island to find an escaped patient named Rachel Solando. The woman ended up in the asylum after drowning her three children and was under the close supervision of doctors for a long time.
One day, however, Rachel disappears without a trace. Edward and Chuck do everything they can to find the fugitive and return her to the doctors, but the longer they stay on the island, the more frightening mysteries the Ashecliffe hospital reveals.
The film is based on the novel of the same name by the writer Dennis Lehane. The work was published in 2003.
Eliza Graves
- Rating IMDB – 6.8
- Genre: Thriller, Drama
- USA production / 2014
- Worldwide gross: $2,467,351
- Directed by Brad Anderson
- Cast: Kate Beckinsale, Jim Sturgess, Ben Kingsley, David Thewlis, Michael Caine, Brendan Gleeson, Jason Fleming, Sophie Kennedy Clark, Sinead Cusack, Edmund Kingsley
Edward Newgate is a young psychiatrist. After graduating from university, the man immediately comes to work at Stonehurst Psychiatric Hospital. However, once inside the walls of the hospital, the hero is struck by the methods of treatment used by the head doctor of the hospital.
Dr. Lamb, like all the employees of the clinic, does not mock the patients with cruel treatment procedures, dines with the mentally ill at the same table and gives them complete freedom of movement. Soft attitude of the staff to the patients raises a lot of questions for Edward, and the man begins to conduct its own investigation. It reveals to him the terrible secrets of Stonehurst Hospital.
The film was based on the story “The System of Dr. Smol and Professor Perrault”. It was written by the writer Edgar Allan Poe in 1844.
Escaping the Madhouse: The Nellie Bly Story
- Rating IMDB – 6.4
- Genre: Thriller genre
- USA production / 2019
- Directed by Karen Moncrieff
- Cast: Christina Ricci, Judith Light, Josh Bowman, Anya Savcich, Mark Hildreth, Nikki Duvall, Tamara Gorski, Paul Essimbre, Sharon Badger, Lauren Cochrane
The events of the film are set at the beginning of the 19th century. Nellie Bly is a journalist, she has long heard about the outrages that flourish within the walls of asylums, and at some point she decided to write an exposé.
To ensure that her story was only the truth, the heroine carefully studied the behavior of mentally ill people and, agreeing with her editor, began to simulate mental disabilities. Very quickly the housemates considered the heroine insane and sent the girl to the madhouse, located on Blackwell Island. There the young journalist will have to face all shades of human cruelty.
The film is based on real events. The journalist Nellie Bly existed in real life. The girl actually faked a mental illness, ended up in an insane asylum and spent 10 days in an asylum. After that, Nellie wrote a sensational article about the atrocities of the insane asylum staff.
Changeling
- Rating IMDB – 7.7
- Genre: Thriller, drama, crime, detective, biography, story
- USA production / 2008
- Budget: $55,000,000
- Worldwide gross: $113,020,256
- Directed by Clint Eastwood
- Cast: Angelina Jolie, John Malkovich, Jeffrey Donovan, Gattlin Griffith, Michael Kelly, Peter Gerety, Colm Fiore, Jason Butler Harner, Amy Ryan, Denis O’Hare
Christine Collins is a single mother. One day a woman’s 9-year-old son named Walter goes missing. The heroine runs to the police for help, but corrupt law enforcement officials refuse to take her report. To get the cops to look for Walter, the woman makes a fuss in the press. Five months later, law enforcement officials solemnly return Christine to her child.
However, after a closer look, the woman realizes that the boy given to her is not her son at all. The conjecture of the heroine confirm the other people who knew Walter. Except that the police do not want unnecessary disturbances in the city. In order to silence Collins, they send her to a mental hospital.
Director Clint Eastwood considered Hilary Swank and Reese Witherspoon for the role of Christine Collins. However, in the end, they were overtaken by Angelina Jolie. Clint Eastwood decided that she would fit the role of Christine perfectly.
The Jacket
- Rating IMDB – 7.1
- Genre: Thriller, Sci-Fi, Detective, Drama
- USA, Germany production / 2004
- Budget: $29,000,000
- Worldwide gross: $21,126,225
- Directed by John Maybury
- Cast: Adrien Brody, Keira Knightley, Kris Kristofferson, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Kelly Lynch, Brad Renfro, Daniel Craig, Stephen McIntosh, Brendan Coyle, McKenzie Phillips
Jack Starks is a military man. While serving in Iraq, the hero suffers a severe head wound, but remains alive and is sent home in 1992. However, back home, instead of a quiet and happy life, the hero ends up in a mental hospital as a criminal.
Jack is accused of killing a policeman, but because of the memory lapses that began to happen to him after the injury, the man does not remember anything. Starks is humbly sent to serve his sentence in a mental hospital. However, there the hero becomes a participant in the gruesome experiments conducted by the head doctor on his patients.
The film is based on the novel by the writer Jack London, which is called The Straitjacket.
Ssa-i-bo-geu-ji-man-gwen-chan-a
- Rating IMDB – 7.1
- Genre: Drama, Melodrama, Comedy
- South Korea production / 2006
- Worldwide gross: $4,642,401
- Directed by Park Chang-uk
- Cast: Lim Soo-jung, Rain, Choi Hee-jin, Lee Young-neo, Kim Byung-ok, Oh Dal-soo, Yoo-ho-jung, Park Byung-eun, Kim Chun-gi, Cheon Sung-hoon
A girl named Young-gun lived for a long time with her psychotic grandmother, who genuinely thought she was a mouse and only ate radishes. When medics discovered the woman’s illness, they immediately took her to a mental hospital. Unfortunately, the girl’s grandmother had forgotten her dentures at home. Realizing that her relative would starve to death without her radish, Young-gun sets out to save her grandmother by bringing her forgotten denture to the hospital.
Except that soon the heroine herself begins to show signs of mental illness. For unknown reasons, Young-gun begins to think that she is a cyborg and her food is electricity. Because of this, the girl, just like her grandmother, ends up in an asylum, where she meets her true love.
Actress Lim Soo-jung, who plays the main character Young-gun, had to lose weight for the filming of this movie. She only weighed 39 kilograms during the filming of this movie.
Glass
- Rating IMDB – 6.6
- Genre: Sci-fi, thriller, drama
- USA, China production / 2019
- Budget: $20,000,000
- Worldwide gross: $246,999,039
- Directed by M. Night Shyamalan
- Cast: James McAvoy, Bruce Willis, Samuel L. Jackson, Anya Taylor-Joy, Sarah Paulson, Spencer Trith Clark, Charlaine Woodard, Luke Kirby, Adam David Thompson, M. Night Shyamalan
David Dunn searches for people with superpowers. One day his search leads him to a man named Kevin Crumb. He possesses a creepy entity called the Beast because it kills girls. Wanting to stop the evil, David gets into a fight with the Beast. The confrontation between the heroes is transferred to the streets of the city, where the men are caught by the police and sent to a mental hospital.
There David meets another superman nicknamed Glass. More than anything, he has dreamed of bringing superheroes and supervillains, (which, as it turns out, exist in reality) into the human world. However, his attempts were brutally suppressed by a team of superhuman fighters.
The script for this film was 134 pages, which came to fruition in just 39 days of filming.
Girl, Interrupted
- Rating IMDB – 7.3
- Genre: Drama, Biography
- Germany, USA production / 1999
- Budget: $40,000,000
- Worldwide gross: $48,350,205
- Directed by James Mangold
- Cast: Winona Ryder, Angelina Jolie, Clea Duvall, Brittany Murphy, Elizabeth Moss, Jared Leto, Jeffrey Tambor, Vanessa Redgrave, Whoopi Goldberg, Angela Bettis
The events of the film are set in America in the 1960s. A girl named Suzanne was normal for a long time, but after she started having hallucinations, Suzanne became depressed and started trying to commit suicide.
The heroine was rescued from death, but was sent to a mental institution, where she met others like herself. Each of them has a different mental abnormality, which they consider the norm. The unusual atmosphere of the hospital and the new acquaintances, make the heroine think about her life and take the path of treatment.
Most of the scenes in this film were filmed in a real mental hospital located in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, the state capital. The mental institution where the shooting took place was closed in 2005.
On the Edge
- IMDB Rating – 7.0
- Genre: Drama
- Production: Ireland / 2001
- Budget: $7,000,000
- Director: John Carney
- Starring Cillian Murphy, Tricia Vessey, Stephen Rea, Jonathan Jackson, Paul Hickey, Camille O’Sullivan, Mary Murray, Marcella Plunkett, Anna Manahan, Gerard McSorley
Jonathan is 19 years old, and he doesn’t want to die, but he doesn’t see any meaning in his life either. In an unsuccessful attempt to taste life, the hero takes drugs, steals someone else’s convertible, and steals the ashes of his dead alcoholic father from his brother’s house. Having had enough of riding, the guy decides to drive off a cliff to commit suicide.
However, his attempt to take his own life turns out to be unsuccessful: the hero discovers only a broken finger among other injuries. Only that the responsibility for the stolen convertible, in spite of the injury, still have to. To save himself from jail, Jonathan agrees to spend three months in a mental hospital.
The film “On the Edge” was the first full-length work of director John Carney. Subsequently, he made several other films: Sing Street, Once Upon a Time, Begin Again.
Gothika
- Rating IMDB – 5.8
- Genre: Horror, thriller, mystery
- USA, France, Canada, Spain production / 2003
- Budget: $40,000,000
- Worldwide gross: $141,591,324
- Directed by Matthieu Kassowitz
- Cast: Halle Berry, Robert Downey Jr, Charles S. Dutton, John Carroll Lynch, Bernard Hill, Penelope Cruz, Dorian Harewood, Bronwen Mantel, Kathleen Mackey, Matthew J. Taylor
Miranda works in a prison mental hospital and tries her best to cure her patients of their obsessions. However, one day the girl herself unexpectedly becomes a patient of the institution. The fact is that on the way home she saw the spirit of a girl who forced Miranda to brutally murder her own husband – Douglas.
Former colleagues are trying hard to convince the heroine that the spirits she sees – are not real, but she herself is a danger to society. However, Miranda soon escapes from the clinic and, with the help of a ghost who comes to her, reveals the terrible truth about her murdered husband.
During the filming of this movie, actress Halle Berry, who plays the main character, was injured. The star broke her wrist when Robert Downey (he plays Miranda’s doctor Pete Graham) was twisting her arms.
Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum
- Rating IMDB – 6.4
- Genre: Horror
- South Korea production / 2018
- Budget: $2,280,000
- Worldwide gross: $21,041,950
- Directed by Jeong Bom-shik
- Cast: Wee Ha-joon, Park Ji-hyun, Park Sung-hoon, Oh Ah-yeon, Moon Ye-won, Yoo Jae-yoon, Lee Seung-wook, Park Ji-a
At one time Konjiam Psychiatric Hospital was one of the best institutions in South Korea. However, after 47 patients committed suicide on the same day and the head physician disappeared without a trace, the institution was shut down. For a long time, Konjiam was notorious and no one dared to venture into the abandoned building.
A young video-blogger, who dreams of becoming famous, saw the gloomy mental hospital as a great opportunity to promote his YouTube channel. In the pursuit of popularity the guy fearlessly goes into the abandoned building, not even knowing what evil awaits him there.
The Konjiam Psychiatric Hospital exists in reality and is located in Gwangju City. In the year 96 of the twentieth century, the institution was closed due to a lack of funding.
Englar alheimsins
- Rating IMDB – 7.5
- Genre: Drama, Biography
- Iceland, Norway, Germany, Sweden, Denmark production / 2000
- Directed by Fridrik Toor Fridriksson
- Cast: Ingvar Eggert Sigurdsson, Balthasar Kormakur, Hilmir Snair Gvüdnason, Bjørn Jørndur Fridbjøndsson, Margret Helga Johannsdottir, Theodor Juliusson, Fredrik Stein Fridriksson, Sarah Margret Mikaelsdottir, Hallldóra Geirhardsdottir, Tor Thor Thulinius
A guy named Paul likes to compare himself to the great writers and musicians of the world and genuinely believes he is one of them. However, this peculiarity of the hero does not look like a disease until Paul is abandoned by his lover. Dagny is a girl from a very rich family and her relatives are adamantly opposed to the heroine dating the pauper Paul.
For a while, the girl is stubborn, trying to show everyone the defiance of her character, but when the family puts the matter to the point, Dagny quickly breaks up with the hero. After that, the guy begins to identify more and more with the celebrities of the art world and soon, doctors discover he has schizophrenia.
The film is based on the work of the same name by the writer Einar Gudmundsson.
Labyrinth
- Rating IMDB – 6.9
- Genre: Thriller, drama, crime, detective
- France, Belgium production / 2003
- Worldwide gross: $697,398
- Directed by Rene Manzor
- Cast: Lambert Wilson, Sylvie Testu, Frédéric Diefenthal, Michel Duchossoit, Edouard Montoutt, Tomer Cissé, Jean-Henri Compere, Philippe Resimon, Jérémie Bombas, Valérie Lemaitre
When 27 people are murdered in a Parisian subway car, detective Mathias, thanks to his unusual visions, quickly finds the culprit. It turns out to be a 25-year-old girl named Claude.
The fact that the heroine has a rare mental illness: in her mind coexists several personalities. All of them come from the myths of ancient Greece and have a completely different character. But the most frightening is the ruthless Minotaur. Each of these characters that live in the depths of Claude’s subconscious, face to face will have to meet the girl’s psychiatrist – Brennack.
Part of the inspiration for this film came from the story of Billy Milligan. This man was one of psychiatry’s most famous patients with multiple personality disorder.
Unsane
- Rating IMDB – 6.4
- Genre: Thriller, Detective
- USA production / 2018
- Worldwide gross: $14,293,601
- Directed by Steven Soderbergh
- Cast: Claire Foy, Joshua Leonard, Jay Fareau, Juno Temple, Amy Irving, Aimee Mullins, Sarah Stiles, Zach Cherry, Mark Kadish, Colin Woodell
Sawyer Valentini suffers from the manic pursuit of an admirer. Wishing to get rid of the frightening lover, the heroine leaves for another city. There, in order to restore mental balance, the girl makes an appointment with a psychiatrist, but becomes a victim of a fraudulent scheme of corrupt doctors.
Having been deceived, Valentini against her will goes to a psychiatric clinic. That would be all right, but it turns out that the stalker Sawyer works at the hospital as a nurse. Defenselessness in front of an obsessive suitor intensifies the heroine’s panic attacks, and with each passing day she delays her discharge from the clinic.
Surprisingly, the shooting of the film “Unhinged” took only 10 days.
This film was the first work of director Steven Soderbergh, which was filmed in the horror genre.
You Shall Not Sleep
- Rating IMDB – 5.1
- Genre: Horror, thriller, detective
- Spain, Argentina, Uruguay production / 2018
- Budget: €1,700,000
- Worldwide gross: $1,456,151
- Directed by Gustavo Hernandez
- Cast: Belen Rueda, Eva De Dominici, Natalia de Molina, Germán Palacios, Eujenia Tobal, Juan Manuel Guilera, Maria Zabay, Miguel Angel Maciel, Suzana Ornos, Maria Alfonza Rosso
Alma Böhm is a theater director. For a while she did not engage in her activities because of the crushing failure of her last play. One day, however, Alma decides to stage a new play. Selected actors, a woman with the whole troupe moves into an abandoned mental hospital where they have to deal with the rehearsals of the play “Sleepless”.
In order to get used to the role of the actors, whose characters are deprived of sleep on the script, voluntarily cease to sleep. Only that soon the heroes have to face the dire consequences of their decision: with each new day the door to the terrifying otherworldly world opens to them more and more.
“You Shall Not Sleep” is the third film work by director Gustavo Hernandez.
A Cure for Wellness
- Rating IMDB – 6.4
- Genre: Thriller, sci-fi, horror, drama, fantasy, detective
- USA, Germany production / 2017
- Budget: $40,000,000
- Worldwide gross: $26,620,002
- Directed by Gore Verbinski
- Cast: Dane DeHaan, Jason Isaacs, Mia Goth, Ivo Nandi, Adrian Schiller, Celia Imrie, Harry Groner, Thomas Norström, Ashok Mandanna, Magnus Krapper
Lockhart is an employee of a successful financial company in New York City. One day the man travels to Switzerland to escort his boss, Pembroke, back to America because the company has some business that requires the boss’s personal intervention.
Arriving at the sanatorium where Pembroke is vacationing, the man wants to meet with his boss, but the management of the recreation center does everything to prevent this. Not understanding the reasons for such behavior, Lockhart is going to go to the police. However, unexpectedly he himself becomes one of the clients of this sanatorium and soon understands: behind a beautiful facade of the spa there is something awful hiding.
The story is set in Switzerland, but the film was shot in Germany. The mountains, which appear from time to time in the frame, were added to the film with the help of computer graphics.
The Ward
- Rating IMDB – 5.6
- Genre: Horror, thriller, mystery
- USA production / 2010
- Budget: $10,000,000
- Worldwide gross: $5,343,820
- Directed by John Carpenter
- Cast: Amber Heard, Mamie Gummer, Daniel Panabaker, Laura Lee, Lindsay Fonseca, Mika Burem, Jared Harris, Sali Salyer, Susanna Burney, Dan Anderson
Because of a fire that occurred in 1966, a girl named Kristen was declared insane and sent to North Bend Psychiatric Hospital. The psychiatrist Stringer treats Kristen and four other girls with similar diagnoses.
The man does everything to return the heroines to a normal perception of the world and themselves in it. Soon, however, very frightening things begin to happen in the hospital. Kristen realizes that she is in danger in the hospital and plans to escape from the hospital, but it will not be easy.
In the film, the staff of the asylum allows the heroines to watch television. Thus, one of the films that the girls watch is a film by director Bert A. Gordon. It is called “Tormented” (1960) and belongs to the horror genre.
Veronika Decides to Die
- Rating IMDB – 6.4
- Genre: Drama, Melodrama
- USA production / 2009
- Budget: $9,000,000
- Worldwide gross: $306,028
- Directed by Emily Young
- Cast: Sarah Michelle Gellar, Jonathan Tucker, Erica Christensen, Florence Lozagno, Rina Owen, Victor Slezak, Barbara Zukova, David Thewlis, Melissa Leo, Erica Gimpel
Veronica is so discouraged by her drab and depressing life that one day she decides to commit suicide. The heroine takes a lethal dose of sleeping pills, but the doctors manage to work a miracle and bring the girl back to life. After that, doctors immediately send the hapless suicide victim to undergo treatment in a mental hospital.
Only there Veronica learns that due to the taken medication her heart is severely damaged and her days are numbered. This news gives birth to an overwhelming desire for life, and the heroine decides to escape from the hospital to enjoy the last days that fate has given her.
The film was based on the novel of the same name by Brazilian writer Paulo Coelho.
Boy Erased
- Rating IMDB – 6.9
- Genre: Drama, Biography
- Australia, USA production / 2009
- Budget: $11,000,000
- Worldwide gross: $11,853,081
- Directed by Joel Edgerton
- Cast: Lucas Hedges, Nicole Kidman, Russell Crowe, Joel Edgerton, Madeline Klein, Victor McKay, David Joseph Craig, Troy Sivan, Emily Hinkler, Devin Michael
Jared Eamons was a normal guy, but after the hero is raped by his college friend named Henry Wallace, Jared becomes attracted to men.
His parents try in every possible way to correct their son’s sudden homosexual preference. Especially for this purpose, the spouses Marshall and Nancy enroll the hero in a gay conversion therapy program. Except that Jared soon realizes that under the guise of treatment, the therapist Victor Sykes is doing terrible things to his patients.
Actors Nicole Kidman and Russell Crowe, who play the parents of the main character in this film project, are real friends in real life. The stars have been looking for a long time for a project in which they could star together, and the movie “Boy Erased” made their dream come true.
Grave Encounters
- Rating IMDB – 6.1
- Genre: Horror, thriller
- Canada production / 2010
- Budget: CA$100,000
- Worldwide gross: $3,613,222
- Directed by Colin Minihan, Stuart Ortiz, Vicious Brothers
- Cast: Sean Rogerson, Mervyn Mondeser, Ashley Gryzko, McKenzie Gray, Juan Ridinger, Ben Wilkinson, Sean MacDonald, Arthur Korber, Bob Rathie, Fred Keating
One day a group of members of the television reality show “Grave Encounters” go to the abandoned building of Collingwood Psychiatric Hospital. There, the four characters, led by the program’s host, Lance Preston, intend to make contact with the haunted inhabitants, but the group fails.
Being assured that all rumors about this hospital are nothing more than a rumor, the guys set out to leave. However, leaving the hospital is not easy at all, because the ghosts, with whom the heroes wanted to communicate, still decided to make contact and show their creepy essence in all its glory.
The film was shot on the grounds of the abandoned Riverview Psychiatric Hospital, which is located in Canada. All the filming took 12 days.
Instinct
- Rating IMDB – 6.6
- Genre: Thriller, Drama
- USA production production / 1999
- Budget: $80,000,000
- Worldwide gross: $34,105,207
- Directed by John Turtletub
- Cast: Anthony Hopkins, Cuba Gooding Jr., Donald Sutherland, Maura Tierney, George Dzundza, John Ashton, John Aylward, Thomas C. Morris, Doug Spinuzza, Paul Bates
Ethan Powell is a biologist. For a long time the man lived in Africa, studying the behavior and life activities of gorillas. However, he is imprisoned after he kills several poachers who hunt the gorillas he is studying. U.S. authorities manage to free Ethan from the African prison and return him to his homeland.
Except that in America, Powell has a psychotic episode and is sent for involuntary treatment to a mental hospital, which is not much different from a prison. There, the psychiatrist Tio Calder takes on the treatment of the hero, who tries to teach the biologist to live among people again.
The film was based on the novel Ishmael (1992). It was written by the American writer Daniel Quinn.
Madhouse
- IMDB Rating – 5.5
- Genre: horror, thriller
- Production: USA / 2004
- Budget: $3,000,000
- World Box Office: $21,306,771
- Director: William Butler
- Starring Joshua Leonard, Jordan Ladd, Natasha Lyonne, Lance Henriksen, Dendry Taylor, Leslie Jordan, Patrika Darbo, Christian Leffler, Newell Alexander, Dan Callahan
Clark Stevens is a young psychiatrist. One day the hero comes to work in a crumbling psychiatric clinic, and from that moment on strange things start happening to the man. Clark is plagued by headaches and unusual visions.
But most of all the hero worries about the brutal murders that keep shaking the hospital. Wishing to understand everything, Stevens begins to conduct its own investigation. With the help of an unusual patient from Ward 44 hero is trying to get on the trail of the offender. But soon the man realizes that his own subconscious keeps a lot of secrets.
The drug “Madhouse” mentioned in the film does exist in reality. Only in real life it is not an antidepressant, but an anti-psychotic.
Session 9
- IMDB Rating – 6.4
- Genre: horror, detective
- Production: USA / 2001
- Budget: $1,500,000
- World Box Office: $1,612,259
- Director: Brad Anderson
- Starring: David Caruso, Stephen Gaveston, Paul Guilfoyle, Josh Lucas, Peter Mullan, Brendan Sexton III, Charlie Broderick, Lonnie Farmer, Larry Fessenden, Jurian Hughes
Gordon Fleming is the owner of a small garbage disposal company. Things are not going well for the man, and when the hero is offered to clean the abandoned building of Gordon Psychiatric Hospital, he agrees without hesitation.
For the cleaning of the hospital the man has very little time – only a week, so he collects a team of workers and goes to fulfill the order. Except that in the basement of the hospital the men discover old tapes on which the psychiatrist’s sessions with his patient, Mary Hobbes, are recorded. As the characters become acquainted with the tapes, they themselves begin to go crazy.
The tapes shown in the film are real. They were found in an abandoned mental hospital.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
- IMDB Rating – 8.7
- Genre: Drama
- Production: USA / 1975
- Budget: $3,000,000
- World Box Office: $109,099,044
- Director: Milos Forman
- Starring Jack Nicholson, Louise Fletcher, Will Sampson, Brad Dourif, William Redfield, Danny DeVito, Christopher Lloyd, Sidney Lassick, Nathan George, Vincent Schiavelli
A man named Randle Patrick McMurphy is a criminal. Tired of serving his sentence, the hero decides to escape. However, it seems to him that the easiest way to carry out his plans would be within the walls of a mental hospital. McMurphy begins to fake a mental illness and soon he is transferred to a hospital for evaluation. There, Randle is confronted with the harsh routines set by the head nurse, Mildred Ratched.
Wanting to have fun, the hero begins in every way to break the laws established by the woman, and tries to persuade the other patients to do the same. Except that the manifestation of a rebellious character ends up for Randle not at all what he expected.
The film is based on a novel by American writer Ken Kesey. The work is called “Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
The Dead Center
- IMDB Rating – 5.8
- Genre: horror, thriller, detective
- Production: USA / 2018
- U.S. box office: $8,320
- Director: Billy Senese
- Starring: Shane Carruth, Purna Jagannathan, Jeremy Childs, Andy McPhee, Rachel Agee, Jackie Welch, J. Thomas Bailey, Dean Hall
Daniel Forrester is a psychiatrist, a man who loves his job and, at first glance, has nerves of iron. However, Daniel’s mental state is undermined when he meets another patient. He convinces him that he is already dead, but that he was resurrected afterwards and carried something terrible from the netherworld.
At first Forrester does not believe his ward’s words, but soon the doctor notices that something inexplicable is going on around him. Thus, spurred on by paranoia, Daniel himself begins to slip into the abyss of madness.
This is the third feature film from little-known director Billy Senese. The first two were “Closer to God” (2014) and “Tucked Away” (2007).
Deadgirl
- IMDB Rating – 5.6
- Genre: Horror
- Production: USA / 2008
- Director: Marcel Sarmiento, Gadi Harel
- Starring Shilo Fernandez, Noah Segan, Candice King, Eric Podnar, Jenny Spaine, Andrew DiPalma, Nolan Gerard Funk, Michael Bowen, David Alan Graf, Susan Marie Keller
J.T. and Ricky are high school friends. The boys have long had their eye on girls, but they don’t take kindly to the hapless heroes. One day the boys decide to skip class and visit a long-abandoned mental hospital. Wandering around the building, they accidentally stumble into the basement, where they find the corpse of a young girl.
J.T. immediately gets the idea to have sex with the dead girl. Rick, on the other hand, is shocked by his friend’s thoughts of necrophilia. The guy takes some time to convince his friend to give up the idea, but he fails and just walks away. Except that soon J.T., who did carry out his creepy scheme, tells Ricky that the girl he found is not quite dead.
All the shooting of this film took place in one city – Los Angeles.
Sucker Punch
- IMDB Rating – 6.0
- Genre: Fantasy, action, adventure
- Production: USA, Canada / 2011
- Budget: $82,000,000
- World Box Office: $89,792,502
- Director: Zack Snyder
- Starring Emily Browning, Abbie Cornish, Jenna Malone, Vanessa Anne Hudgens, Jamie Chung, Carla Gugino, Oscar Isaac, Jon Hamm, Scott Glenn, Richard Cetron
A 20-year-old girl nicknamed “Dolly” has a dying mother who bequeathed her entire fortune to her two daughters. Only her stepfather wants to take the orphaned heroines’ money for himself. To defend herself, Dolly threatens the ruined stepfather with a firearm, but accidentally kills her sister.
The man then sends the girl to a mental institution for involuntary treatment and, with the help of a bribe, records the uncooperative stepdaughter for a lobotomy. Understanding that she is in danger, Dolly enlists the support of her room-mates and begins to prepare for escape. The heroine imagines a fantasy world where she and her newfound friends will have to fight for the five most necessary things to escape.
The name of the asylum “Lennox House – Brattleboro, Vermont,” shown in the film, makes it clear that the asylum is located in the state of Vermont in the town of Brattleboro. In real life there really is a mental institution in that town.
Hipnos
- IMDB Rating – 5.4
- Genre: horror, thriller, drama
- Production: Spain / 2004
- Budget: €2,500,000
- Director: David Carreras
- Starring: Cristina Brontë, Demián Bichir, Marisol Membrillo, Julián Villagran, Fedor Atkin, Natalia Sánchez, Carlos Lasarte, César Nebreda, Vicente Gil, Chus Leiva
A young psychiatrist named Beatrice comes to work in a very prestigious psychiatric clinic. The heroine quickly finds a common language with doctors, patients and even undertakes to treat a 12-year-old girl. But soon the little girl is found drowned in the pool.
All write off this death as a suicide, and only Beatrice begins to suspect that at the hospital, where patients are treated hypnosis, something wrong. Soon the girl’s suspicions are confirmed by one of the patients. Miguel, who in reality is a policeman infiltrated into the hospital, claims that the girl, like the other patients at the clinic, has been murdered.
The plot of this film is reminiscent of the film “Shutter Island” (2009).
Sanitarium
- IMDB Rating – 4.7
- Genre: horror, thriller, detective
- Production: USA / 2013
- Directed by: Brian Ortiz, Brian Ramirez, Kerry Valderrama
- Starring Malcolm McDowell, Lou Diamond Phillips, Robert Englund, Lacey Schaber, John Glover, Chris Mulkey, Brandi Lopez, David Mazuz
The film consists of three stories that tell the story of psychiatrist Henry Stenson and three of his patients. Each story tells the story of people with unique mental illnesses and the methods the doctor used to treat the characters.
A story called “Figuratively Speaking” is about an artist, Gustav, who believes his creations are alive. The story “Monsters Are Real” is about a boy who suffers from schizophrenia. The last story, titled “To the Last Man,” is about a college professor named James Silo who is convinced of the coming end of the world.
Patient Seven
- IMDB Rating – 5.0
- Genre: Horror, fantasy, mystery
- Production: USA / 2016
- Directed by: Danny Draven, Paul Davies, Omar Orn Hauksson, Joel Morgan, Nicholas Peterson, Erlingur Thoroddsen, Dean Hewison, Rasmus Wassberg, Johannes Persson
- Starring Michael Ironside, Jack Carpenter, Drew Fonteiro, Rayne Jamieson, Grace Van Dine, Sirri Hones, Daniel Lentsch, Mark McCullough
Psychiatrist Daniel Marcus arrives at a mental hospital to interview six of the institution’s most dangerous patients. Dr. Paul Victor, who works with these patients, allows Marcus to work with the chosen people, and the hero begins to ask each patient about his past, trying to release the fears hidden in his subconscious.
Only when the conversation with the last patient is over, Daniel realizes that he himself is not completely healthy either. It turns out that Marcus is also a patient at this clinic, and his work with the 6 patients was just a hallucination. Now the tortures that Daniel applied to the imaginary patients are to be experienced by the hero himself.
Surprisingly, but over the filming of this movie worked as much as nine directors.
