Asylums and mental health hospitals, for all the good they might do in real life, are often synonymous with horror movies. The setting can lend itself to multiple kinds of horror, from being held prisoner by cruel staff to being unfairly deemed insane, by way of haunted halls and cruel ghosts. However,outside of horror video gameswhich feature this setting regularly, how many horror movies actually take place in asylums? Excluding dramas and thrillers likeGirl, InterruptedandMartin Scorsese’sShutter Island, this list curates the best horror movies set in asylums for your perfect mad-house movie marathon:
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10The Ward (2010)
“Master of Horror"John Carpenter(Halloween,The Thing) returns to the genre for his most recent film to date. Set in Oregon in 1966,The WardstarsAmber Heardas Kristen, who, after setting fire to an abandoned farmhouse, is institutionalized, only to find herself being haunted by the ghost of a former psychiatric patient. Marrying both the horror of unfair imprisonment with the idea of haunted halls, this supernatural psychological thriller also starsChernobyl’sJared Harris.
9Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum (2018)
This creativefound-footage horror movie from South Koreais named after the real-life psychiatric hospital of the same name. An enormous commercial success, this film became the third most-watched horror movie in South Korea, making almost 10 times its budget at the box office in the US alone. Fans ofThe Blair Witch Projectwill likely love this story of a web-series crew that live-broadcasts their experience wandering the halls of this haunted asylum.Gonjiamis full of edge-of-your-seat tension, directed byJung Bum-shik.
8Session 9 (2001)
WestworldandOzark’s Peter Mullan stars as a man tasked with asbestos abatement at Danvers State Hospital. His team consists ofCSI: Miami’sDavid Carusoas a heartbroken Romeo,Stephen Gevedonas a law-school dropout aware of the building’s history,Josh Lucasas a gambling addict, andDon’t Breathe 2’sBrendan Sexton IIIwho has a pathological fear of the dark. Their creepy task only becomes creepier when they discover audio recordings of a woman with dissociative identity disorder, and begin to hear voices in the halls. This cult favorite is directed byThe MachinistdirectorBrad Anderson.
7Unsane (2018)
While escaping a stalker,Claire Foy’s Sawyer unwittingly signs an agreement to spend 24-hours in the custody of a psychiatric hospital. After she begs for police assistance, and has altercations with staff and inmates alike, she is retained for seven more days.This stressfulSteven Soderberghmoviequickly unfolds, and secrets about the facility and its diverse cast of characters are revealed to Sawyer.Joshua Leonardalso stars, following on from his role in another asylum horror in 2004,Madhouse, which very nearly made this list.Ted Lasso’sJuno TempleandSNL’sJay Pharoahround out the cast, showcasing their dramatic chops.
6A Cure for Wellness (2016)
The Ring’sGore Verbinskidirects this neo-gothic psychological horror movie starringDane DeHaan. When a financial executive visits a wellness center to retrieve his boss, he is turned away, only to be involved in a car crash that places him in the wellness center himself. There he meets another patient, Hannah, played bymodern horror iconMia Goth(X,Pearl), as well asJason Isaacs' Dr. Heinreich Volmer, and the mysteries of this wellness center come to the fore. This movie, set in the Swiss Alps is inspired byThomas Mann’s 1924 novelThe Magic Mountain.
5Asylum (1972)
This British film (dubbedHouse of Craziesin subsequent U.S. releases) was written byRobert Bloch, author of the novelPsycho,which becametheAlfred Hitchcockclassic. Based on Bloch’s short stories, this anthology movie sees Dr Martin (Robert Powell) interviewing the inmates of a mental institute, taking us into the world of each of their four stories. One installation even stars horror iconPeter Cushing, the pre-eminent star of the Hammer Horror movies from the late 1950s to the mid-1970s. The film ties together in a haunting epilogue that stays with viewers long after the movie is over.
4A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987)
Robert EnglundandHeather Langenkampreturn as Freddy Krueger and Nancy respectively, this time joined by eventual household namesPatricia ArquetteandLawrence Fishburne. After a run-in with Freddy leaves her wrists bloody, Arquette’s Kristen is sent to Westin Hills Psychiatric Hospital because her mother fears she might be suicidal. There, the originalElm Street"final girl” Nancy happens to intern as a therapist and befriends her patients, teaming up to learn how to fight Freddy Krueger. This installment was intended byWes Cravento end the series, but its success merely warranted further sequels for the franchise.
3Stonehearst Asylum (2014)
What doBen Kingsley,Kate Beckinsale,Michael Caine,David ThewlisandBrendan Gleesonall have in common? This all-star horror-thriller about the staff and patients at the titular mental asylum!This film, also known asEliza Gravesis loosely based on the 1845 short storyThe System of Doctor Tarr and Professor FetherbyEdgar Allan Poe. When an Oxford professor in 1899 shows his students a case of female hysteria, they protest that she is sane, but the professor insists that all mental patients claim to be sane. One student takes up residency at the asylum to uncover the inhumane treatments the asylum is dubbing “revolutionary.”
2The Ninth Configuration (1980)
An ex-Marine takes on the job of running a mental asylum in a remote castle, where he hopes to rehabilitate the patients by letting them act out their wildest fantasies. Sound familiar? This story byThe ExorcistauthorWilliam Peter Blatty(along withThe Cabinet of Doctor Caligary) inspired the framework of Scorsese’sShutter Island. This impressive transition from novel-writing to screenwriting earned Blatty a Golden Globe for Best Screenplay, as well as being his directorial debut. The movie starsThe Walking Dead’sScott Wilsonand takes place “toward the end of the War in Vietnam,” inviting profound interpretations that enrich this already enthralling film, making for something more thought-provoking than your average asylum-based horror.
1Shock Corridor (1963)
Originally written in the 1940s forFritz Langunder the titleStraitjacket,Samuel Fullerwrote and directed this tale of a journalist played byPeter Breck. In a desperate attempt to win a Pulitzer Prize, Johnny Barrett (Breck) intentionally commits himself into a mental asylum, hoping to untangle the mystery of an unsolved murder, but as you’d expect, not only does he uncover the horror of the asylum, he also witnesses the horror of being engorged by insanity, first hand. As the classic poster states, “Shock Corridoropens the door to sights you’ve never seen before!” and although this may not be quite true anymore, in this modern age, this film is so celebrated for its achievements that in 1996, it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress.
