5 Mind-Warping Movies Set In Mental Hospitals

Are you a movie buff? With so many movies out there, it’s hard to be an expert on film. But if you pick a genre, it’ll be much easier to rock your friends sock off.

If scary movies are your favorite but you’re looking for something new, try a marathon of movies that all take place in mental hospitals. 

These range from scary and horrifying to heartwarming, but one thing’s for sure. You’ll love each of the 5 movies on our best asylum flicks list below. Read on.

1. Brainstorm

You don’t need a tarot reading to tell you that this 2001 movie is mind-warping. Rodrigo Santaro stars as a boy whose father catches him smoking weed and sends him to a mental hospital to detox. He doesn’t know that the facility mistreats its patients.

The sick, twisted story is hard to shake off, especially after Santaro’s amazing performance.

2. The Ward

You’ll think this movie set was cursed because of how creepy it is. Amber Heard is a mental asylum patient who starts seeing things. But of course, no one believes her.

Complete with ghosts and murders, the story is chilling to the bone. You’ll be on the edge of your seat until the very end. You’ll find a bit of history, too, as the story was filmed at a Kirkbride mental institution in Washington.

3. Don Juan DeMarco

Johnny Depp is great at movies that mess with your psyche. His 1994 performance is epic as a young man who thinks he’s the best lover in the world. Marlon Brando costars as his psychiatrist.

While this movie is more romantic comedy than horror, it’s definitely worth your time. Rather than curing his patient, the psychiatrist finds help in his own life from his interactions with Depp’s character.

4. Session 9

You’ll be determined to check out possible new houses thoroughly after you watch this movie about an asbestos testing crew in an abandoned mental hospital. They watch a tape of an old patient and slowly start losing their minds.

The horror aspect of the 2001 flick is perfect, as the creepy old building lends itself well to the terror, and the hallways are like a maze. In typical fashion, members of the work crew begin to go missing, one by one, making the rest fearful and suspicious of the others.

5. In the Mouth of Madness

This 1994 movie is actually the third in the Apocalypse Trilogy. If you haven’t seen the first two, The Thing and Prince of Darkness, you should. But the third takes place in a mental institution, and it has all the accompanying terrors.

A mental patient tells his psychiatrist about his quest to discover what it is about an author’s book that’s making people insane. Instead, he finds a horrifying species and tries to save humanity. The doctor, of course, doesn’t believe him.

Chilling Movies in Mental Hospitals to Freak You Out

You can scare yourself and all your friends with movies like these that take place in mental hospitals. Take each one on its own and make an event every weekend, or spend one day and watch them all at once. 

There’s nothing else guaranteed to make you question your own sanity than movies about mental patients.

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