Since I don’t really feel like going into Pennhurst in this freezing cold weather, there really hasn’t been a lot to write about. The commonwealth of PA has put the whole issue of what to do with the place on the back-burner. Who knows, maybe that whole veteran’s cemetery thing will surface once again. As long as they don’t turn the place into another one of these pre-packaged housing developments that are made of “tissue paper and spit” (as one friend likes to put it). Although I could see another sequel to POLTERGEIST coming out of that idea.

So what I’m going to do today is write about the kind of film that has emerged over the past few years which features abandoned hospitals and asylums. I’m nominating “The Abandoned Asylum” movie (or AA) for the genre, since nobody else has done so. AA movies are always filmed at a long disused institution of some kind and feature the vengeful spirits of the poor inmates who were once housed there. The filmmakers would have us believe these are serious commentaries on the way society has treated the mentally ill over the years. I think it’s just a cheap way to scare the crap out of people using crumbling buildings.

The best of these films would be SESSION NINE, a film that’s hard to find in rental stores, but worth the effort. In this one, a group of men doing asbestos removal work at an abandoned asylum slated for demolition find that the demons within can be more deadly than those from the supernatural. SESSION NINE was filmed at the old Danvers State Hospital near Boston and it is a creepy place. The director would later go on to make the equally creepy horror movie THE MACHINIST with Christian Bale.

Other AA movies that can be found at your local video rental store include DEATH TUNNEL, BOO, and even parts of the KINGDOM HOSPITAL TV series. I’ll list more as I think about them.

I think there is another reason so many of these films popping up: the sheer number of abandoned hospitals and institutions in this country. I’m not going to start some tirade about lack of public support for the mentally ill because most of these places were shut-down when courts decided to mainstream such people. In my town alone, I know of several group homes for the mentally challenged. Many of these people used to reside at Pennhurst. And I think a good argument can be made that shutting them down was a good thing in the long run. But the stark, gray shells remain to let us know of a time when society felt is was better to institutionalize someone than leave them chained to the wall in a basement.

They also make for a ready-made horror movie set.