The Haunting of Pennhurst is Ghoulishly Right On Time

When one thinks about mental institutions  or insane asylums in cinema, “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.”  “Girl Interrupted” and “Frances” immediately come to mind. The visions of patients who possess challenging or independent personalities being tortured into a shell of their once vibrant, energetic selves is quite disturbing on any level.

For over seventy years, Pennhurst State School & Hospital in Pennsylvania was referred to as a place of care. What happened inside ? Over half of its population was terminted forcing its doors closed in 1987  leaving behind unmarked graves and an unresolved history.

Today, on those same grounds, disabled performers – many living with similar experiences that once sent people to Pennhurst – put on their makeup, pull on their costumes, and prepare to scare people for a living. Through grit, compassion, and buckets of blood, the eclectic performers of the Pennhurst Asylum haunted attraction are wrestling with a space that is at once a lucrative business and a gravesite.

Additionally, the manner in which these disabled performers  are trained without purposefully terrorizing the visitors and learning to become one with their bodies was a sight to behold. It was done with such care, precision and respect that it left me having a different mindset on how these attractions. are curated  Not enough to visit one though, because this doll over here is the biggest scaredy cat walking…lol.

Directors Nathan R. Stenberg, Mike Attie, and Katarina Poljak have crafted something far more powerful than a horror film or  traditional documentary. These filmmakers have weaved the sordid history – good, bad and indifferent within the confines of prepping  haunted house performances making this a project worth watching a million times over.  They even get down to the nitty gritty of how artisans prep and create every inch of the experience from  makeup, costumes and Hollywood style prop bodies so realistic it will literally make your blood crawl.

The Haunting of Pennhurst is a horror story in its own right about care gone catastrophically wrong in the name of medicine while making attempts to right a wrong through a little jump scare and creative filmmaking.