Multimedia Friday - Haunting Stigma

In time for Halloween:

Trailer for Central State: Asylum for the Insane. A filmmaker prowls a closed mental institution to "...uncover the mysteries left behind when the facilities closed in 1994." There's lots of shaky handheld camerawork in poorly lit tunnels, and shakier rumours of ghosts, but no exploration into the disappearance of former patients. Homelessness and prisons, that's scary, not the supposed ghosts that a supposed psychic says are "like a tornado" in the building.

What's actually "menacing and still threatening" is not an old hospital but the stigma attached to mental illness that's trotted out every Halloween in stereotypes of madness and violence. Check out some Stigma Busters before dressing up as a zombie axe murderer in a straight jacket this year.

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I went to school across the street from that place 30 years ago. Cool.

By Jeffery Keown (not verified) on 26 Oct 2007 #permalink

Neat. Did you see any tornado-like ghosts? ;-)