This might sting a little. (Aiiieeeee!!!) Jeff Dean joins Eric and Mike again in taking on our favorites Hospital Horror shows.
The doctor to patient bond is one of the most sacred contracts in life, and horror movies love to flip that relationship to create maximum fear. In many ways, it is that great betrayal of explicit trust that makes these movies so horrifying. Raise your hand if you look forward to going under the knife. OK, I saw that. You raised your hand! Sickos, the lot of ya.
The Hippocratic Oath gets completely abused in these films. It’s not “Do no harm.” It’s more like “Do as much harm as possible!” (Slice! Jab! Slice! Rip!) Alternately, medical-themed horror films also dive into really nasty plagues and unexplainable mutations. The toe-curling quotient in these movies is very, very high.
We chose not to go completely down the mad-scientist route… for the most part. So we reserved movies like Frankenstein, Re-Animator, The Fly, They Saved Hitler’s Brain, The Human Centipede and similarly fantastical movies to its own category. But, certainly an argument could be made that they are medical horror movies, but in this case, we played it a little more straight. (a little)
Don’t expect to hear us talking about mental institutions, nut farms, loony bins, or other psychologically themed films, as there are enough of those movies to easily fill a roster for discussion by itself. Asylum horror is represented in every generation, and to be sure, we’ll go back to this at some point.
Also, we did not include a couple of the all-time greats of this sub-genre, Eyes Without a Face, and Get Out would certainly qualify for this episode, but we’ve talked quite a bit about both of those films, and in our quest to be your gateway to films you may not have been aware of, we’ve opted to introduce some new material.
So sit back, say “Ahhh!” and take in the collective wisdom of TST as we talk about Hospital Horror!
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