I’m mostly confused about why Mike was obsessed with the session tapes. He knew alot about the hospital, so did he plan to listen to them when he got there? Or did he become obsessed after arriving there?
I think he became obsessed when he found them - he started listening and simply wanted to hear the whole story. So then his whole life revolves around listening to the tapes and eventually becoming criminally insane.
Mike seemed to be the brightest of the bunch; he went to law school (albeit briefly), he knows how to do a lobotomy, stuff like that. I just presumed that he was naturally inquisitive, found these neat-o tapes from around the time the place shut down, and decided to have a listen. He even took notes on them, you’ll recall.
I thought that Mike was just very curious, too. However, I think he might have figured there was something interesting in the basement like that, so stumbling across it wasn’t quite accidental.
The part I didn’t get though, is why did Phil insist that Hank’s girlfriend said he’d left for (Florida?) I can’t figure out what motivated him to tell that lie.
Did anyone else rent this movie expecting something else? I read about this months ago in Entertainment Weekly, and I got the impression that it was going to be a ghost story, and it really wasn’t. I’m glad I saw it, though. Once I knew it was in Danvers mental hospital, I had to see it. My parents told me about how they visited a co-worker there not long before it closed, and how you could see the old shackles still hanging from the walls in the alcoves…
I don’t think it was a lie. Hank just told his girlfriend he was leaving her (and leaving the city) before he went back to the hospital to collect all the coins, jewelry, and such. He may or may not have planned to go to Florida, but I think he was planning to take all that stuff and leave town.
Well, sure, it sounds so reasonable and obvious when you put it that way…why didn’t I think of that?