# The inmates are running the asylum! **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** movies\ **Created:** [July 8, 2024, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-inmates-are-running-the-asylum/1003848 "2024-07-08T00:46:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Biggirl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biggirl/32/3294_2.png) [@Biggirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biggirl)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2024, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-inmates-are-running-the-asylum/1003848/1 "2024-07-08T00:46:49Z")
The [local horror picture show](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-you-were-a-kid-what-was-your-local-horror-movie-show/1003821/74) thread got me and my husband talking about the movies we watched on our local horror movie show, Chiller Theater, that scared the bejesus out of us as kids. One that we both remember scaring the pants off of us was a movie with the premise of the title of this thread: the crazies have taken over! Only, at first you don’t realize it. The thing is, he remembers it in color and I remember it in black and white. We tried to piece together our memories to come up with the movie’s title and to nail down the storyline but we were both little kids when we (seperately) saw it. We probably saw it a half a decade apart, to boot. Things we do agree on: A new person visits an asylum. All things look on the up and up in the beginning but slowly and then rapidly go down hill and in the end they crazy people lock the new guy in a dungeon-like basement. And that the movie is at least 50 years old. Searching the internet bought up a movie called Stonehearst Asylum which we both agree hits familiar plotline points, but that movie was made in 2014. It does sound like the old movie me and Hubby saw and this newer movie was based on the Edgar Allen Poe story. If’n anybody knows, hubs and I would appreciate it. We wanna stream it all comfy and not at all freaked out, not one tiny bit. ---
**Author:** ![teelabrown](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/teelabrown/32/8412_2.png) [@teelabrown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/teelabrown)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2024, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-inmates-are-running-the-asylum/1003848/2 "2024-07-08T01:03:55Z")
_[The Pit And The Pendulum](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0055304/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1)_? ---
**Author:** ![Biggirl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biggirl/32/3294_2.png) [@Biggirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biggirl)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2024, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-inmates-are-running-the-asylum/1003848/3 "2024-07-08T01:06:34Z")
Nope. It’s set in a mid-century insane asylum in the US. ---
**Author:** ![markn\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2024, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-inmates-are-running-the-asylum/1003848/4 "2024-07-08T01:09:26Z")
The Poe story that matches that plot is [The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Feather](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_System_of_Doctor_Tarr_and_Professor_Fether). The linked Wikipedia article has a long list of adaptations. You might look through that list and see if anything matches. Possibly you and your husband are remembering different adaptations. ---
**Author:** ![Biggirl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biggirl/32/3294_2.png) [@Biggirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biggirl)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2024, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-inmates-are-running-the-asylum/1003848/5 "2024-07-08T01:11:15Z")
> [@markn\_1](#): > > Possibly you and your husband are remembering different adaptations. This is quite possible. Thanks for the list! ---
**Author:** ![solost](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/solost/32/11776_2.png) [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2024, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-inmates-are-running-the-asylum/1003848/6 "2024-07-08T01:17:30Z")
When I started reading the OP I thought of a movie I saw in the theater that blew my young little mind, called ‘Twinkle Twinkle Killer Kane’, later renamed **[‘The Ninth Configuration](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081237/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_1_nm_0_in_0_q_the%2520ninth%2520configuration)**’ because, I guess, the first title was kind of silly. But that dates from 1980, only 44 years old, so not quite old enough. ---
**Author:** ![Dropo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ce7236/32.png) [@Dropo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dropo)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2024, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-inmates-are-running-the-asylum/1003848/7 "2024-07-08T01:33:52Z")
> **[Dr. Tarr's Torture Dungeon (1973) ⭐ 5.1 | Horror](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068504/?ref_=nm_flmg_t_59_act)** > > 1h 22m | R ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2024, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-inmates-are-running-the-asylum/1003848/8 "2024-07-08T01:37:25Z")
Certainly eye-catching poster graphics, but probably wasn’t on broadcast TV in the 1960s. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Dropo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ce7236/32.png) [@Dropo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dropo)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2024, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-inmates-are-running-the-asylum/1003848/9 "2024-07-08T01:45:23Z")
The op is unclear as to when the movie was watched. Although _Chiller Theater_ began in 1961, it ran until 1982 (not including later revivals) - [Chiller Theatre (1961 TV series) - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiller_Theatre_(1961_TV_series)). Having seen - and enjoyed - the film, I can also attest to its muddy colors, making it quite plausible that it could be mistaken for a b&w film in one’s memory. ---
**Author:** ![Biggirl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biggirl/32/3294_2.png) [@Biggirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biggirl)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2024, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-inmates-are-running-the-asylum/1003848/10 "2024-07-08T02:02:37Z")
I didn’t make it clear at all! Hubby probably watched in the very late 60s when he was very young but I watched in the 70s and 80s. ---
**Author:** ![burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/burpo_the_wonder_mutt/32/365_2.png) [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2024, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-inmates-are-running-the-asylum/1003848/11 "2024-07-08T02:34:01Z")
This is a bit of a stretch, but many of your salient points made me think of the **Tales From The Crypt** (1972) fifth segment where the blind guys in a home for the blind fix the wagon of the abusive new administrator. [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/z-Tdt327vaQ/maxresdefault.jpg "Tales from the Crypt (1972) | Joan Collins, Peter Cushing, Roy Dotrice, Richard Greene |Full Length") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-Tdt327vaQ) Begin at 1:03. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2024, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-inmates-are-running-the-asylum/1003848/12 "2024-07-08T03:10:48Z")
This is a long shot but there was a French film, _King of Hearts_, released in 1966. It’s about a World War I British soldier going to a small town to defuse a German bomb. What he doesn’t realize is that the inhabitants of the town that he meets are actually escapees from a local insane asylum. (The town’s actual residents had fled before he arrived.) ---
**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2024, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-inmates-are-running-the-asylum/1003848/13 "2024-07-08T04:31:12Z")
I thought of that, too, but it was a comedy and wouldn’t scare anyone, or be on Chiller Theater. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2024, 5:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-inmates-are-running-the-asylum/1003848/14 "2024-07-08T05:51:15Z")
_Asylum_ (1972)? [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/9yig3s-S-iY/maxresdefault.jpg "Asylum (1972) ORIGINAL TRAILER [HD 1080p]") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yig3s-S-iY) ---
**Author:** ![Biggirl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biggirl/32/3294_2.png) [@Biggirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biggirl)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2024, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-inmates-are-running-the-asylum/1003848/15 "2024-07-08T15:23:00Z")
I think we have a winner! And he was right, it was in color. Thanks all. Curiously, this isn’t on the wiki list even though it seems like Stonehearst Asylum looks to be almost the same movie, only not schlocky '70s style. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2024, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-inmates-are-running-the-asylum/1003848/16 "2024-07-08T16:03:32Z")
So I’m confused. Which version of which movie is this winner? @Elmer_J.Fudd 's 1972 iteration certainly can’t be the one the OP’s hubby watched in the late 1960s. Time doesn’t work that way. ---
**Author:** ![Biggirl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biggirl/32/3294_2.png) [@Biggirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biggirl)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2024, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-inmates-are-running-the-asylum/1003848/17 "2024-07-08T16:11:47Z")
I didn’t say he saw the movie in the late 60s, only that he may have watched Chiller Theater in the late 60s. I’ll never understand why people can’t read my mind when I’m not being very clear on things! ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2024, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-inmates-are-running-the-asylum/1003848/18 "2024-07-09T21:56:13Z")
> [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](#): > > This is a bit of a stretch, but many of your salient points made me think of the **Tales From The Crypt** (1972) fifth segment where the blind guys in a home for the blind fix the wagon of the abusive new administrator. Saw that in the 80’s. One of their best stories.