MovieChat Forums > Scariest Places on Earth (2000) Discussion > Waverly Hills Sanitorium creeped me out ...

Waverly Hills Sanitorium creeped me out really


I'm watching SCARIEST PLACES ON EARTH right now because I couldn't sleep. I turned on the television just in time to catch the segment of six (6) college age women - all friends - deciding to spend the night in the expansive, abandoned and derelict Waverly Hills Sanitorium in Louisville-Jefferson County, Kentucky.
A young man knowlegable on the history of the asylum guides the bevy of young women on a tour of the main areas where apparitions and hauntings reportedly occurred. He's a nice, cleanly dressed, polite young man, not that much older than the girls. He's very professional and explains the history and the terrible things that went on in the asylum, but without unnecessary dramatic flair. He apppropriately acts like a professional tour guide. Throughout the tour, evening is approaching and the light is failing. Several times the girls freak out on 'seeing something' and scream until your ears hurt. Pretty soon, they're almost freaking out their tour guide. (The girls are not totally alone. There appears to be two cameramen along. Once in a while one of them is caught on the side of the frame holding a camera).
Even in daylight the place is totally eerie and creepy and scary. I'm saying this as a grown man. Even I wouldn't go tromping through the vast, empty, debris-strewn hallways, and rooms alone, and unarmed. I'm serious for practical reasons. The walls everywhere are painted with graffitti, especially with graffitti written to scare other would-be tourists. Oddly, you see almost no profane or vulgar or sexual graffitti. It's most all horror graffitti, all over the place. That means you can never tell who you might run across inside these empty warrens. That's why no one should ever go inside there alone. The large amount of debris and broken down fixtures and stairways are dangerous enough.
The GHOST HUNTERS team paid an investigative visit to Waverly and came away with the conclusion that the place was indeed haunted.
Suffice to say, at the end of the guided tour, almost all the girls are spooked. But two of the girls are so freaked out that they refuse to stay and leave with the tour guide. As they leave the asylum grounds, night has fallen. It is pitch black and the only light comes from the cameraman behind them. The tourguide gratefully sighs that he's glad to be leaving the place. And you know what, he sounds completely sincere, not something he was paid to say for drama.
The remaining four girls wisely stay together with their battery lanterns and flashlights for illumination. One carries a battery stun gun. They decide to retrace the tour. As they walk up the stairs, far in the distance below they hear the sound of metal grating on metal. No one wants to investigate it. The four girls spend the next several hours walking around. It's much different for them now that their group has dwindled from 6 to 4 and you can even feel the great loss of security with the absence of the extra two girls.
As I've mentioned, there are two cameramen with them, but keeping silent and out of the way and not interacting with the girls. There was no way the film company was going to leave four young women totally alone in that dangerous derelict asylum at night. Can you say, 'lawsuit?'
The four women don't bed down for the night, even though they brought bedrolls. I don't know if they were officially required to revisit all the toured places.
They make it to 4 am and have one more place to re-visit, the underground hidden chamber where dead inmates were wheeled. It's also the spookiest and creepiest, even to watch on tv. Walking past one of the ground floor rooms, the girls notice that in one, a sliding metal gurney attached to the wall is in the slid 'out' position. Earlier, during the tour, the guide showed them this metal sliding gurney, pulling it out and pushing back in. I remember seeing him do that. The girls ask themselves that same question and they all agree the guide pushed the gurney back in. They also agree that the metal grating sound they heard many hours ago must have been the gurney sliding out. They shrug their shoulders and start walking on down the huge hallway. Suddenly they hear the sound of metal grating from the side room they just re-inspected. They look inside. Light from the cameraman's camera illuminates the opening. The girls see, to their tremendous horror, the metal gurney has slid back out. That is enough for them. With shrieks of horror from all four, they bolt back down the hallway to the main entrance reception area, which itself is a huge open space.
Part of the open reception area is lit with light stands and wooden tables have been set-up with water and snacks for the girls. They stand around the tables, shaking like leaves. They're back in an illuminated area and you know the two cameramen are around since they're being filmed. But the girls all agree they've had enough. The last camera scene shows all four girls running out of the asylum into the darkness screaming. A distance away, in the pitch blackness, the girls have stopped to answer some interview questions. They still have their lanterns for illumination. They are scared sh-tless. They are not acting. I can tell the difference. These are ordinary, everyday college age girls.

For myself, I'm hoping that some a--hole accomplice of the camera team stayed hidden all that time and spooked the girls by sneaking up into the room and pulling the gurney out. It was just too damn scary to watch. I can tell you for certain that it wasn't the two cameramen. In the pandemonium following the gurney sliding back out, you can glimpse the cameramen. One was at the front of the group so it couldn't have been him. It couldn't have been the cameraman at the back because all the views were taken from the back of the group. How could an accomplice stayed hidden and quiet for so long? And why wait all night from evening and unto 4 am to make his move? He could have scared the girls much sooner than that. It freaked me out just to watch it on television. As a guy, I would not have gone inside that place in a group of guys no smaller than four. I would have carried two flashlights and a defensive weapon like a short staff. Even if you're not worried about ghosts, you need to be concerned about running into dangerous living people like vagrants, drug-dealers, criminals, or gangbangers. That's why a place like that is best left alone and not wandered into, even within a group of people. If by chance you're foolish enough to wander inside, make sure it's in broad daylight and your group is no smaller than five or six.
I later googled Waverly Hills Sanitorium and discovered that the grounds are guarded against trespassers. Good.

reply

Holy you must have really analyzed that episode, kudos to such particular attention to detail!!!

reply