Willowbrook itself


I want to start off by saying I found value in this film and thought it was well done. Perhaps I've gotten cynical in my old age though, and I'm sure others feel different, but I found Rand himself to be rather pedestrian in this day and age. I was 15-16 when John Wayne Gacy was caught and I remember watching the TV for those few days completely horrified trying to understand how anyone could do anything like that. Since then Gacy has always been the standard I've judged these monsters by.

What did unhinge me about this film though were the images of the children's mental hospital. It reminded me more of Auschwitz or some Nazi concentration camp than an American hospital for the mentally ill. Gerardo Rivera doesn't have the most credible name, but if what he was reporting was true... there laid the true horror & evil in my opinion.

I find it hard to believe, that even in the early 70's, Doctors & politicians would look the other way on that level of inhumanity. If there needs to be a movie, it's about the monsters that permitted an environment like that to exist. I would want people to know who they are and if they're still alive... Judged in the court of public opinion for their lack of conscious and compassion.

reply

They refrenced Willowbrook on "American Horror Story: Asylum". There is also a documentary called "Titticut Follies" about a mental hospital.

reply