I love the crazy/creepy

Since I can remember,I've had a bit of a fascination with insane asylums/mental hospitals.Not necessarily the diseases themself,but the buildings the patients were housed in.This fascination all started when,when I was about 9 years old,we visited my mom's home town.My mothers' mom (who died before I was born),worked her whole life as a cook in the Tower Mental Hospital,which is just as creepy looking a place as they make these types of places look in the movies.

My mom took me to look at the buildings,which are in the middle of town,and now being used as offices.The hospital has been moved outside of town,beside the river,and there is this really eerie looking hanging bridge you can cross if you want to go there on foot.But the buildings in town,although they are now used for commercial purposes (there's a lawyers' office,dentist and even political office) still looks exactly the same as it did when it was used to house the crazies (no offense).As we went around the back,i saw these big metal cages,and asked my mom what they were,and she said they were like giant play pens for the really disturbed patients.They would be put in the cages one at a time,to get some 'fresh air'.My mom told me that lots of times the people walked around naked,because the doctors were afraid they could hang themselves with pieces of clothing.

The weirdest/coolest story my mom ever told me,was about how the more sedate patients would sometimes go in the yard and work in the garden,and how the one woman attacked another patient with a spade,nearly decapitating the other woman,stripped down naked and made a run for it,and how my grandma (who was quite a big,tough lady) had to run after her to try and catch her.That story is so cool to me,because it gives me an idea of what type of person my grandma was,and it sounds tailor-made for a movie.

Check out these pictures by Andre Govia on flickr.They are so very creepalicious.Love it!

PS.Can you tell I watched 'Gothika' again last night?