I saw either this movie, or one very similar to it, probably about 15 years ago on the American Movie Classics channel. I remember very little about it, as I was only 6 or 7 at the time. I just remember the ending.
Can you give me a brief rundown of the ending so I can verify this or know I need to continue my search?
Thanks in advance :)
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I can tapdance... you wanna see me tapdance? ;)
Well, at the end Johnny Barrett gets a little too close to finding out the truth (about Sloan's death) and so they use electroshock therapy to make him a vegetable.
The movie ends with a new patient being escorted down the hall and they walk past Barret staring off into the distance with his hand raised. Paralleling what Barrett saw at the beginning... then it ends.
Thanks so much for your answer. Unfortunately, it doesn't help, because this must not be the movie I saw as a kid. Arg!
Anyhow, do appreciate the response! Thanks again.
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I can tapdance... you wanna see me tapdance? ;)
Johnny doesn't get electroshock because he's getting too close to finding the murderer; he gets juiced simply because that's the therapy his doctor prescribes for Johnny's crazy behavior.
The movie ends with John fighting the murderer and getting him to confess. Then the coda shows his psychiatrist and girlfriend talking about how the Pulitzer Prize is going to be awarded to a catatonic mute, because Johnny has lost his marbles.
It *did* seem feasible for a moment there -- when we find John in a state of catatonia in the scene directly following his revelation of the murderer -- that there might have been some sinister plot afoot. That is, that his catatonic state was somehow induced by Dr. Cristo and others in the hospital staff in order to hush him up. But the movie really doesn't do anything further to imply that. Moreover, we learn from the dialogue between Cathy and Cristo that John did indeed write and publish his article about the true killer. Obviously, any effort to shut him up would have preceded such publication.
Too bad. Fuller might have made the film a good deal more interesting and unsettling if he'd pursued this angle.
Have you tried "The Snake Pit" starring Olivia de Havilland? Another classic insane asylum movie.
shareBasically, Johnny who wanted to play mad to get his pulitzer prize...well he gets his pulitzer prize and goes mad for real.
It's one of the greatest horror films ever made, knock your socks off!!!
People dissapear ever day...sometimes when you leave the room - The Passenger
haha.. one of the greatest horror films ever? you thought johnny's madness in this was more horrifying than the film repulsion? (dealing with a film with relatively the same horror element.) as far as other horror from around the same time period, uhh.. black sunday? the haunting? freaks? did i watch a different shock corridor? if you think this was the greatest because of campiness, what about blood feast!? other than that, good synopsis of the movie though.
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