10 Most Twisted Asylum Horror Movies

9. Don't Look In The Basement

The Ward Amber Heard
AIP

Don't Look in the Basement - also known as The Forgotten or Death Ward #13 - is a creepy 1973 picture set in Stephens Sanitarium.

Often described as One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Next meets The Last House on the Left - even mimicking Last House's marketing campaign of "remember, it's only a movie" - Don't Look in the Basement features a doctor who thinks the best way to cure insanity is to simply let those involved live out their desires.

Of course, this approach totally backfires on said doctor, with him having an axe put in his back in the early goings of the movie.

At a pretty impressive rate, Don't Look in the Basement starts to kill off nearly all of its asylum staff and a fair few patients. Our central protagonist ends up being Rosie Holotik's Charlotte Beale, a young nurse who finds herself trapped in the sanitarium with only Dr. Masters (Annabelle Weenick) for sane company.

While these two do their best to survive as the inmates take over the asylum, the gut punch for Charlotte is the revelation that Dr. Masters is actually a patient at the hospital - with her having been allowed to become a doctor as part of the previous tactic of letting people live out their fantasies in order to help cure them.

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Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main dayjob, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg.