What makes television scary? Is it the unexpected surprise from a jump scare? Maybe for an amateur. Wouldn’t you say a paranormal account would be scarier than a jump scare? Perhaps. But what is the scariest factor of all? What can a television show add to the make the audience’s fear set in deeper? American Horror Story has been around for awhile now and since it first premiered in 2011, there’s been a constantly recurring theme. They seem to be nailing the whole fear aspect, but how are they doing this? By incorporating true factors into their plotlines, of course. Give the stories some killer taste by adding reality into the brew. The characters, plotlines, places, etc. behind the (American Horror) Stories are almost always based on some kind of truth. The infamous “Murder House” is actually the Rosenheim Mansion in L.A. Madame LaLaurie was real. There are actually three-legged children, strongmen, and conjoined twins. Hotel was based on the real Cecil Hotel. The killer nurses were even based on true stories. But the most bone-chilling, terrifying “true story” of all is the one behind Asylum.
What makes it the scariest one out of all the others is that no one can agree what the Story is based on. Some people will say it is based on Waverly Hills Sanatorium, in Louisville, Kentucky, but that’s not entirely true. Though Waverly Hills was open during the decades of operation for Briarcliff as well, there are some significant differences. First of all, Waverly wasn’t exactly an asylum. It was a hospital for tuberculosis patients. That being said, the outside of the building is rumored to be the inspiration for the look of Briarcliff Manor, AHS’ asylum in Asylum. It was also rumored that the creepy feeling of the outside of Waverly Hills is the feel they wanted their audience to feel when they looked at Briarcliff. Waverly also had a body chute, just like the one that is referenced by the couple on their honeymoon in the very first episode of the season. It is also stated that the head nurse of Waverly Hills was found hanging; it was acclaimed suicide, almost exactly like what Monsignor told Lana Winters when she came to see Sister Jude toward the end of the season, even though it was false.
But although the general mood, body chute, and hanging are a couple of similarities that ties Briarcliff Manor to Waverly Hills Sanatorium, that does not suggest that Waverly Hills is the entire inspiration alone. A lot of the inspiration actually came from Willowbrook State School on Staten Island, New York. This is where the majority of the “fictional” plotline comes into play. Willowbrook State School, “a state-supported institution for children with intellectual disability”, was a place where children with mental disabilities were basically dumped. There is an expose that exists from fledgling reporter Geraldo Rivera, much like the expose that we saw in Asylum from Lana Winters. In fact, they’re so similar that they even share some of the same dialogue. Rivera was exposing Willowbrook for the mistreatment of the patients there, saying that the conditions they lived in were disgusting and exploiting the grossness of the way these children lived inside this institution. A quote from Rivera: “This is what it looked like, this is what it sounded like, but how can I tell you about the way it smelled? It smelled of filth, it smelled of disease, and it smelled of death.” Sound familiar? The patients at Willowbrook were neglected, mistreated, and spent most of their days unoccupied. At one point, Willowbrook became overcrowded, housing 6,000 children when it was only built to house 4,000. This happened at Briarcliff too. The patients at both institutions were denied any time outside, which is less than even the worst of prisoners get. Patients from both Willowbrook and Briarcliff were seen begging to be released. When Geraldo was touring Willowbrook for the first time, “Wilkins looked at me and said, ‘Welcome to Willowbrook.’” We see this also as the title of the first episode, “Welcome to Briarcliff”. There was even a murderer at Willowbrook. He wasn’t as intense as Bloody Face, but he was still a murderer. The urban legend of a monster by the name of Cropsey came alive in a man named Andre Rand, who worked at Willowbrook as a janitor, and is thought to have attacked and killed many children. However, the bodies have never been found, but he was still convicted and thrown in jail. It’s kind of upsetting that he didn’t get a bullet to the brain like Thredson, which he much deserved.
These accounts are all too alike to be coincidences. The creators of American Horror Story choose to base their plotlines on historical events to make people uneasy. Seeing disturbing things play out on television, and then being informed that these things actually did happen somewhere in America is really unsettling. Also, if these things all happened at some time or another, could these events repeat itself as history is said to do? Could they all happen again, right before our eyes? That’s where American Horror Story picks up the phone and grins. These things happened to real people, these things we know as “stories” were someone’s everyday lives. What’s your American Horror “Story”?
If you wanna check out some of the places I gathered information for this article, click the links below.
(in no particular order)
