The setting of a story is everything.

It creates mood and atmosphere.

It triggers memories and helps our minds fill in the blanks, adding tension and suspense

where there was only words and images.

What would the shining be like without the long hallways of the overlook or the legend

of Hell House without the dusty bones of the old Balesco house and can anyone ever look

at an old cabin in the woods without a chill running down their spine?

Not me, that's for sure.

But one of the most iconic and most visceral settings from any horror story without question

has always been the insane asylum.

These days we refer to the institutions that treat mental disorders as psychiatric hospitals.

Their hard places to work.

I know this firsthand thanks to a colorful college internship that featured a double amputee

who enjoyed streaking down the hallway on his knees.

Mental health professionals do amazing work.

But a lot more than just the name has changed for these hospitals of the mind.

In the late 1800s through the 1950s, the silums were a very different place.

They were filled with sick people in need of help, but frequently they were only offered

pain and suffering.

When HP Lovecraft wrote the thing on the doorstep in 1933, he imagined a place that he

called Arkham Sanitarium.

Arkham is the seed.

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