larsonjt2@lopers.unk.edu
“October isn’t only the month for pumpkin flavored foods— it is also the time to watch thrilling and scary movies and TV shows.
“Ratched” definitely falls into the category of being a thrilling and horrific tv show perfect for the fall season. Season 1 has eight episodes with each episode running about 50 minutes, so you should be able to binge watch it in one to two days.
“Ratched” is a Netflix original series starring Sarah Paulson, Finn Wittrock, Cynthia Nixon, Jon Jon Briones, Charlie Carver, Judy Davis, and Sharon Stone. The show features Sarah Paulson as Mildred Ratched, otherwise known as Nurse Ratched, a WWII army nurse who gets a job at an insane aslyum in Calfornia to help her foster brother Edmund Tolleson, played by Finn Wittrock, from getting the death penalty after killing four priest.
This show is witty yet gruesome, and it draws you into the plot as each episode twists and turns in ways that you couldn’t expect. A lot of the characters are cunning and manipulative, and as the story plays out you get to witness the mental deterioration of some characters. It eventually gets to the point where you wonder if they are ones who are insane. Still other characters get shown to have different sides that they keep hidden until the end.
The special effects are pretty decent. I liked the musical accompaniment for some of the episodes because the music was similar to that of older horror movies. This helped play into the show’s 1940’s horror thriller themes. The murder scenes were actually pretty decent— they made these scenes seem really gruesome which really fit the genre of the show. I can handle murder scences where someone is getting stabbed by knife, but some of these scenes did a good job at freaking me out. I think the scene that freaked me out the most was the lobotomy scene: even though I knew it was fake, I just had to turn my head during this scene. They did a great job making it so creepy as the viewer is forced to sit there watching them make an incision into a character’s head and drill into their skull.
“Ratched” did a great job representing the mistreatment of patients of insane asylum during this time period. The show also shows outdated methods for treating mental illness like lobotomies, hydrotherapy, and hypnotherapy. It also showed how homosexuality was treated as mental illness that could be fixed. The outdated treatments and diagnosis help sell the audience on the fact that this is supposed to take place in the 1940’s.
“Ratched” has already been confirmed for a second season. Knowing Netflix this could mean we’ll see more of Nurse Ratched either in a few months or in a few years— either way it will be worth the wait.
