Escaping the Madhouse: The Nellie Bly StoryMovies like Escaping the Madhouse: The Nellie Bly Story
- Key Features:
- Investigative journalism, Mental institution, Social commentary, Expose, Injustice, Historical drama, Strong female lead, Abuse of power, Mystery, Identity, Survival
- Tone:
- serious, dramatic, suspense-driven
- Target Audience:
- Historical drama enthusiasts, Biopic fans, Social justice advocates
- Emotional Arc:
- Intrigue → Anxiety → Hope
Escaping the Madhouse: The Nellie Bly Story

An investigative reporter Nellie Bly, who’s on a mission to expose the deplorable conditions and mistreatment of patients at the notorious Women’s Lunatic Asylum, and feigns mental illness in order to be institutionalized to report from the inside. The movie is an account of actual events surrounding Nellie’s stay beginning after she has undergone treatment, leaving her with no recollection of how she came to the asylum or her real identity.
Escaping the Madhouse: The Nellie Bly Story
A young psychiatric intern unearths secrets about the mental health facility in which he works.

While on a class observation trip at a local mental hospital, young psychology major Abby Jones, has a chilling encounter with high-risk patient, Harmon Porter. She returns home for an evening of normal study with her two roommates unaware of the darkness she’s awakened within him.

With the help of his girlfriend Cathy and Dr. Fong, a psychiatrist, ambitious journalist Johnny Barrett poses as a madman in order to be admitted to a mental institution where a bloody murder has been committed.

A woman becomes very curious about one of her psychiatrist husband's inmates, a man who was found guilty in the murder and disfigurement of his former wife.

A woman who is unfairly institutionalized at a Paris asylum plots to escape with the help of one of its nurses. Based on the novel 'Le bal des folles' by Victoria Mas.

An Oxford Medical School graduate takes a position at a mental institution and soon becomes obsessed with a female mental patient, but he has no idea of a recent and horrifying staffing change.

Susannah Cahalan, an up-and-coming journalist at the New York Post becomes plagued by voices in her head and seizures, causing a rapid descent into insanity.

A young psychiatrist applies for a job at a mental asylum and must pass a test by interviewing four patients. He must figure out which of the patients, is in fact, the doctor that he would be replacing if hired.

Kristen, a troubled young woman, is captured by the police after burning down a farmhouse and is locked in the North Bend Psychiatric Hospital. Soon, she begins to suspect that the place has a dark secret at its core and she's determined to find out what it is.

A young nurse, Alma, is put in charge of Elisabeth Vogler: an actress who is seemingly healthy in all respects, but will not talk. As they spend time together, Alma speaks to Elisabeth constantly, never receiving any answer.

Suki is a young woman confronting her destructive mental illness using "The Siamese Burn," an experimental machine designed to eliminate multiple personalities. The closer Suki comes to being "cured," she's haunted by a thought... what if the last unwanted identity turns out to be her?

A severely injured man and woman awake in an abandoned sanitarium only to discover that a sadistic caretaker holds the keys to their freedom and the horrific answers as to their true identity.

A group of cooks at an asylum for the criminally insane get locked in with the inmates during a massive thunderstorm

During an exclusive tour, a power breakdown inside a secret prison known as the Death House sends two agents fighting through a labyrinth of horrors while being pursued by a ruthless army of roaming inmates. As they fight to escape, the agents push toward the lowest depths of the facility where they learn a supernatural group of evil beings is their only chance for survival.

The teenager Madison McBride is traumatized by the loss of her deranged father when she was nine years old and the suicide of her beloved brother Brandon one year ago. She decides to join the Richard Miller University, where Brandon committed suicide, to overcome her demons. While walking to her dorm, she meets the weird janitor Wilbur Mackey that tells her that the place is haunted.

A photographer struggling with memory loss discovers her pictures may indicate something sinister is hitting close to home.

When a gloomy, God-fearing island community is rocked by the assault of an infant, a psychiatrist is called in to examine Dorothy Mills, the teenager accused of the crime. Despite the villagers' hostility to her inquiry, she soon comes to suspect that Dorothy suffers from multiple personality disorder...

Six strangers find themselves in circumstances beyond their control, and must use their wits to survive.

A woman wakes up in a river. Wounded and without memory, then races to elude mysterious followers and recover from amnesia.

Held captive for 7 years in an enclosed space, a woman and her young son finally gain their freedom, allowing the boy to experience the outside world for the first time.

Reporters Loretta McLaughlin and Jean Cole bravely pursue the story of the Boston Strangler at great personal risk, putting their own lives on the line in their quest to uncover the truth.

In a world of fake castles and anthropomorphic rodents, an epic battle begins when an unemployed father's sanity is challenged by a chance encounter with two underage girls on holiday.

A young woman, institutionalized by her abusive stepfather, retreats into a vivid fantasy world where she envisions a plan to escape. Gathering a group of fellow inmates, she embarks on a quest to collect five mystical items, blurring the lines between reality and imagination.

A young woman with psychokinetic powers breaks out of a Louisiana asylum and makes her way to New Orleans, where she falls into the city’s netherworld of misfits and miscreants.

A woman is pursued by her murderous, psychopathic twin sister in the days leading up to their birthday.

Set in the changing world of the late 1960s, Susanna Kaysen's prescribed "short rest" from a psychiatrist she had met only once becomes a strange, unknown journey into Alice's Wonderland, where she struggles with the thin line between normal and crazy. Susanna soon realizes how hard it is to get out once she has been committed, and she ultimately has to choose between the world of people who belong inside or the difficult world of reality outside.

A young psychiatric nurse goes to work at a lonesome asylum following a murder. There, she experiences varying degrees of torment from the patients.

A horror movie star returns to his famous role after spending years in a mental institution, but the character seems to be committing murders independent of his will.

A schizophrenic rock musician, is convinced that his parents were murdered by three men. Taking the support of a journalist, he sets out to find the culprits. Will he succeed in his mission, and in the process, what will he learn about his own roots?

Six people, each of them is on the road to self-destruction. They wake up in cells in a surreal facility, without knowing how they got there or why.

Female prisoners in a Philippine jail are being subjected to sadistic torture. Five of the women -- along with the help of two men -- plot an escape.

A young woman attempts to cure her phobia of the boogeyman by checking herself into a mental health facility, only to realize too late that she is now helplessly trapped with her own greatest fear.

Four friends break into an abandoned insane asylum in search of a death certificate which will grant one of them a large inheritance. However, finding it soon becomes the least of their worries in a place haunted by dark memories.

Ruby wakes from a bad dream to find herself in a real life nightmare. She's trapped in a basement, her legs are broken and she can't remember who she is or how she got there. Her kidnapper, Tom, tells her she will remain captive until she falls in love with him. Ruby is focused on trying to escape until Tom starts helping her to remember her past and she begins to question everything.

A man takes up residence with a mysterious marquis and is soon persuaded to enter into an asylum for preventative therapy. Things are not what they seem, and the marquis may be even more sinister than what the young man might have predicted.

A quartet of murderous psychopaths break out of a mental hospital during a power blackout and lay siege to their doctor's house.

An ordinary woman makes an extraordinary decision which will change her life forever.

The true story of how Kara Robinson was kidnapped, assaulted and held captive for 18 hours, 15-year-old Kara Robinson plots a daring escape from a serial killer's apartment.

A mermaid is ripped from the Pacific, her tail is chopped off and she's thrown into a mental home where no one believes she is a mermaid.

The story of a man who wakes up in bed suffering from memory loss after being in an accident, only to begin to suspect that his wife may not be his real wife and that a web of lies and deceit deepen inside the house where he soon finds himself a prisoner.

Six of the worlds scariest psychopaths escape from a local Asylum and proceed to unleash terror on the unsuspecting crowd of a Halloween Funhouse whose themed mazes are inspired by their various reigns of terror.

A group of elite soldiers sent to infiltrate and extract the lead science team from Pine Gap, Australia's top secret underground military compound, after it comes under attack from unknown forces. The mission is compromised when they encounter a young woman with no memory of who she is or how she came to be there. As they try to escape, the group quickly discovers all is not as it seems and the facility has become a testing ground for something far more sinister.

A tale of terror. Cathy Reed has been institutionalized most of her life because of Schizophrenia, as a child her parents thought she was possessed by demons and had her exercised by priests. Medical science saw different. Now decades later Cathy is freed, relocated to her own flat and given a chance to be independent. Once alone things are not what they all seem and when her nightmares turn real she questions her state of mind before she is left to face her demons.

A drama centered on the relationship between journalist Michael Finkel and Christian Longo, an FBI Most Wanted List murderer who for years lived outside the U.S. under Finkel's name.

A woman is involuntarily committed to a mental institution where she is confronted by her greatest fear.

After a frantic suicide attempt, Veronika awakens inside a mysterious mental asylum. Under the supervision of an unorthodox psychiatrist who specializes in controversial treatment, Veronika learns that she has only weeks to live.

In the dead of night, Rebecca wakes in a decrepit precinct, accused of a hit-and-run. But a deadly scuffle reveals a sinister plot. With nowhere to turn, she must uncover the truth before it consumes her. But Rebecca harbors secrets darker than they know.

A young woman held in captivity discovers the realities of truth and lies in the outside world.

A stark and graphic portrayal of the conditions that existed at the State Prison for the Criminally Insane at Bridgewater, Massachusetts, and documents the various ways the inmates are treated by the guards, social workers, and psychiatrists.

Six friends test their intelligence when an escape room they participate in takes a dark and twisted turn.

A woman wakes up every day, remembering nothing as a result of a traumatic accident in her past. One day, new terrifying truths emerge that force her to question everyone around her.

Dr. Tremayne is an enigmatic psychiatrist running an asylum that houses four very special cases. Visited by his colleague Nicholas, Tremayne explains his amazing and controversial theories as to why each of the four patients went mad.

When a priest is jailed for the murder of a nun on whom he was performing an exorcism, an investigative journalist strives to determine whether he in fact murdered a mentally ill person, or if he lost the battle with a demonic presence.

To escape her abusive boyfriend, Kat joins a wilderness expedition with a group of women, all of whom are struggling with the uncertainty of life. What was supposed to be an opportunity for personal discovery quickly becomes a fight for survival, forcing each one to discover the strength within themselves that they didn't even know they possessed. While being brazenly chased by a pack of predators, the strong quickly set themselves apart from the weak. In a battle of will, stamina, and heart, these very virtues present themselves at the most crucial moment. With death looming, each is left with what is truly important - the strength within oneself.

The high-profile case of serial killer Ludovic Chevalier has just gone to trial, and Kelly-Anne is obsessed. When reality blurs with her morbid fantasies, she goes down a dark path to seek the final piece of the case’s puzzle.

Three teenage brothers are terrorized by a trio of escaped mental patients disguised as clowns.

In a shadowy world stitched from nightmares, a young woman's harrowing journey in a seedy hotel unveils her traumatic past. Haunted by violence and stalked through desolate streets, her psyche unravels as she confronts an abusive husband and unsettling memories.

A passionate holiday romance leads to an obsessive relationship when an Australian photojournalist wakes one morning in an abandoned Berlin apartment and is unable to leave.

Albert Nobbs struggles to survive in late 19th century Ireland, where women aren't encouraged to be independent. Posing as a man, so she can work as a butler in Dublin's most posh hotel, Albert meets a handsome painter and looks to escape the lie she has been living.

When Ruth Matthews's husband is killed in a fall at an archaeological dig, her daughter Sally handles her father's death in a very odd manner. As Sally's condition worsens, Ruth takes her to see Jake, an expert in childhood autism. Jake attempts to bring Sally out of her mental disarray through traditional therapy methods, but Ruth takes a different route. She risks her own sanity by attempting to enter her daughter's mind and make sense of the seemingly bizarre things that Sally does, including building a wondrous house of cards

There's a zombie outbreak after a medical trial in an international detention and medical facility on an isolated island. An ex US Special Forces/bodyguard woman inmate and a guard form a team.

A petty criminal fakes insanity to serve his sentence in a mental ward rather than prison. He soon finds himself as a leader to the other patients—and an enemy to the cruel, domineering nurse who runs the ward.

When an unidentified disease starts to upend her life, a socialite must unravel the mystery behind it — before her whole sense of self falls apart.

A man recently released from a mental institute inherits a mansion after his parents die. After a series of disturbing events, he comes to believe it is haunted.

Mike and Kate, a young couple, get the once-in-a lifetime chance to win a cool five million dollars. The challenge: Live for 50 days in a blank space. Sticking it out for thirty days, and the five million are theirs. How difficult can it be?

A team of paranormal investigators go on one last job to a haunted mental institution where children have reportedly gone missing. While searching for evidence of what is haunting the abandoned building, they stumble upon clues that reveal what made the former head doctor snap and go on a killing spree through the halls decades earlier. Unfortunately, the more they uncover, the more they struggle to make it out of the asylum alive because something inside wants that mystery to stay dead and buried.

A young girl lost in the loneliness and boredom of reality finds solace in an ill boy, whom she can visit in a surreal dream world that she drew in her school composition book.

In post–War England, a writer and sometime-ghost hunter investigates a reported haunting at a boys boarding school.

A pandemic strikes the world. What does quarantine do to a lonely woman's mind? Follow her from sense to insanity. No filters. Just you, her, and her more and more twisted mind.

A female serial killer who killed four young girls is sent away to prison, but a fifth victim escaped with her life. Twenty years later, the killer escapes and begins hunting for the one who got away.

Newly released from a mental ward, Jessica hopes to return to life the way it was before her nervous breakdown. But when Jessica moves to a country house with her husband and a close friend, she finds a mysterious girl living in there. Jessica's terror and paranoia resurface as evil forces surround her.

A woman is sent to a mental institution after stabbing her classmate in an attempt to conjure an evil spirit called, Mercy Black. Fifteen years later she's released, and must save her nephew, who has become obsessed with the phenomenon.

After suffering a stroke, Judith moves into a historic nursing home, where she begins to suspect something supernatural is preying on the residents. With no one willing to believe her, Judith must either escape the confines of the manor, or fall victim to the evil that dwells within it.

When a hotel hallway is ravaged by a dreadful airborne virus, pregnant Japanese runaway wife Naomi is tragically thrust into the fight of her life. After getting infected, she is forced to crawl her way through other helpless victims to escape. In the room next door to her is Val, a mother trapped in a toxic marriage, who must also navigate her way out of the hotel corridor through the long and narrow stretch of isolated carnage, desperately looking for her young daughter Kelly. Will these two women avoid the debilitating sickness and get out alive?

A psychiatric hospital patient pretends to be crazy. In charge of caring for this patient, a caregiver will begin to doubt the mental state of his "protégé".

A once-abused woman devotes herself to ridding victims of their domestic abusers while hunting down the one she must kill to be truly free.

When reporter Rachel Armstrong writes a story that reveals the identity of a covert CIA operative, the government demands that Rachel reveal her source. She defies the special prosecutor and is thrown in jail. Meanwhile, her attorney, Albert Burnside argues her case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

A reclusive and butterfly-obsessed elderly lady suffering from bipolar disorder develops a disturbing relationship with a mysterious but seemingly innocent youngster.

Twenty-three years after her hooker mother tried to kill her in the womb Helen remains damaged psychological goods. A mindset that gets worse when she suffers a traumatic head injury in an accident. Awakening in hospital, it’s discovered Helen has a tumour growth in her brain causing her to experience dark visions, disembodied voices and the omnipresence of a strange young woman. Soon, lost in a walking nightmare, in which nothing is what it seems, and her vicious actions barely remembered, it becomes crystal clear that whatever is inside her cracked psyche will stop at nothing to get out.

Fascinated by the human brain and its capacity for ruthlessness, psychiatrist Dr. Dorothy Otnow Lewis has spent her life investigating the interior lives of violent people. With each case, she came closer to developing a unified field theory of what makes a killer. Along the way - steering away from the conventional wisdom of her colleagues - she explored the world of multiple personality disorder.

Set at the turn of the century, this is the tale of Ellen Rimbauer who just received this mysterious mansion as a wedding gift from her new husband...

World War II soldier-turned-U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels investigates the disappearance of a patient from a hospital for the criminally insane, but his efforts are compromised by troubling visions and a mysterious doctor.

Concentration camp survivor Victoria Kowelska finds herself involved in mystery, greed, and murder when she assumes the identity of a dead friend in order to gain passage to America.

A socially awkward woman with a fondness for arts and crafts, horses, and supernatural crime shows finds her increasingly lucid dreams trickling into her waking life.

Dr. John Markway invites three distinct individuals to the eerie and isolated Hill House to be subjects for a sleep disorder study. The unfortunate guests discover that Markway is far more interested in the sinister mansion itself — and they soon see the true nature of its horror.

On a lavish yacht for an assignment, a journalist sees a passenger go overboard. But when no one believes her, she risks her life to uncover the truth.

Mabel Longhetti, desperate and lonely, is married to a Los Angeles municipal construction worker, Nick. Increasingly unstable, especially in the company of others, she craves happiness, but her extremely volatile behavior convinces Nick that she poses a danger to their family and decides to commit her to an institution for six months. Alone with a trio of kids to raise on his own, he awaits her return, which holds more than a few surprises.

After taking a bullet to the head, Salander is under close supervision in a hospital and is set to face trial for attempted murder on her eventual release. With the help of journalist Mikael Blomkvist and his researchers at Millennium magazine, Salander must prove her innocence. In doing this she plays against powerful enemies and her own past.

A team consisting of a physicist, his wife, a young female psychic, and the only survivor of the previous visit are sent to the notorious Hell House to prove or disprove survival after death. Previous visitors have either been killed or gone mad, and it is up to the team to survive a full week in isolation, and solve the mystery of the Hell House.

Eight years after the opening night tragedy of HELL HOUSE LLC, many unanswered questions remain. Thanks to an anonymous tip, an investigative journalist is convinced that key evidence is hidden inside the abandoned Abaddon Hotel. She assembles a team to break into the hotel in hopes of discovering the truth. But the source of the tip and the secrets of the Abaddon Hotel are more horrifying than any of them could have imagined.

When Simon awakens in the hospital after surviving a near-fatal accident, amnesia has erased the last two years from his memory. He learns that his brother was killed, he has married a woman he doesn't remember and he's haunted by strange visions of the woman he loved.

A desperate young journalist turns to podcasting to salvage her career, but her rush to make headlines leads her to an alien conspiracy.

When someone tries to murder watchmaker Eddy Kay, the incident triggers a barrage of nightmares and flashbacks into a past that isn't his own. Fearing for his sanity, Eddy contacts psychiatrist Dr. Anna Nolmar for help. Anna thinks he's hallucinating until another attack proves the dangers are all too real. The two of them go on the run, trying to discover the truth about Eddie's past and true identity before it kills them.

Director Michael Winnick's chilling tale stars James Marsters as Jack, one of eight captives who awaken in an abandoned asylum not knowing who they are or why they are together. They discover that they've been used in an experiment to erase disturbing memories, but instead, a murderous creature has been unleashed. Reaching out from the shadows, the monster hunts the eight strangers as they race to escape the asylum.

Due to a near-fatal accident that has left her incapacitated and depleted of her long-term memory, a temporarily wheelchair-bound woman returns home after being abroad for six years accompanied by her bohemian boyfriend, the apparent cause of the accident. Unable to remember her family or her own childhood, she sets out, with the help of her boyfriend, to find the reason for her leaving all those years ago and quickly discovers her relatives may not be as loving as she’d thought

After interning her insane husband in a remote psychiatric hospital, book editor Helga Pato returns home by train, where she meets a mysterious man who identifies himself as a psychiatrist.

A group of officers based in a labyrinthine top-secret prison must fight for their lives against Hatchet, a brilliant and infamous high-value detainee. When he escapes, his mysterious and deadly agenda has far reaching and dire consequences.

Female prisoners endure the horrors of drug abuse, prostitution and rampant sadism at an island prison. When an escape attempt goes awry, the fugitives discover that escaping can be as dangerous as remaining in the prison.

Madison is paralyzed by shocking visions of grisly murders, and her torment worsens as she discovers that these waking dreams are in fact terrifying realities with a mysterious tie to her past.
