The Haunting of Pennhurst

Preceded by “Going Sane: The Rise and Fall of the Center for Feeling Therapy”

ERIC SAYS The discussion of disability representation in film has deepened in recent years with major documentary works such as Crip Camp by Nicole Newnham and James Lebrecht, and I Didn’t See You There by Reid Davenport—both excellent films, and landmarks in voices from these communities telling their own stories in their own way. Now a new work made very close to home has joined the discussion: The Haunting of Pennhurst, a documentary about a barbaric facility in Pennsylvania that purported to care for the disabled, but in reality scarred (and even ended) countless lives. Today, the site of that facility operates seasonally as a haunted house—but one that employs many disabled people, and makes space for them to create their own spooky-season characters and narratives. It’s a layered and complex topic to be sure. But the trio of filmmakers tackling it—which includes Nathan R. Stenberg, the inaugural Director of Disability, Culture & Inclusion at Johns Hopkins University—approaches their subject with depth, feeling, and nuance.

Recalling landmark documentaries as different as Titicut Follies and Hell House, and featuring an electrifying original score by Baltimore’s own Dan Deacon, Pennhurst invites you to kick off the month of October with a different kind of Halloween viewing—one that will inform and entertain, but might also help advance and evolve how you perceive differences in others.