The acting may be substandard but the movie delivers an important story. Nellie Bly's (Caroline Barry) heroism in bringing the state of abused mental patients to light helped bring the profession of psychiatry out of the dark ages. And it truly was heroic, not knowing what to expect and being subjected to forcible stripping, cold baths, and opiate concoctions intended to make her docile, even if she wasn't actually being all that confrontational to the authority of Blackwell's Asylum. The picture offers an expose of corrupt practices that condoned nurses of spitting on patients, slapping them in the face, immersing their heads in water in a form of waterboarding, and what looked like nurse assisted rape by a male doctor at one point. That scene was rather ambiguously done, so if I'm out on a limb with that observation, I'd be inclined to reconsider. Every now and then, the picture is punctuated with an image of a large hairy spider guarding it's web, as if to symbolize the nightmare web the patients of Blackwell's were inextricably trapped in. Watching the movie, one can't help but admire the real Nellie Bly's courage and determination in making this story public.
Review of 10 Days in a Madhouse
