In Florian Habicht’s new documentary we are introduced to the cast of Spookers, a New Zealand live action thrill-experience set in a decommissioned psychiatric hospital in Auckland, New Zealand. The cast or ‘family’ address the camera and divulge their experiences of mental illness, religion, sexuality, social cohesion.
The building that once held and managed the psyche, often under duress and against the will of the patients, is now a site for the expression of psycho-sexual extremes under controlled conditions. The site operates as a space that connects both the unconscious drives of the players in the current day and the repression and enforced compliance that was common in Psychiatric hospitals until the opening of institutions following the social upheavals of the 1960’s.
Titicut Follies…