To me, this movie is perfection.

SERIOUSLY. This is what the crap Hollywood still puts out?

Absolutely the worst movie.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

This is less of a documentary review and more an eye opener to those who plan on seeing this movie.I know a man who was there. He's a beautiful and wonderful man who was tortured there as a small child. There was nothing wrong with him. He never knew a childhood of love and nurturing, only pain and suffering. He is one of many, "Normal" people who suffered at the hands of these doctor's at this horrific hospital.When and if you decide to watch this please keep in mind that what is filmed is only a small portion of the real horrors of which man kind is capable of. Then think how you too can help people see the truth behind many of the wrongs still happening today.

Titicut Follies is not as controversial or offensive as other reviewers might claim, I found the film to be an impartial look at life inside a mental asylum. So there are naked men, so there are people being force fed because they refuse to eat. There was no question in my mind as to whether the people residing in the asylum had mental disorders or not, of course they all did, even if their logic seemed sound their sanity was not up to the level that a normal person's would be considered to be. The staff may be considered 'primitive' by todays standards but I feel they had (especially the supervisors) genuine concern for their patients. Googling reviews on Titicut Follies i quickly gathered that clearly this is a movie that can be interpreted in a myriad of ways. What got my attention were the things that were spoken about but not shown. Such as the suicide that happened the night prior and the prepping of recently deceased 'JIm' for burial, also the guardsman who spoke about the gas chamber where he couldn't breathe and tears came to his eyes and stuck on his clothes even after washing them, his wife couldn't bear the stench even when they were hung in the closet even after being washed. How he wondered how the gas didn't bother the patients, (I'm sure they were bothered by it). The racial comments by the guard and the irreverent bantering of the orderly to Jim, these are the only two issues that raised my suspicions of mistreatment but, I suspect these situations were typical of that time and nothing more should be made of it. What I've been wondering if the gas, the suicide and Jim's death all concerned the same person, namely Jim. Probably a stretch, but I'll have to watch it one more time to put the pieces together.Even if my theory doesn't add up (which I'm sure it won't) the film offers a mesmerizing and (emotionally comforting) peek into a strange world long past of people and situations that most of us will never be able to experience.When you watch the film be sure to enable subtitles because the sound isn't the best quality and also some of the patients inter-mesh gibberish with logical speech, the subtitles are what really made the film for me, without them, Titicut Follies will seem like a random set of images with no character development etc. and make an otherwise great film seem bland and empty.

I saw this film while in college back in the 1970's and was amazed and disturbed. I think it was banned or hard to find at that time. My professor was able to get a copy. It is difficult to describe this documentary. It was sad, harshly realistic and horrific. This was how inmates/patients were treated, but again, it was the 1960's. They were likely using the same treatment methods since the 1920's. One interesting note, I met one of the patients who was in the film. He had been released and apparently was doing well enough. I'll not identify him because he was well known in his community. He remembered the filming, but did not know that he was famous for it. He has since passed away, but many people remember him fondly. If there can be a bright side to this film, I guess that's it.

I ran into this amazing movie on a site where it was available for download (www.libertv.com). They didn't offer much of a commentary other than it was a documentary about a psychiatric hospital in Massachusetts. More specifically, it is a 1966 film about the realities of a state institution for criminally insane. Haunting cinematography in black and white, no overlapping commentary, as the images are powerful enough in themselves. It is deeply unsettling to see the overlapping delusional universes - the patients' and the staff's views of the world, each one right in their own eyes and at the same time utterly unable to see the reality through the eyes of the other. Also, it is unnerving to see how the professionals end up harming those they genuinely want to help. Schizophrenia is projected into the very system that is supposed to break it. The movie clearly demonstrates the system's fundamental flaw, which is its attempt to cure splitting by further splitting it (away from the world). And that may be the very reason for each, instead of mending those who suffer the system not only perpetuates sufferance but ends up broken itself.