Spooky hospital is a haunted house classic, right up there with Victorian vampires and killer clowns. For as much as hospitals are places for compassion and healing, they’re also places of grief and death. Given that horror is where we confront our fears — and what fear could be greater than our own mortality? — it makes perfect sense.
In May, the Hospital of Emotions launched in the closed St. Vincent Medical Center in Westlake, placing installations in some 80 rooms across three upper floors. Each encapsulates an emotion — rage, love, compassion, sadness, hope, love, etc. — as interpreted by the artist.
For Halloween, guests can experience that same exhibit “After Dark” with a few roaming patients and doctors, as well as Below, a 30-minute, add-on immersive experience in the hospital's basement directed by Dasha Kittredge with a script by Annie Lesser based on a story by Kittredge from a concept by producer & Hospital of Emotions co-founder Oshri Elmorich.
So, here’s the thing: Jennifer’s Body is, in my opinion, a great movie written, directed, and starring women. But it flopped because it was advertised as a sexy thriller, targeting men who’d watch it because Megan Fox is hot, not as a feminist horror-comedy skewering the same male gaze marketers were courting. Only now is the film getting its due.
Below is a much different kind of story, but I think the biggest issue it’s going to face is a similar tonal mismatch.
When we arrived at the hospital, we were greeted by a bloodied actor who identified herself as Nurse Ratched. Nurse Ratched is, of course, the antagonist of Ken Kasey’s novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, but this Nurse Ratched repeatedly referenced Ryan Murphy’s prequel series. As she checked us in, she gabbed about how she hung out with actress Sarah Paulson to prepare her for the role. Very Hollywood.
Once all the guests in our group were assembled, she explained the haunt’s rules while bantering about how she’d been alive since the hospital opened in the 19th century — before it closed, it would have been Los Angeles’ oldest hospital — attributing her youthful appearance to the consumption of fresh souls.
She was a delight. And when paired with the flyer for “After Dark” — which features a doctor and patient in ghoul makeup — you might expect your standard-issue haunted house to follow. Jump scares, flashing lights, blood and guts, patients moaning “help me,” doctors offering free lobotomies. We know it, we love it.
But… that’s not what Below is. The onboarding comes on like a popcorn slasher, but the show’s more like a Mike Flanagan adaptation where the real monster is trauma.
Our group was introduced to a kindly nun who explained she was taking us on a tour of the historic hospital. In real life, the hospital was founded by nuns, so it’s a nice nod to its real-life history.
She also warned us about a missing “Patient 13,” a fellow sister who once worked the same halls she supposedly roamed.
As the nun led us deeper into the basement, the story unfolded in vignettes in various rooms and corridors, each providing new insight into who Patient 13 was and the tragedies that led her to this place.
I wouldn’t say this doesn't work, but it didn’t quite work with our group. I think that’s because some of them were expecting a boo-scream-laugh haunt. They giggled and clung to each other. They talked back. They stopped for way too long to take photos, forcing us to all stand around and wait for them to catch up. They were a miscast audience, nervously laughing in preparation for jump scares that came more sparsely than they were expecting.
I think there’s an interesting story here that touches on how living with guilt and regret can shape who we become. We burden ourselves with every bad thing we do, we see, or that’s foisted upon us. It builds up, and we don’t necessarily live in a society that rewards good deeds or gives us the permission or resources to forgive and heal.
This show attempts to show us the legacy of that pain, and a way out from under it. It’s heavy, but it’s optimistic, too. There are a couple of great interactive moments, but they are quiet. They ask you to contemplate what it means to be human, and what we owe each other.
I don’t think our audience was expecting that kind of depth, though I do think some of them were open to it. I think if the onboarding matched the actual experience, it might do a lot of the lifting here.
It should be noted that this also seems to be a show in flux. The climax of the show I saw did not work for me at all, but I’m told they’ve since changed it, so that’s a moot point.
So, if you go, know this ain’t no Reign of Terror, but something that requires a little more of you and your heart.
A favorite moment of mine perhaps sums it up: One audience member is asked to do something that could be very gross, if it was that kinda haunt. It wound up being introspective instead.
Hospital of Emotions: After Dark and Below runs through Nov. 1, 2026 at 2131 W 3rd St, Los Angeles, CA. Tickets start at $43.
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