A setting is an important detail that viewers tend to overlook. If it's a good movie, that's exactly what's supposed to happen. Horror movies are among the most immersive of genres, so they take place in a type of location designed to draw the viewer into a certain emotional frame of mind.

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These iconic locations are often un-named, which is what adds to how terrifying they are. Some of the following films take place entirely in a hospital, while others use the location as an important part of the overall plot or ultimate resolution.

8 Patrick (1978)

Released a year later in the US with almost entirely dubbed voices, as is the style with movies from Australia, Patrick isn't just a new type of psychological horror movie. It's also a classic example of "Ozploitation" or movies that have a character unique to the Land Down Under.

Every villain has to have an equally tragic and repulsive backstory, and the titular character murdered his mother and her lover via electrocution when he caught them together in the bathtub. A few years later, he's a catatonic patient in a hospital, where most of the story takes place. It's understood that he has very limited motor skills, but when he takes a shine to one of the new nurses some strange and chilling events take place related to his psychic abilities.

7 In Dreams (1999)

The nightmarish dreams that Claire experiences start well before her daughter disappears and is found dead, which is one of the reasons she knows that her visions aren't just the symptoms of horror and grief. At one point, when the main character is suicidal, she's committed to an institution but escapes to confront the serial killer using information from her nightly visions.

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That's not the only role that the hospital plays in this story, however. At the film's conclusion, the antagonist ends up in the same institution in which Claire was also a resident, and his fate isn't exactly a sunny one.

6 Grave Encounters (2011)

A found-footage film in a time when the genre was thought to be extinct, Grave Encounters has a strong cult following and has seen some critical acclaim, although it had a limited theatrical release. The plot is intended to be about the fate of a crew of "ghost hunters" that ventured into the ruins of an abandoned hospital to see if the rumors of haunting were true.

Of course, they were, otherwise there wouldn't be a lot of footage to make into a movie. Despite the low budget and marketing limitations, the online trailer got over a million views and there was enough popularity to justify a sequel.

5 The Frighteners (1996)

Ever wonder what Peter Jackson was up to before he made The Lord of the Rings trilogy? Believe it or not, horror was his genre, and The Frighteners was one of the few big-budget films he got to make before giving fantasy a try.

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The main villain of this story was an orderly at a psychiatric hospital, so the whole movie has the occasional flashback from his time there, plus most of the movie's third act takes place in the ruins of the same psychiatric hospital. It actually ups the horror ante by finding the one location that might be scarier than the ruins of a psychiatric hospital - the ruins of the chapel in the same hospital.

4 Constantine (2005)

Not all of this movie takes place in a hospital, but the opening scene and the closing sequence take place here exclusively. This one is unique to others that are used as settings in horror movies, and it's one that uses a modern, sophisticated look to inspire and intimidate, as opposed to other movies that use older buildings or the remains of them.

Angela's twin sister Isabel commits suicide by jumping off the roof, which her surviving sister initially doubts because of the strong Catholic faith they've both shared as children. Another thing they've shared is the ability to see demons, which hero John Constantine helps her understand, along with the true meaning behind her sister's death.

3 Hellbound: Hellraiser 2 (1988)

Horror movie sequels that take place in the immediate aftermath of the first movie naturally end up in a hospital, and usually the psychiatric ward. In the case of the Hellraiser franchise, which integrates the concepts of Lovecraftian horror into its plotlines, this makes even more sense.

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Kirsty ends up in a mental institution after the events of the first movie and ends up in treatment with a doctor who's more interested in finding the secrets of the Lament Configuration rather than actually helping her. The first movie was intended as a straight-up horror flick, but the sequel was intended to bring some lore of the Cenobites into the main story, which it does in all its skinless glory.

2 Session 9 (2001)

The ruins of a hospital are pretty darn creepy too, and that's where the events of this movie take place. A team of workers has been assigned the dirty and dangerous task of stripping an old building of its asbestos, which is horrifying already, but strange things start to happen that suggest the building is still home to some bad memories.

How much of it is real, however, and how much of it is all in their heads? All the characters are dealing with some ugly personal issues already, and the main character Gordon has agreed to do a job that would normally take almost a month in only one week because he's desperate for money, upping the stakes even more.

1 Halloween 2 (1981)

Speaking of that psychiatric ward, John Carpenter had that exact setting in mind years before the Hellraiser franchise went there, and this was horrifying without the added bonus of supernatural horror. Where else would a person end up after narrowly escaping the clutches of a serial killer?

What makes this hospital so terrifying, along with everything else in this franchise, is that it seems like such a normal environment. The suburban normality of the first movie is replaced by the bland clinical environment of a local hospital, right down to the generic carpet and elevator music.

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